N Power - 16 months and still no actual bill - Updated Finally a real bill (inc)

SwanJon

markprior wrote: »

does this look high usage for during the day ? myself and the wife both are employed full time, when does the day / night cost change?

You need to find out how your heating/electricity system works, including when the various prices apply.

From your bills it looks like you have a three tier tariff (day, night and heat) so you should be providing three readings.

Do you have the readings from the day you moved in?
Without this is will be difficult to tell if their estimate for the 12 month billing rule is accurate.

The readings for the heat tier look a bit confusing, but taking the first and last reads for each, you are using on average
5kWh per day at the 'day rate' - around £1
1 kWh per day at the 'night rate' - around 6p
18 kWh per day at the 'heating rate' - around £1.30 although this will be much more seasonal.

npower should be able to tell you the times when each rate applies, but for other customers on economy 7, night is 7 hours between 11pm and 7am and I can't see your 'night rate' times being much different.


The estimates on the bill relate to billing cycles and price changes. Really you only need readings for:
8 July 2013 The day you moved in
3 September 2013 (12 months before the bill)
1 December 2013 (price change)
28 February 2014 (Price change)
3 September 2014 (Bill Date)

Actual readings at other timees will help you estimate readings for these dates.

markprior wrote: »

when i originally called they estimated around £55 a month, is this miss selling possibly ? as it stands without back billing and good will it is around £70 pcm,

An estimate is only ever that - they have no idea how much electricity you are going to use. They should give you the price per kWh, then it's up to you how much you use.

I'd take them up on the offer of having the meter tested, but even if it was 10% out in your favour it would only reduce the bill by £100.
You now have readings so you can start looking at other suppliers, but as it looks like you have a complex metering system it might be that no other supplier could take you.

With npower or another supplier, if the meter was faulty or not, the next step is to understand your heating system so you can be more in control of how much you are using (and therefore spending)

Good luck

markprior

HUUUGE thanks for the above post !!!

markprior

latest update as my meter was finally tested today, any advice on what i should pursue / what there are likley to come back with ?

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Hi Paul

Finally after 3 failed attempts an N-power engineer arrived this morning and my meter was tested. Afterwards the test the engineer came to see me and informed me my meter was faulty, in fact the meter was not recording any use at all. I have some questions regarding the fault and previous meter readings.

1.) After the issue of my last bills can you confirm if any of these were generated as a result of readings took directly from the meter by anyone acting on the behalf of N-Power?

b.) Relating to the above if the answer is yes. How is this possible as the door has a key code entry that I myself was only given 3 months ago as it needed to be changed, do engineers hold & record such codes as I needed to provide this to the engineer today, would the previous engineers have had the old code which I did not?

c.) if the answers above are yes, could I be provided with paperwork that shows me visits and readings that were took.

d.) Could I be provided with the meter readings I initially gave N-Power when trying to open the account.

2.) How were my bills calculated, I assume estimated even though I have repeatedly ask for meter read bills?

3.) As the meter is now not producing any readings and has been found to be faulty what guarantee can you give me that the readings generated & recorded previously (if at all depending on the answer to question 1, 1b & 1c) were not as a result of a faulty meter producing excessively high readings?

4.) I showed the engineer my last bill and he informed me that I was some readings missing even though the bill was complete, he mentioned the night rate was not recorded, I myself did not notice this due to the complex layout of these bills.

5.) What happens now, from my perspective there is no possible way N-Power can justify the bills I have been sent, no way I can be or have been previously provided with a 100% accurate bill as the meter I have been issued is now faulty with no way to test the legitimacy / accuracy of previous readings & bills.

As a side note I would also like to say how pleasant, professional and helpful the engineer was today.

I look forward to your reply.


Regards

minky0230

Hi
Had problems when i changed to n-power, someone put in the wrong reading at transfer. I had a copy and kept sending n power new ones which tallied with mine. if your meter is dual it will register three reading. The reading that are prefixed by a 1 and a 2 and are the important ones. This shows day and night reading. Ended up dealing with executive complaints after three months, of trying to sort it. I found executive customer service team work seemed to be undermined by customer services. I stopped phoning and used e mails. Kept an eye on account and it seems to be sorted. Although they have not applied a credit to my account as promised.
However to be fair once dealing with executive complaints via email, things did progress quickly. Will now put regular reading on my account myself and check bills carefully.

markprior

yep agreed, im dealing with executive complaints and things have deffinatly moved along at a better pace

markprior

and a couple more updates

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Subject: RE: Your npower query
Hi Paul

Finally after 3 failed attempts an N-power engineer arrived this morning and my meter was tested. Afterwards the test the engineer came to see me and informed me my meter was faulty, in fact the meter was not recording any use at all. I have some questions regarding the fault and previous meter readings.

