Npower Exasperation

Coldly-Indifferent

I'll try and keep this short (I failed ) :-

I've been a Npower dual fuel customer since 2012 and was on their January 2014 tariff. Ten days before it was due to end I submitted a tariff change direct via their web site to take up their March 2016 tariff once the existing one ended.

Received e-mail confirmation of receipt........then nothing. I left it a month and then had an e-mail apologizing for the delay in sorting out the tariff change........then nothing. All this time I had been swapped to their standard tariff which annoyed me greatly.

Come March I received my bank statement and find that NPower without informing me had increased my direct debit to £66 from £35 despite the fact my account was significantly in credit.

I complained about this via their web site and then reluctantly, followed it with a telephone call to their customer services. That seemed to do the trick; they had no excuse for the DD but promised to reduce my DD for the next month back to an agreed £36. They also promised to backdate my tariff change to 01.02.14 and credit my account to reflect that.

They sent a meter reader round in mid-April so I thought all was well and good but come May I login and find I'm still on the standard tariff and, as far as I can tell, haven't been credited for the back-dated tariff. The DD had been reduced to £36 but that begs the question why was that apparently the only thing done?

My account is now about six months in credit and yet again I'm getting no response from contacting NPower via their web site.

They send me requests for meter reading (more on that too) and even cold call me about boiler insurance but four months on they still haven't sorted out my account and tariff.

As to the meter readings: since I have been a NPower customer I have never been able to submit them online. First I kept on getting error messages about there being a problem with the server so I gave up trying. Their automated 'phone system seemed to be incapable of accepting dual fuel readings when I tried it and so I waited to get through to an operator. I did that twice, I think, in the first year. Twice they've contacted me by 'phone asking for readings, which I'd given, only for a meter reader to come round a week or so later anyway.

I concluded it was a waste of time if this was going to happen and so the last reading I actually submitted was back in October 2013.

Come January I read about the web site having been revamped so I thought I try that again. No problem entering my reading but when I click to submit them........I now get this delightfull message:

• "The reading you have entered is not as we expected based on your previous usage. If you have made a mistake, you can correct it below. If it is correct, select a reason from the drop down list if displayed so we can make a note of it
• Meter reading is plausible
• Device is locked"

Problem is there is no drop down list and whenever I re-submit I get the same message.

Just how difficult can sending two simple numbers be made to be? I've tried three different browsers and I've even tried disabling Javascript which BTW I discovered is actually essential for My Account to work although, of course, they don't tell you this on the web site.

I must say I find the message about what NPower "expect" my usage to be bizarre, who gives a flying monkey what they expect? Accept the meter reading and if you don't believe it send a meter reader round to check.

So what to do now? The web site says a meter reader will call later this month anyway so I'm not going to bother trying again myself. But it is the tariff change and back dated credit for that I most want sorted. Ideally I'd also like to be reimbursed with a chunk of that £200+ credit I have accrued too.

wavelets

Sorry, didn't read all of post as it's far too long.

But if you have an email confirming transfer to a new tariff you should be billed on that new tariff from the effective date.
If the supplier can't do that, I'm sure the ombudsman will be more than happy to assist, once 8 weeks have passed.

As regards to submitting meter readings, as they are not being accepted online, have you tried phoning them in?
Perhaps they are awaiting the meter readings in order to correctly bill you?

Coldly-Indifferent

Yes, sorry about the length of the post but I wanted to get all the details down for my own cathartic reasons as much as anything.

Last meter reading was by an, unannouced, (Rentokill) meter reader on 16th April so their information is pretty well up to date.

As I explained the times I've tried to use the automated telephone system to submit dual fuel readings I've been bounced back to the main menu after keying in the first (gas) reading. When I've taken the time to wait in a queue for customer services and submit a reading they send a meter reader around a week or so later anyway. If they're going to do this why waste my time bothering to submit them myself?

The last occasion I gave them a reading, after they called me, immediately I'd done so they asked when would it be convenient for a meter reader to call. I nearly slammed the 'phone down but controlled myself and arranged it. I stayed in the whole day and the meter reader never turned up.

