Npower 10 month complaint

shellybops83

Hi All


I have had an ongoing complaint and I was just looking to see if there are any thoughts where I should go next or if its time for Energy Ombudsman?

I called Npower to close my account in May 2013 as I was moving house. My account was up to date and I thought there would be no problems. How wrong was I.

A few weeks later I noticed that my account was still not closed and I had a credit sitting of over £1000 so called them and they said they had an error at their end trying to close my account, so I raised a complaint. They said at this point that they could arrange a credit to be sent to me however I wanted to wait and check if I needed to make another payment first.

10 months later I have finally had an outcome, a ridiculous one but non the less an outcome.

So heres what happened.

I had storage heaters in my old house, my bill was approx. £134/£140 each month which I paid every month and was always up to date with my bill. I gave regular meter readings and also had the meter man at my house every so often to check the meter readings.

When calling them with meter readings I read out 3 different numbers, day rate, night rate and another one, each time they brushed off the other reading as said they only needed the first 2.

They have since told me that they have only billed me for one meter when I had 2.

What I struggle to understand is that they told me that the reason for this error is that they don't have systems set up to handle my types of meters - so - why did they ever take me on as a customer in the first place???

Why did they brush of the second meter reading each time I offered it.

I lived in a small 3 bed room house and paid £140 a month (electricity only in my house) I now live in a bigger 3 bed room house and my bill is £79 a month all in.

They have now decided that the second meter has run up a bill of £623 that I should pay. Therefore this means that my bills would have been in excess of £200 a month!!!

I move to NPower from Scottish Gas and my bills were never more than £140.

During my 10 month complaint I have been given no information as to why it has taken so long, never called when they said they would, been brushed off with excuses. I have spent so much money on calling them and so much time emailing them.

I last called 2 weeks ago and asked what the likely outcome is, I was told that I would probably be in credit and then compensation on top of that would mean I would get money back from them, but have no been told I owe £623.

As a good will gesture they have reduced this to £500!

I am furious.

Basically, I do not believe I should be liable for this as I gave proper meter readings, I paid what they asked each month. How can they come to me after 10 months and ask for this amount. Also how can the monthly bill differ by over £60 when I used the same amount of electricity when I was with Scottish Gas.

What are your thoughts?

insanegloss

In short, if that's the cost of energy you're required to pay it.

Now there are times where if this goes over 12 months, that the bit they missed off for anything over the last 12 months maybe deducted. However you should check this out by reading the back billing guidelines.

However, that isn't a 'get out of jail free' card as you will still be liable to pay anything due in the last 12 months. Anything extra knocked off is a bonus, assuming it's billed correctly.

sheffield_lad

what you also need to worry about is what your current energy supplier is billing you for. Are they aware of the 3 meter readings? Most companies don't support old tariffs like your 3 reading set up.

dogshome

Hmmm - Your post raises more questions than answers I'm afraid

You had storage heaters and should have had an 'ECO7' meter to supply relatively cheap power overnight to feed the Storage Heaters and heat the Hot Water tank overnight
( If this late 'extra' billing is due to n'power getting the Day/Night meter reads the wrong way round - the 12 month Back-Billing agreement will apply and n'power can can only adjust the bill for the 12 months prior to their notice that there was an error )
BUT
There is another meter system named 'ECO10' which not only provides cheap overnight power, but also a heating boost in the afternoon - Only a few suppliers offer it, ( and I don't think n'power are one of them - phone and ask ), but in any case it's quite expensive.

If indeed you had an ECO10 meter, n'power should have picked this up when they attempted to record your switch to them on the National Data Bases of Elec meters, as they would have then been informed it was an E10 meter

Please note that phone conversations where n'power say you owe them this or that count for nothing - It's the bill that counts, which must set out the detail of all the dates and charges.
If when you get this you do not understand the dated billing, WRITE to them asking for a written explanation as to how the error occured and when you get the answer, report back here

nPower

shellybops83 wrote: »

Hi All


I have had an ongoing complaint and I was just looking to see if there are any thoughts where I should go next or if its time for Energy Ombudsman?