1.) After the issue of my last bills can you confirm if any of these were generated as a result of readings took directly from the meter by anyone acting on the behalf of N-Power?

b.) Relating to the above if the answer is yes. How is this possible as the door has a key code entry that I myself was only given 3 months ago as it needed to be changed, do engineers hold & record such codes as I needed to provide this to the engineer today, would the previous engineers have had the old code which I did not?

c.) if the answers above are yes, could I be provided with paperwork that shows me visits and readings that were took.

d.) Could I be provided with the meter readings I initially gave N-Power when trying to open the account.

2.) How were my bills calculated, I assume estimated even though I have repeatedly ask for meter read bills?

3.) As the meter is now not producing any readings and has been found to be faulty what guarantee can you give me that the readings generated & recorded previously (if at all depending on the answer to question 1, 1b & 1c) were not as a result of a faulty meter producing excessively high readings?

4.) I showed the engineer my last bill and he informed me that I was some readings missing even though the bill was complete, he mentioned the night rate was not recorded, I myself did not notice this due to the complex layout of these bills.

5.) What happens now, from my perspective there is no possible way N-Power can justify the bills I have been sent, no way I can be or have been previously provided with a 100% accurate bill as the meter I have been issued is now faulty with no way to test the legitimacy / accuracy of previous readings & bills.

As a side note I would also like to say how pleasant, professional and helpful the engineer was today.

I look forward to your reply.


Regards

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Dear Mr Prior

Unique reference: 99523138
Account reference: 158122929

Thank you for your email dated 22 January 2015, we have also received the engineers report with regards to your meters display not showing any usage. In these instances we would arrange for the meter to be exchanged, we would then request meter readings over a 10 working day period or preferably longer.

We would then use these readings to complete a usage analysis and compare your average daily usage against your old meter. This can help determine if there are any differences is the amount of energy used between the old meter and the new meter, we would then adjust your bill accordingly should this be required.

With regards to the questions you have asked, I can confirm that we obtained actual engineer readings on 6 March 2014 and 3 September 2014, this would indicate that the display on your meter has only recently stopped showing usage. Our engineers would not usually have access codes, from discussing this with a colleague, I have been advised that they would try to ring bells/buzzers to gain entry to the block or may have been let in by someone leaving or entering the building.

Although we are unable to provide paperwork that shows the visits and readings due to this information being transmitted electronically, we are able to provide a letter which confirms the time and date the engineer keyed the information into his hand held device along with meter readings, should you require this then I shall be more than happy to arrange for a letter to be sent.

From checking the history on your account, I can confirm that although there have been periods where we have estimated your bills, we have also used actual readings as well. I can also confirm that your account was opened using estimated readings and I cannot find any record of actual meter readings being provided, I have checked both your account and the previous occupier account.

If you can kindly provide a convenient date for us to arrange for your meter to be exchanged, I shall arrange this and compile a usage analysis against both meters and of course, the results will be provided to you.
Your sincerely,

Paul Hocking
Executive Complaints Team
npower
Cygnet Way, Rainton Bridge Business Park, Houghton le Spring, DH4 5QZ
Tel. (External): 0800 3161492 Landline
Tel. (External): 0330 1008614 Mobile
Extension: 1199 163
Mail to: Executive.Complaints@npower.com

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Hi Paul

Would the analysis account for summer / winter differences in use, as we are currently in winter use and these readings would be higher than summer.

Regards to the letter around visits I assume that the reports and readings would have my meters serial number attached?

I provided meter readings at the start when “Trying” to open the account, these were physical readings given by the landlord. Around 6 months in when calling to try and arrange payment a lady at the npower call centre confirmed she could see I had given readings, I saw no reason to hang on to these but would expect N-power to have a record, if N-Power does not have the record how can they have an accurate starting point to charge me from, more so if there were no readings from the previous tenant.

As mentioned previously

“4.) I showed the engineer my last bill and he informed me that I was some readings missing even though the bill was complete, he mentioned the night rate was not recorded, I myself did not notice this due to the complex layout of these bills.”

Could this be looked into with my current bill I am struggling to understand that with either meter read or estimated bills how I can be missing the above, has the night rate been charged at a day rate ?