The whole point about an online account is that you should be able to manage it online. I haven't had this sort of trouble ever and I've been buying/selling/managing financial matters online for over 14 years.

I shouldn't have had to 'phone them up to sort this out. But when I did they said it was being dealt with and everything would be corrected and I'd be put on the March 2016 tariff backdated to 01.02.14 when it should have been implemented.

Six weeks later I'm still waiting. Hence my rant.

Coldly-Indifferent

A week on since my last complaint and attempt to sort out my account with NPower I have had a reply.

Usual, what you'd suspect was through gritted teeth, apology but apparently I have now been put onto the tarrif I signed up and back-dated to February. However, I've just checked and my online account page still shows the standard dual fuel tarrif.

I'm not sure how to tell whether my account has been credited with the correctly adjusted amount either. Also no mention of my request for reimbursement of a percentage of the large amount of credit I've built up.

As to the problem with submitting online readings I've had ever since becoming an NPower customer 2 years ago: they've given me an email address and complaint "ticket" and they're requesting screen shots to help them identify the 'problem'.

I've had some screen capture movie software installed for months now without reason to use it so this might be a good time to try that.

undaunted

It seems you've made slight progress but expecting a full & prompt resolution was like hoping for a miracle - always unlikely. Some may think that exasperation is what Npower do best I'm afraid.

In the absebce of evidence to the contrary I'd be inclined to assume the worst personally. Ed Davey is supposedly planning ordering Npower to sort their mess out but I'll believe that when I see it - he's talked for months & nothing has happened so far.

Coldly-Indifferent

Thanks for the comments.

I've sent a response to NPower Customers Services this morning addressing those issues mentioned and not dealt with satisfactorily. I'll guess I'll have to wait and see.

BTW gave up on the screen movie capture idea to illustrate the meter reading submission problem. File size was vast, 1+GB for just a 30 second sequence. That would have taken about an hour for me to upload as an attachment.

I just included a few JPEGs instead.

Coldly-Indifferent

I had a telephone call from NPower Customer Services yesterday afternoon confirming that the tarrif I should have been swapped to (Fixed Price March 2016) was not applied at the start of February when my old tarrif expired and I have been billed as if I am on their Standard SC DD tarrif.

Apparently that is going to be corrected and my account credited "ASAP".

However, I still not convinced this matter is fully resolved. To start with I've just checked and the tarrif I'm paying is still shown as the Standard SC DD despite what I was told.

Secondly my account was showing +£200 credit on 21.05.14. There is no reason for this being significantly wrong as the last actual meter reading, rather than estimate, was provided by a meter reader in mid-April. It is correctly recorded and shown in my account.

However Customer Services told me my account is now only £53 in credit (excluding the backdated lower tarrif rate yet to be applied). So where did around £150 of credit suddenly disappear too? I certainly haven't used £150 of gas and electricity in the last two weeks!

It appears to me as though the information on the NPower 'My Account' pages is utterly unreliable. The online meter reading form is still not working for me either so how on earth can you manage an account online when the information shown can't be trusted?

Edit


I managed to work out where that +£200 had gone from my Annual Summary PDF that has just been posted. It looks as if they have been taking my direct debit payments and crediting them to my account but not showing the ammount debited for the gas/electricity actually used.

My Annual Summary shows that no debit was recorded on my account from February to 28.05.14 on which date a single debit was applied of around £160. This explains why the +£200 credit shown on 21.05.14 was suddenly reduced to +£50.

What sort of bizarre accounting system are they using? Did they just 'forget' to apply the cost of the gas/electricity to the bill? How is a customer supposed to 'manage' their account if the supplier doesn't provide them with the figures for the real cost or estimated cost of the fuel they've used and adjust their bill accordingly?

In my case they had an accurate meter reading in mid-April and the account shows they had been estimating the monthly use before that. It appears that they just didn't apply this to the actual bill until the Annual My Account Summary was compiled.