MSE News: Warning: Npower's slapping ex-customers with huge bills

joncombe

moran2411 wrote: »

Im in desperate need for help guys. We switched from Npower about 8 weeks ago to a cheaper energy provider. I received confirmation at the time from Npower to say the switch was successful and that was the last i heard from them. Until last night when my wife checked the bank to notice that they had taken £360 out of our bank account, meaning that our mortgage payment couldn't be made. Are they allowed to do this? My wife is at home on maternity leave with our new born son and doesnt receive maternity support as she works for a charity, so money is tight especially this time of year. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Are they allowed to do this? Well, it depends. We need more information really. When you signed up, presumably you agreed to pay by Direct Debit. If so did you give estimated usage (from which they may have calculated the monthly payment)? Did you agree an amount for NPower to debit each month? Have you had a letter from them confirming your initial monthly payments?

In short if you have not given them a value to debit from your account and they have not told you what they are doing to debit you can claim the money back under the Direct Debit gurantee. Also I suspect even if you have given an amount if they have not written to confirm a payment date, you would also have a case.

Assuming this is the case, that you have not agreed to the amount and/or date of debit and not had a letter or email from Npower contacting your bank and make a claim under the Direct Debit gurantee. You should get the money back today.

I would then contact Npower for an explanation. If this money is owing you will still have to pay it, but at least you should get a bit more time.

As an aside my experience is Npower cannot be trusted with Direct Debit. My experience of them was they would keep putting the debits up even if you are in credit. In my case they kept issuing incorrect bills (and then saying they were going to debit the incorrect money from my account). Having spoken to them and got assurances they would not debit the money until they correct the bill they did. In fact, even after I cancelled the Direct Debit, they re-instated it without my permission and helped themselves to more money (which was not owed) from by bank account.

For this reason I no longer use Npower and the supplier I do use, I pay on demand on reciept of a bill. I no longer trust any utility company to use Direct Debit.

naedanger

moran2411 wrote: »

Im in desperate need for help guys. We switched from Npower about 8 weeks ago to a cheaper energy provider. I received confirmation at the time from Npower to say the switch was successful and that was the last i heard from them. Until last night when my wife checked the bank to notice that they had taken £360 out of our bank account, meaning that our mortgage payment couldn't be made. Are they allowed to do this? My wife is at home on maternity leave with our new born son and doesnt receive maternity support as she works for a charity, so money is tight especially this time of year. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Just to echo the comments of the previous poster:

It sounds like this debit has come as a complete surprise, and that you were not warned this amount would be taken. In that case call your bank and tell them you wish to make a claim under the direct debit guarantee and the money will be returned to your account. The key point to tell the bank is that you were not informed of this debit. Also ask the bank to cancel your direct debit mandate. If you have any problems post back here.

Once you have the money back in your account you then have time to check whether npower are due this money or not. I suggest you email npower and mark it as an official complaint. Complain they took money from your account without first sending you a bill and explain you will expect them to pay any bank charges or other expenses you incur as a result. Demand they send you a final bill. It is important you have evidence you made this complaint, which is why I suggest you make it in an email.

Once you get the final bill check it. (One important item to check is that the final meter reading is the same as your opening reading with your new supplier.)

CKFitzsimons

Npower are a nightmare company. I am at present with Npower but until I can sort the problems that have been ongoing 20th August 2013 when I moved house I am kinda stuck there. I was with NPower at my old property roughly from June 2012 till 20/08/13 When I moved house. The problem began because they did not actually close the account (no 1) 05/11/13 but continued to send me bills for this address and repeated quite a few of the bills. Once I realised what was happening I contacted them to which they promised it would be sorted. I have since had numerous final bills tranfers bill reversals etc to end up going from being in credit to owing £126.38 in debt. when you add up the actual bill and the payments made it works out that they owe me around £800, but part of that is because 05/11/15 they transferred £607.15 from the account for my new address to the closed account (not sure why?) They also closed my present account (no 2)around a year ago and opened another account(no 3) for my current address but continued to bill me for account no 2. In the meantime I was getting letters addressed to the Occupier which I have to admit I just threw out thinking they were junk mail. I did eventually open one out of curiosity and discovered they were threatening to put in a pre-paid meter at a cost of £400 to me. I went online to see what was going on to discover they had closed the account(no 2) but online said 22/10/15 when I rang I was informed they had closed the account a year earlier. I have since had letters for account no 3 saying they are getting an order to enter my property and disconnect my fuel supply. They promised to sort it out, they did re-activate account no2 but started doing all the stupid bill reversal and duplicating bills taking me from being over £400 in credit to over £800 in debt again some is because they took money from account no 2 and put it into account no1. I have now gone to the ombudsman as I am sick to the back teeth of them messing my accounts and then have the cheek to tell me they are right as they do not get bills wrong. Below is tables I have done using all the info available online for account no 1