What I would like to see happen is:

New meter installed & attached to the best possible tariff.

The 10 day test to be carried out, those figures then applied to my account balance over the last 19 months talking into consideration that we are currently in the cold / high usage months and a spring/summer rate should be charged & illustrated at a lower usage.

£30.84 Back billing charges removed as previously agreed

£248.59 Goodwill gesture significantly increased as we are now 19 months away from when I initially tried to join N-Power, I have wasted so many hours with what should have been a 10 minute phone call to set up an account and be billed accurately. Not to mention the ominous loom of an extremely large electricity bill that will land on my doorstep.

How long should I expect the physical installation of a new meter to take as I will once again need to arrange time away from work? Does this replacement carry more importance than the test as I do not want to be in the situation where 3 appointments are missed as previous. I would expect 1 appointment to be made and adhered to.

Dates I am not available over the coming month are 1st-4th & 13th February up to now I am free for any other dates.

I appreciate your perseverance with this and hopefully we are now seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.



Regards

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Dear Mr Prior

Unique reference: 99523138
Account reference: 158122929

Thank you for your email dated 27 January 2015, when we obtain readings from a 10 day period and recalculate your usage, we apportion this to allow for the difference between summer and winter usage, however as your meter was showing an advancement in September 2014 this would not have a large impact on your account.

With regards to your bill not showing your night usage being recorded, from checking your bill I can see that your night rate from 4 September 2014 up to 15 December 2014, this shows that your night rate has been billed. Your heat rate shows a period of zero usage and this is correct due to how we bill the type of meter you have installed.

I have arranged an appointment for your meter to be exchanged for 17 February 2015 between 8:00am and 10:00am with an instruction for the engineer to contact you before arriving, should you wish to change this appointment please advise at your earliest opportunity.

Once your meter has been exchanged and any recalculation has been completed, I will be more than happy to request our Back Billing Team look into your account again, however you may not be eligible for any additional write off.

With regards to receiving a large bill, I would suggest that you begin to make payments towards your usage as this will ensure your balance does not continue to increase. I am also more than happy to discuss our goodwill gesture, however as under our Guaranteed Standards compensates for failed appointments, these would not be included in any reduction offered.

I shall check for the results of your meter exchange five working days after 17 February 2015 to ensure that we have received the data flows from our meter operators and if you can begin taking readings from when the meter in exchanged, I shall contact you to obtain these.

Your sincerely,

Paul Hocking
Executive Complaints Team
npower
Cygnet Way, Rainton Bridge Business Park, Houghton le Spring, DH4 5QZ
Tel. (External): 0800 3161492 Landline
Tel. (External): 0330 1008614 Mobile
Extension: 1199 163
Mail to: Executive.Complaints@npower.com

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Hi Paul

Please see my responses and further questions below,

“Thank you for your email dated 27 January 2015, when we obtain readings from a 10 day period and recalculate your usage, we apportion this to allow for the difference between summer and winter usage, however as your meter was showing an advancement in September 2014 this would not have a large impact on your account”

Please be clear with the above, will this bill be recalculated over the entire billing period using the data from the 10 day testing period? (Even if the meter did show advancement there is no way to test this meter was not producing an excessive reading as I have always suspected, due to what we now know to be a faulty meter)

This appointment (17th February between 08:00 & 10:00) is fine, however please advise on the question asked in the last mail.

“How long should I expect the physical installation of a new meter to take as I will once again need to arrange time away from work? Does this replacement carry more importance than the test as I do not want to be in the situation where 3 appointments are missed as previous. I would expect 1 appointment to be made and adhered to.”

Should I expect a single appointment to be adhered to, can you take any action that ensures this?


“With regards to receiving a large bill, I would suggest that you begin to make payments towards your usage as this will ensure your balance does not continue to increase.”

I find this part of your email very strange and as a customer bordering rude. As for over a year I did try to pay but was refused, I would like to suggest a few things myself

a.) N-Power send out bills in a timely manner avoiding the need for any of this. You seem to forget that none of what we have discussed here is as a result of my (Your customers) doing, everything within this complaint is to be laid entirely at N-Powers door. Just a few examples:

1.) Late Billing
2.) Length of time complaints take to get anywhere near resolution
3.) Inaccurate billing
4.) Missed appointments with no notice or attempt to contact the customer.
5.) Faulty equipment

b.) Massively improve your complaints procedure, the length of time I tried and the amount of times I contacted N-power and got absolutely nowhere is a joke, it was not until I contacted the press that my complaint was even looked at. This goes far beyond acceptable.

c.) Arrange appointments and adhere to them, at the very least where this is not possible, contact your customers so they do not waste time waiting for an engineer that does not attend. This is not an unreasonable request.

d.) Where there is faulty equipment and N-power need to replace, give a priority to this. Again this is not unreasonable

e.) Accurate billing, do I really need to explain why this is important?



