N Power - The saga continues - sort of....

Simon7685

N Power what can be said that hasn't already?

This case started in December after not having had a bill for 10 months. N Power did what N Power does best........ Nothing! Complaint after complaint resulted and lies continued to be told by N Power that they freely admitted to and all this related to my Mothers electricity account, she is nearly 83.

you can read all about it here;
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4874499

Anyway the objectives that were wanted were;
1. A bill
2. A refund as the account was £650 in credit.
3. An apology
4. Compensation for the manner in which they behaved.
5. A move to an Economy 7 meter, which in turn would lead to a switch away from them.

As her meter is obsolete as is the tariff she could not switch as other firms would not switch her account.

So the results from the Executive Complaints department following the issue of a letter before action.

A bill was produced 2 days before the back billing situation kicked in. The good news is N Powers bills agreed with mine almost, a 68p difference over the year.

They have agreed to and credited £130 in compensation, which along with the other outstanding credits has meant a further refund of £300 is pending, which they have promised and should be completed by next week. This is in addition to the £290 refund already paid.

An apology - they broke the world record with the number of times they apologised during the call.

An interesting development could not have been timed better in relation to the tariff and meter position. I thought that this would be the hardest thing to achieve, until fate dealt a hand the day before N Power chose to ring to resolve the situation............

My Mothers obsolete meter stopped working, after asking for a reading it showed that the meter had packed in, given up the ghost, no longer recording any energy used. This played directly into my hand and forced theirs. They have agreed to have the meter changed and an Economy 7 meter put in its place.

Of course the meter change has yet to take place and I will be contacting them next week if there is no movement. The worry here is that according to the manager of the sheltered housing scheme, my Mothers meter is not the only only one that has stopped working, in one of them has not been working for 2 years........ Yes 2 years and NP are still in the process of changing the meter.

In the meantime we are putting money to one side to cover estimated use from now until the meter is finally changed, it is not an issue to estimate usage based on previous consumption so it shouldn't be a problem.

I also got a direct line to the executive complaints team member that is dealing with everything and until the meter is replaced she is the point of contact and accountable. so at least no having to go through the whole process of getting to speak to someone who can do something.

All in all I am quite pleased with the outcome, the objectives are almost achieved if we can get the meter situation resolved asap. If not then there is no more DD being paid and no more cash for NP until they sort the situation. Once everything is resolved then I will more than likely switch away depending on pricing of course.

So it is worth persevering and sticking to your guns being prepared to go any lengths necessary to force NP or any other suppliers hand, including going the court route if necessary. I hope my battle gives some hope to anyone else struggling with NP!

I'll report back on the meter situation, when I get any development:D

Consumerist

Simon7685 wrote: »

. . . Once everything is resolved then I will more than likely switch away depending on pricing of course. . . .

Well done for seeing it through. Hope you get the promised meter change.

I would disregard any pricing worries and steer clear of npower or your mum might regret it later; I would think peace of mind is more important to her from now on.

Joyful

From the sound of it you Mum possibly had a 3 rate meter which gave a top up cheaply during the day. If you are getting an E7 meter put in make sure that it will work with her heating system.

sheffield_lad

Joyful wrote: »

From the sound of it you Mum possibly had a 3 rate meter which gave a top up cheaply during the day. If you are getting an E7 meter put in make sure that it will work with her heating system.

Indeed if there is under floor electric heating it requires a top up in the afternoon. I know folk who would do almost anything not to give up the 1-4pm boost as without properties can get chilly after 6pm and once these old tariff/meters are removed I understand they are difficult if not impossible to get back.


GL

ellie99

I've much the same story as the OP.

I raised an official complaint mid November re no bill, and also to get meter changed as it wasn't reading properly. (Like mentioned above, I went from a 3 readings meter with an afternoon top up, to a regular economy 7 meter).

I chose to lose the afternoon top up because it was impossible to change suppliers on that tariff, and npowers rates are very high.

It may vary from region to region, but it took me exactly 3 months to get meter changed. I'd been told they would get the bill sorted once the meter was changed, and I got a bill last week, but it's only up to the beginning of November, so I still owe them for the winter period.

So another 3 days trying to get through to them on the phone, finally got offered a call-back. Spoke to someone in complaints but still have no answer as to when the next bill will be done, tbh he seemed very vague and didn't have much idea of what to tell me. Also tried to use their web site, but it wasn't working.

Paying for electricity didn't used to be this difficult!

Simon7685

This account required manual billing, which was the problem. When they installed their new 250 million pound billing system last year, it was not able to calculate bills on some tariffs or take readings from more than 2 rate meters.

This I argued was a total failing by them to service the needs of many customers. They should have planned against this happening and didn't. They should also have had a team set up to specifically service these customers and produce regular bills - they didn't do that either.

There are tenants where my Mother is that haven't had a bill for well in excess of 12 months now and it really is wrong. All the tenants there are elderly and most not able to work their own bills out, so they don't have a clue where they are. Most elderly people find this a worry, they do not like to be in debt and are worried sick that eventually a bill will land that they might not be able to pay. The whole situation is disgusting really in this day and age.

Re my Mothers - She does currently have the afternoon boost and will lose this when the E7 meter goes in. However where she lives is a converted convent over 100 years old. The walls are about 2 foot thick, they have double glazing and are very well insulated. The result being that over the course of the last 15 years she has had all but one storage heater removed because the flat is just not cold. So losing the boost isn't going to be an issue really.

As someone said piece of mind is the issue really, so I will just keep pushing now to get the meter changed and then probably fight against what their estimate of use is while the current meter isn't working, which could be fun.

Consumerist

You could get your mum a 2 - 3 kW fan heater to compensate for any afternoon boost required. That's what we do when it's not quite cold enough for the whole CH system to be turned on.

Simon7685

She has a small halogen heater that she uses if it does get really cold, it is much more economical to use a heater though than power a whole CH system, I think more people should do it, they would save a lot on their energy bills if they did.

Simon7685

I received a call from the Executive Complaints team, the same lady I spoke to last week. I have to say if N Power had only been as competent and professional as this lady was, there would never be any problems. Intead they seem to want to do the right things but only as a last resort, which ends up costing them money in the long term, a strange business outlook really.

Anyway they have booked an engineer to attened next Tuesday to replace the broken meter with a new Economy 7 one. She will phone again next Tuesday afternoon to make sure it has been done. She also initiated the refund of £300 which should be in her bank by the end of this week.

At least moving forward my Mum will have peace of mind in knowing she has a meter that works and regular bills because the new singing dancing computer can work them out. I will now just need to make sure that the estimate of electricity used from the meter not recording correctly is properly done.

I will do the estimate myself using the consumption of the same period last year, which had a much colder winter. I will cross check that against the average of that period during the last 3 or 4 years and see what I come up with. It won't take me long to do it as all the info is already on my computer. At least then if they come up with a silly number I will be able to challenge it.

So all in all N Powers failure to provide a billing system and change meters that were obselete has cost them the inconvenience of having to deal with a compalint, followed by a complaint about the complaint and then an Executive complaint. Also compensation of £130 and refunds of £590 from the account.

I would like to say that maybe just maybe they might learn from all of this but judging by the number of complaints they are still receiving, it isn't going to happen anytime soon!

Oh well now to find the best E7 supplier and best tariff for after next week!