N Power Help!

susie93

I came on the forum last year with my problem with N Power who closed my original account as they had a reading that was not in line with my previous reads when Scottish Power tried to take us over. It was a new meter in 2009 so up until 2011 everything was okay with average bills. We are low users as heat with gas and cook with gas. I have bills which say I will use 233,000 kWh in a year some which say 3,300 kWh per year. I have added up and kept a close eye on my meter and I worked out it is more like 2,300 - 3000 kWh per year.

I have been fighting with them since April 2012 when they sent me a bill for £1,303. saying that they had misbilled me and had been billing me on a 4 digit reading instead of a 5. doh, my first bill on the new meter was an Actual read of 01229 for the first winter quarter - now if what they are saying is right for that first winter quarter they are indicating I would have used 12,290 kWh from December 08 to April 09????:(

I went to the ombudsman - waste of time as they said that if N Power said I was using 54kWh per day then they must be right as 5 kWh per day was too low so they picked the higher amount?? Now they have sent a threatening letter from their legal department with a demand for £6,000 or set up a payment plan for £360 per month. That is what I get on my pension credit. This has made me very ill and I don't quite know what to do now.

Tried Small Claims Court but the Judge dismissed the case as I had no independent proof. N Power sent a Barrister and all they had was the Ombudsman's letter which the Judge seized on as he obviously did not read my Particulars of Claim etc.(to be fair my evidence was about 80 pages long) He said he did'nt know how all this electricity business worked.

He said I would have to wait until they took me to Court for the money and counter claim in my defence. After that I sat in my car and cried for an hour. I feel sick constantly with this and it has taken over my life. Common sense obviously does not prevail here as to use all that electricity in one day I would have to be lighting up quite a few local houses even one of their advisors said I would be lighting up Blackpool.

I did a "kettle" test with one of their customer service team (really nice sensible man) whilst on the phone I had to turn off all electrical appliances, take a meter read, boil the kettle, then take another read. This read that my kettle had taken 0.2 units. He said that was about right and he would rectify the error. N Power said that was wrong and the test had used 2 units - in their latest bills it states you can have NINE kettle boils for 1 unit? I have not been able to contact this person since.

Anyone got any ideas where I go from here????

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

I'm afraid the small claims court can often get this very wrong. There was a chap on here who took npower to small claims and won, and he was entirely in the wrong. It appears you, sadly, have the reverse scenario.

If it's got to this stage, you need to seek legal advise. Also contact your local MP, they can be very helpful in these scenarios. Good luck.