Account no1 Chaigley

Date Activity Detail
05/11/2015 Payment £607.15
16/04/2015 Bill Reversal £629.12
07/11/2014 Miscellaneous Credit £10.50
16/02/2014 AccElectricity Direct Debit Discount Credit £11.51
22/01/2014 Bill Reversal £950.31
22/01/2014 Bill Reversal £63.76
22/01/2014 Bill Reversal £38.05
17/01/2014 Bill Reversal £63.76
17/01/2014 Bill Reversal £38.05
05/11/2013 Bill Reversal £63.76
26/09/2013 Payment £282.00
27/08/2013 Payment £282.00
26/07/2013 Payment £282.00
26/06/2013 Payment £282.00
28/05/2013 Payment £282.00
26/04/2013 Payment £282.00
26/03/2013 Payment £250.00
26/02/2013 Payment £250.00
28/01/2013 Payment £250.00
27/12/2012 Payment £250.00
26/11/2012 Payment £250.00
26/10/2012 Payment £219.00
26/09/2012 Payment £219.00

Total of credits (inc bill reversals) £5855.61
Total of bill reversals £1846.45
Total of credits (not inc bill reversals £4009.16
Total of actual bills £3159.50
Balance £849.66 credit

Available online Bills

16/04/2015 Your bill (PDF) £755.50
22/01/2014 Your bill (PDF) £629.12
17/01/2014 Your bill (PDF) £38.05
17/01/2014 Your bill (PDF) £63.76
05/11/2013 Your bill (PDF) £38.05
05/11/2013 Your bill (PDF) £63.76
07/10/2013 Your bill (PDF) £63.76
27/09/2013 Your bill (PDF) £950.31
02/04/2013 Your bill (PDF) £1,672.45

Total of available bills online £4274.76 (+£732 from previous bill not available) making 5006.76
(inc duplicated bills)

Actual Bills

Dated from to reading day reading night Bill Total

02/04/12 08/09/12 - 28/03/13 52238-58043 9266-998993 1672.45
27/09/13 29/03/13 - 26/09/13 58043-61963 98993-1938 950.31*
07/10/13 27/09/13 - 07/10/13 61963-62220 1938-2117 63.76*
05/11/13 27/09/13 - 07/10/13 61963-62220 1938-2117 63.76*
05/11/13 08/10/13 - 12/10/13 62220-62339 2117-2222 38.05*
17/01/14 27/09/13 - 07/10/13 61963-62220 1938-2117 63.76*
17/01/14 08/10/13 - 13/10/13 62220-62339 2117-2246 38.05*
22/01/14 29/03/13 - 13/10/13 58043-60232 98993-2246 629.12*
16/04/15 29/03/13 - 20/08/14 58043-61141 98993-1533 755.50

* = bill reversals

Total (not inc bill reversals) £2427.50 (inc bill reversals) £4274.76
Total (inc £732 from prev bill not online) £3159.50

Hope this makes sense as it has knocked my tabs out of sync.. Since shortly after phoning the Ombudsman yesterday for some strange reason my account is not available. Contacted NPower and the changed the password so the account worked for about an hour , seems a bit of a strange coincidence.

CKFitzsimons

Just spoke to NPower apparently to couple of time they have told may they were raising a complaint and sending to the specialist team, they did not. Don't they realise or care about the worry they are causing customers. On the plus side I did seem to get someone with a little bit of sense who has given me a complaint ref number and promised it has been raised as a REAL complaint this time. I am fed up worrying that when I come home I will find either a pre- paid meters or that I have been cut off because they have screwed up so much. If I had not been paying my bills that would be fair enough but to be adding money and taking money from account to the other and creating accounts is not an acceptable way for any company to treat their customers.