I called Npower to close my account in May 2013 as I was moving house. My account was up to date and I thought there would be no problems. How wrong was I.

A few weeks later I noticed that my account was still not closed and I had a credit sitting of over £1000 so called them and they said they had an error at their end trying to close my account, so I raised a complaint. They said at this point that they could arrange a credit to be sent to me however I wanted to wait and check if I needed to make another payment first.

10 months later I have finally had an outcome, a ridiculous one but non the less an outcome.

So heres what happened.

I had storage heaters in my old house, my bill was approx. £134/£140 each month which I paid every month and was always up to date with my bill. I gave regular meter readings and also had the meter man at my house every so often to check the meter readings.

When calling them with meter readings I read out 3 different numbers, day rate, night rate and another one, each time they brushed off the other reading as said they only needed the first 2.

They have since told me that they have only billed me for one meter when I had 2.

What I struggle to understand is that they told me that the reason for this error is that they don't have systems set up to handle my types of meters - so - why did they ever take me on as a customer in the first place???

Why did they brush of the second meter reading each time I offered it.

I lived in a small 3 bed room house and paid £140 a month (electricity only in my house) I now live in a bigger 3 bed room house and my bill is £79 a month all in.

They have now decided that the second meter has run up a bill of £623 that I should pay. Therefore this means that my bills would have been in excess of £200 a month!!!

I move to NPower from Scottish Gas and my bills were never more than £140.

During my 10 month complaint I have been given no information as to why it has taken so long, never called when they said they would, been brushed off with excuses. I have spent so much money on calling them and so much time emailing them.

I last called 2 weeks ago and asked what the likely outcome is, I was told that I would probably be in credit and then compensation on top of that would mean I would get money back from them, but have no been told I owe £623.

As a good will gesture they have reduced this to £500!

I am furious.

Basically, I do not believe I should be liable for this as I gave proper meter readings, I paid what they asked each month. How can they come to me after 10 months and ask for this amount. Also how can the monthly bill differ by over £60 when I used the same amount of electricity when I was with Scottish Gas.

What are your thoughts?

Hello shellybops83,

Thank you for your post.

If you can send me your details to the email address on my profile page I will get this investigated for you.

Thanks

Carmel

Joyful

I would also call Scottish Gas as they also cannot bill 3 rate meters. If they are aware of this they would have offered you a best fit tariff which can work out about one third higher then normal.

undercover_peon

I think I can be of some assistance here. We need to establish what type of meter you have. We know there is a day reading, a night reading and one other reading.

If the third reading the total of the other two readings? If so this is a check reading and you have an economy 7 meter (if this is the case I don't understand the point about they don't support them). It would seem sensible to establish which is day and which is night.

You can check this by taking both sets of meter readings then checking them again once the meter has advanced (I normally suggest two hours). This needs to be done on the same day as overnight the night rate will advance so you will be no further forward. So long as you take both readings during the day (the night rate is usually something like 12 midnight to 7 am ish) then the one which has advanced is the day reading.

If the other reading says something like heat, heat other or boost beside it then it could well be a meter type Npower don't support. In which case I have no idea how they can bill you. They do support economy 10 but only for existing customers I believe.

Any non standard meter like that (ie not a single rate and not economy 7) is supposed to be dealt with by a specialist team. I say supposed to be as I never saw an account with such a meter after this team had dealt with it.

My understanding is bills on such meters had to be done manually as the new billing system could not support this meter type. Why you would move people onto such a system knowing this eludes me, but I digress.

You have waited more than enough time to allow you to go to the Ombudsmen, the timescale is 8 weeks from when the issue was first raised. Be aware that the Ombudsmen supports the principle that customers should pay for energy they have used. Nonetheless you do have the right to go to them if you are unhappy (which seems to be the case).

I am unsure how you have established what your bill is at the new address. Direct debit payments can be set too low or too high.