You also failed to comment on the below yellow highlighted section, can you confirm that N-Power will arrange this best possible tariff for me?

“What I would like to see happen is:

New meter installed & attached to the best possible tariff.

The 10 day test to be carried out, those figures then applied to my account balance over the last 19 months talking into consideration that we are currently in the cold / high usage months and a spring/summer rate should be charged & illustrated at a lower usage.

£30.84 Back billing charges removed as previously agreed

£248.59 Goodwill gesture significantly increased as we are now 19 months away from when I initially tried to join N-Power, I have wasted so many hours with what should have been a 10 minute phone call to set up an account and be billed accurately. Not to mention the ominous loom of an extremely large electricity bill that will land on my doorstep.”

Again these highlighted areas seem to have been omitted from your reply and a response would be appreciated.

“Regards to the letter around visits I assume that the reports and readings would have my meters serial number attached?”

“I provided meter readings at the start when “Trying” to open the account, these were physical readings given by the landlord. Around 6 months in when calling to try and arrange payment a lady at the npower call centre confirmed she could see I had given readings, I saw no reason to hang on to these but would expect N-power to have a record, if N-Power does not have the record how can they have an accurate starting point to charge me from, more so if there were no readings from the previous tenant.”




Regards

markprior

Still going strong, reads in revers date order

From: Mark Prior
Sent: 20 February 2015 14:19
To: 'Executive.Complaints@npower.com'
Cc: 'ian.robson@ncjmedia.co.uk'; 'mr.justice@ncjmedia.co.uk'; 'watchdog@bbc.co.uk'
Subject: Your npower query

Hi Paul

Please find my responses below

When we complete the analysis against your account we shall be able to confirm if the units per day being used are equal or similar to the units per day on your previous meter, this analysis shall also determine if your previous meter was recording accurately. As your meter was recording usage until recently and your meter was showing a blank display, this is no indication that it was indeed faulty, therefore we would not look at re-billing your account for the duration of supply.

Am I interpreting the above correctly with the following statement – If the data shows there was an accuracy issue with the old meter in comparison from data analysis that is to be submitted from actual reads of the new meter N-Power will not re-bill the account?

As your meter was recording usage until recently and your meter was showing a blank display, this is no indication that it was indeed faulty, therefore we would not look at re-billing your account for the duration of supply.

This is also no indication that the meter was recording usage correctly, from chatting with the engineer these meters (Super Tariff) are common place to be faulted, research online also supports this added with the fact these meters are not replaced like for like. N-Power have no possible way to test if I was billed accurately, recalculation of the bill in its entirety is the only reasonable way forward here. Can you please explain the issue that N-power has with this solution? insisting the meter was reading correctly is simply not acceptable. An agent came to test the meter for accuracy and or faults, the meter was found to be faulty and the agent was unable to test for accuracy due to that fault.

As this mainly centres around the premise that your customer felt the bill was excessively high and suspecting the meter was over reading or possibly the on peak / off peak times not being aligned, If brought to light in the new data obtained from the new meter that old readings are substantially higher the new data set should be applied to the entire bill. It should not be a case of we cannot test it so it has to be right, this cannot be the standpoint of any respectable company.

With regards to applying alternative tariffs, I can advise from reading the records on your account, we had confirmed that due to the metering at your property, there were no alternative tariff options available

This was not confirmed until after the first bill which was after 12 months, again leaving me unable to obtain any market data round pricing due to lack of a bill. The metering has now been changed are there any tariff options ?

I can also confirm that we wrote to you on 19 December 2013 regarding billing issues with our systems

I received many letters regarding billing issues, most saying we are sorry you complaint is still not resolved ….. this makes it no more acceptable.

Should you require a letter confirming the dates we attended your property and obtained actual meter readings, this shall include the actual reading, the date the read was taken and the meter serial number associated with the reading, should you require this information I shall be more than happy to provide this

Yes I would like this at the earliest convenience.

I also have some questions regarding the new economy 7 meter that was installed.