DrDublin

I've always kept up to date with my payments, just before christmas I was in credit, then all of a sudden I get a load of bills, and now I'm in debt. I've also made sure they get regular meter readings and had my representative call numerous times to make sure the Credit was ok and the account correct and always been assured it is.

It just makes no sense at all and I'm in and out of hospital a lot with my Mental Health problems living off ESA Support Group. How can they expect me to magic up the money by the 5th? That's given me 7 days notice to pay. It's just sensless.


Date Activity Credits Debits Account balance
22/12/2015 Your bill (PDF) 256.17 521.03 DR
22/12/2015 Your bill (PDF) 324.53 264.86 DR
22/12/2015 Your bill (PDF) 334.11 59.67 CR
22/12/2015 Your bill (PDF) 160.52 393.78 CR
22/12/2015 Your bill (PDF) 107.66 554.30 CR
22/12/2015 Your bill (PDF) 301.30 661.96 CR
22/12/2015 Bill Reversal 37.02 963.26 CR
22/12/2015 Bill Reversal 20.39 1000.28 CR
22/12/2015 Bill Reversal 182.77 979.89 CR
22/12/2015 Bill Reversal 48.51 797.12 CR

Paulamac34

HELP!!! Please....

I left npower apx oct/nov 2014 (was having chemo at the time hence not very good with exact dates)
I had it confirmed by a couple of the 'advisers' that there was no debt on the account
October 2015 I get a letter from npower saying that I have ignored their bill and if I dont pay £2218 immediately they will start court proceedings.....since then I've been doing battle with the 'advisers' trying to get a copy of the bill (still not received), a copy of the statement of account) received last week but I don't understand it) and a financial report letter so that I can set up a payment of £1 a week while I fight them (still not received)
They've rung me today and said that court proceedings will start on 15th Jan unless I pay in full
I'm on unpaid sick leave after complications following chemo
I just cant cope....I dont know what to do....they confirmed there was no debt on the account....now they say that the debt was run up from 2012 til 2014, that I used over £5000 of electric and only paid for £3000.....is that even possible
PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!

tinas

Paul, I feel for you big time. I really hope you get some help.

I switched from npower over a year ago and still haven't got an accurate final bill for electricity and don't think I've ever had one for gas. Yet if I don't pay them the cash they want they will take me to court.

I'm suffering from uncontrolled mental health issues, npower aren't helping these, I'm confused, overwhelmed and really can't deal with it any more. Especially when they send me a threatening letter, then tell me they will put the account on hold and subsequently don't bother to do so without telling me.

I've been through the ombardsman, npower have actions but don't seem to be able to do the important one. I'm very confused here, they told me they couldn't do it but no-one else seems worried. Maybe I'm wrong?

I have no choice but to pay. I really can't deal with it

zoenicholls

I have paid n power by monthly direct debit for 2 years and then in August I switched to gb energy as they were lots cheaper. N power said that when they had received meter readings from my new company they would issue me with a final bill they said it would take 6 weeks. I logged on line in November and checked my account it said the account was closed and I owed £0 so I thought great everything's sorted. At the end if Dec i got an email off n power and it said your final bill is ready to view on line, click here to view it. I clicked where it said and it took me to my npower account where it said I owed £0 for my final bill. I didn't think anything about it untill a few weeks later when I got a second reminder final bill which had been referred to collections for £458.00!!!
I have contacted npower numerous times with no joy, I am buying a house and it has affected my credit rating which is the final straw for me! I was advised I was emailed my final bill on 18th Dec but I never received it, I've been called a liar by npower as apparently its from 2014 and I apparently set up a payment plan last year to pay it back!!??? I opened a complaint but the complaints department don't care. I paid by monthly direct debit the whole time so I should of had my payments increased surely to cover this as the 'debt' occurred 18 months before I closed my account. I feel lost and really don't know what to do about it as trying to find someone who actually cares in npower is almost impossible.

[Deleted User]

@zeonicholls

Try the email details in this Telegraph article How to complain to npower and get them to listen

gilbert_and_sullivan

Just left NPower, electric only, and our final bill to be taken in a few days is £1297.

That's not a problem for us luckily but it could be a nightmare for others, we had no idea, all previous statements showed several hundred pounds in credit, but to be fair no money has been taken for over 12 months far as i can make out.
Doesn't help that the bills/statements need a practicing Queens Counsel to make head or tail of, never again.