Is there no limit to how bad NPower can get?

GingerBob_3

Latest from my son; yet another balls up by NPower, who were about to take a large amount of money from his account for no reason. So he rings them up. Apparently he failed one of their "security" questions. He's not certain, but he thinks it was "what date do your direct debit payments get taken"? He gave them a date which was wrong. He then said (paraphrasing), "hold on, I'll just look up the date on my bank". No, no, no!! He'd got it wrong and that was that! They would not speak to him any more and insisted he rang back (40 mins on hold again) and answer the "security" questions again. They would not budge. He gave them the right answer there and then and said ask me what you like, but no! They just wouldn't have it. Data protection, don't you know.

They are scum. There's nothing more to be said.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

They're incompetent. I don't think for one second they're nefarious individuals out to defraud people. This all stems from a data migration project that went very, very wrong. Scum is a word I reserve for few individual, and a lowly paid call centre worker carrying out orders isn't one of them.

Out of interest, why doesn't he just leave them?

GingerBob_3

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

They're incompetent. I don't think for one second they're nefarious individuals out to defraud people. This all stems from a data migration project that went very, very wrong. Scum is a word I reserve for few individual, and a lowly paid call centre worker carrying out orders isn't one of them.

Out of interest, why doesn't he just leave them?

To clarify, it's the organisation I'm referring to when I say "scum", not the hapless individuals who work for them.

Why doesn't he just leave them? Well, he has just moved house (which in itself caused massive problems with them). The property he moved to was already supplied by NPower, his supplier at the old property. So we discussed the best course of action and came to the conclusion that staying with them would probably be less hassle than changing supplier. With hindsight perhaps he should have bitten the bullet and changed supplier.

GingerBob_3

The lad reckons we should invoice NPower for all the time spent dealing with their incompetence, and the distress caused by threats of disconnection and the sudden appearance of large, incorrect bills. I'm guessing they'd just ignore it. Anyone had any experience of this?

naedanger

GingerBob wrote: »

The lad reckons we should invoice NPower for all the time spent dealing with their incompetence, and the distress caused by threats of disconnection and the sudden appearance of large, incorrect bills. I'm guessing they'd just ignore it. Anyone had any experience of this?

There is no harm in him asking npower to compensate him for the inconvenience and distress. And if they don't agree he can follow their complaints process.

http://www.npower.com/home/help-and-support/contact-us/complaints/

However if he follows that route then I suspect any amount offered will be minimal.

Alternatively he could do what the person in the following article did and sue them. Whether your son would win in court would of course depend on the circumstances.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/personal-finance/man-wins-3000-npower-after-3936566

Another possibility is that the npower rep reading this forum sorts things out to your son's satisfaction.

mkaml

I had to call them tonight as they took 5x my normal direct debit - they offered me compensation. I then called my bank up to cancel the DD and return the money to my account.
Apparently I 'missed an email informing me of my revised monthly amount' it was revised to almost 6 months worth of payments every month..... some error!!

Andy_WSM

mkaml wrote: »

I had to call them tonight as they took 5x my normal direct debit - they offered me compensation. I then called my bank up to cancel the DD and return the money to my account.
Apparently I 'missed an email informing me of my revised monthly amount' it was revised to almost 6 months worth of payments every month..... some error!!

They are proabably skint due to all the compensation they are paying out, bills they are writing off and fees they are paying to OFGEM. With any luck they will get what they deserve and go bankrupt. They're not a worthy player in the energy markets and while i'm all for competition, they're like the booby prize that no one wants. They couldn't pay me to be their customer, let alone tempt me across by being 0.1p per kWh cheaper than the next of the big 6. Never seen any business survive such incompetence to be honest.

GingerBob_3

I've just been going through my son's correspondence sent by NPower. This commenced in late 2012 when he first became a customer. It runs to close on 100 pages! It includes unintelligible statements that your average accountant would struggle with, threats of disconnection, massive bills bearing no resemblance to energy used, account closures and re-openings, and enormous changes to DD without any justification. The statements - and I use the term loosely - are obfuscation at its best, comprising backings out, cancellations, multiple price changes, wild estimates and failure to include DD payments. You simply cannot make sense of what's going on. My son has religiously paid his direct debit and has never missed a payment. They claim not to have received correspondence which was sent recorded delivery and have ignored all written communications. On top of this, literally hours have been spent on the phone trying to deal with customer service reps who obviously wish they weren't working for NPower. This all culminated today when one of them wouldn't speak to my son because he didn't instantly know the date on which the DD payment was taken and had to look it up on the bank. They forced him to ring back again for another 40 minute hold.

This company is the pits. We have resolved to invoice them for a suitable amount (and I'm thinking 100s) and if they don't pay we're going to take it to the small claims court. Enough is enough.

Anyone got advice on making a claim via the county court?

Modgepodge

It's taken me 2 months, 5 phone calls, and an email of complaint (which was igNored so not worth counting really) to get a refund of £470 out of them. In my email I billed them for £50 of my time, not really expecting them to pay it.

When the guy eventually authorised the refund, I ranted about my wasted time, and the interest I potentially could have had if that money had been in my account, and I was offered £30 compensation. Better than nothing in my opinion.

GingerBob_3

Well, things had quietened down on the NPower front for the lad. We didn't send in a complaint - you know how it is - things like this get put on the back burner in the absence of any further provocation. Then yesterday, out of the blue, a demand for £257 appeared, with attendant threats of debt collectors and b***gering up credit ratings.

The lad has never missed a DD payment all the time he's been a customer, and all that time the relationship with NPower has been a massive problem. So yesterday he rang them up - again.

To cut a long story short, they couldn't understand the problem; they had "several" balances attached to the account, and they had no record of their recent letter to him. Their solution: "we'll put the matter on hold, now please raise a complaint to our complaints department and they will sort it all out for you".

Are these people for real or what?

Is it finally time to visit a solicitor on this one?

naedanger

GingerBob wrote: »

Well, things had quietened down on the NPower front for the lad. We didn't send in a complaint - you know how it is - things like this get put on the back burner in the absence of any further provocation. Then yesterday, out of the blue, a demand for £257 appeared, with attendant threats of debt collectors and b***gering up credit ratings.

The lad has never missed a DD payment all the time he's been a customer, and all that time the relationship with NPower has been a massive problem. So yesterday he rang them up - again.

To cut a long story short, they couldn't understand the problem; they had "several" balances attached to the account, and they had no record of their recent letter to him. Their solution: "we'll put the matter on hold, now please raise a complaint to our complaints department and they will sort it all out for you".

Are these people for real or what?

Is it finally time to visit a solicitor on this one?

Actually for once I agree with npower. Your son should complain in writing to npower and ultimately to the Ombudsman if he is not satisfied with npower's proposed solution.