Yet another issue with Npower

hickory7293

Very unhappy with service and billing from npower had nothing but bad experiences with them since September 2013. I first joined up because they were boasting about being the cheapest energy supplier at the time. After signing up to their fixed priced dual fuel plan, it took almost 2 months to actually transfer from the property's previous supplier, only to find out that NPower had only taken over the electricity and not the gas. After calling up numerous times, to which they 'couldn't locate the property's gas meter' I decided to raise a complaint, only to find that my account had been frozen. This meant I could do NOTHING about the situation, including getting any bills. I finally contacted the Ombudsman Complaints services to get me out of my contract and just switch back to the previous supplier. I was told this would only take 4-6 weeks to be completed, but it ended up taking nearly 5 months because NPower was not giving the information needed. After nearly 5 months with the Ombudsman, we finally reached a deal; NPower would let us out of our contract with no fees, and also gave us £100 of our bill for the 'trouble'. This was great because my 'final' bill was only £36 for the quarter. I put final in brackets because I was told on the phone by an NPower employee that it would be my last bill as I had already applied to switch providers. Better yet, they didn't fully process this bill for 2 weeks, so my order with my new provider got blocked and cancelled by NPower due to 'outstanding debts'. When this finally got cleared I called NPower again, to which they said that I could start the order again and it would go through straight away.... so I did and then today (only 3 weeks after the previous bill), I got ANOTHER bill for nearly £300 for bills I hadn't paid whilst my account was frozen (how they got those estimates, I have no clue), which in turn has YET AGAIN cancelled my order to move providers. They just seem to be trying to keep me locked into the account with them. They are a terrible company and deserve every bit of bad press they get.

nPower

Hi there,

Apologies for the service you have received. I'd be more than happy to help resolve this for you. Please could you email me your account details using the email on my profile and I'll get back to you.

Thanks
Chris

DragonQ

Tell me about it. I called 2 weeks ago to move my direct debit from one bank account to another (can't be done online, annoyingly). A few days ago I saw nothing on my new bank account still and called them, to be told that although my details had been updated, the direct debit hadn't been moved. The rep sorted it out, but then this morning I got an email saying my tariff had changed and I was no longer paying by direct debit. I called again just now to be told there was no direct debit on my account whatsoever, yet when I logged into my internet banking there is an nPower direct debit there. He set up a new direct debit and fixed my tariff but I am not confident at all that it's all going to be sorted.

I fully expect next month to have two direct debits going out (and thus overpay) and to be charged the wrong rate for at least a few days, resulting in me having to call again and get it all fixed. Either the computer system you use is shoddy or your reps don't know what they're doing!

cally6008

>>> Either the computer system you use is shoddy or your reps don't know what they're doing!

I would say both .. lol

DragonQ

Yeah that does seem more likely.