1.) By being switched to this meter does this incur a higher daily charge?
2.) What is the daily charge
3.) What are the day / night rates in £0.00s
4.) What are the peak / off peak times

Please find below a the current readings for this week, hopefully this may give some insight to the difference in usage already, however I understand you may not wish to comment until the full 10 day read is available.

Date Time R1 (night) R2 (day)
17/02/2015 19:00 0 1
18/02/2015 19:00 21 4
19/02/2015 19:00 40 7




Regards.




Mark Prior
EMEA IT Service Desk Supervisor
EMEA IT Accounts Supervisor

Arup
Central Square Forth Street Newcastle NE1 3PL United Kingdom
t +44 20 7755 1531
d +44 20 7755 2360
m +44 78 8763 2716
https://www.arup.com

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From: Executive.Complaints@npower.com [mailto:Executive.Complaints@npower.com]
Sent: 20 February 2015 13:15
To: Mark Prior
Subject: RE: RE: Your npower query


Dear Mr Prior

Unique reference: 99523138
Account reference: 158122929

Thank you for your email dated 17 February 2015, I apologise for the delay in responding to you. Once we have your 10 day readings and we have completed a usage analysis I shall be more than happy to provide the results to include the unit costs and amount this would cost. With regards to applying alternative tariffs, I can advise from reading the records on your account, we had confirmed that due to the metering at your property, there were no alternative tariff options available.

When we complete the analysis against your account we shall be able to confirm if the units per day being used are equal or similar to the units per day on your previous meter, this analysis shall also determine if your previous meter was recording accurately. As your meter was recording usage until recently and your meter was showing a blank display, this is no indication that it was indeed faulty, therefore we would not look at re-billing your account for the duration of supply.

From reading the records on your account, the first entry is dated 15 October 2013, this advises that we have updated our systems confirming you had moved into the property on 8 July 2013, this confirms that you would have been able to begin making payment from 15 October 2013. I can also confirm that we wrote to you on 19 December 2013 regarding billing issues with our systems.

Your complaint was raised on 3 October 2013 and there is a record on this date that you provided your opening readings of R1: 5745 R2: 1674 R3: 0000 R4: 10185. From checking your first bill which has since been reversed, your account has been opened to these readings, however these are shown as estimated, please accept my apologies for the confusion this has caused.

As requested once we have fully updated your account, I shall pass your complaint onto our Head of Customer Relations for final review, this will result in our Final Position being issued allowing you to take your complaint to the Ombudsman Services: Energy.

Should you require a letter confirming the dates we attended your property and obtained actual meter readings, this shall include the actual reading, the date the read was taken and the meter serial number associated with the reading, should you require this information I shall be more than happy to provide this.

With regards to our smart meter roll out, as we are currently in the process of trialling the use of these and ensuring our systems are able to support this new meter, we are not currently installing these as yet.
Your sincerely,

Paul Hocking
npower Customer Relations
Cygnet Way, Rainton Bridge Business Park, Houghton le Spring, DH4 5QZ
Tel. (External): 0800 3161492 Landline
Tel. (External): 0330 1008614 Mobile
Extension: 1199 163
Mail to: Executive.Complaints@npower.com

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________________________________________
From: Mark Prior [mailto:mark.prior@arup.com]
Sent: 17 February 2015 11:29
To: Executive Complaints - UK
Cc: ian.robson@ncjmedia.co.uk; mr.justice@ncjmedia.co.uk
Subject: RE: RE: Your npower query
Hi Paul
I can confirm that the engineer came today and replaced the meter, not a like for like as the only one he had available was an “Economy 7”. I will provide a meter reading in 10 days from now however I would still like all the details in the below email addressed.
Regards
Mark Prior
EMEA IT Service Desk Supervisor
EMEA IT Accounts Supervisor
Arup
Central Square Forth Street Newcastle NE1 3PL United Kingdom
t +44 20 7755 1531
d +44 20 7755 2360
m +44 78 8763 2716
https://www.arup.com
From: Mark Prior
Sent: 12 February 2015 09:26
To: 'Executive.Complaints@npower.com'
Cc: 'ian.robson@ncjmedia.co.uk'; 'mr.justice@ncjmedia.co.uk'
Subject: RE: RE: Your npower query
Hi Paul
My responses below
As your meter was showing an advancement until recently we are unable to confirm if your meter was faulty during the past 19 month period, however based on your historic meter readings, once we have your ten day meter read results from the new meter, we shall also conduct a usage analysis and compare your usage across both meters, this shall also be completed using seasonal variations. I must also advise that a blank display does not confirm if a meter if faulty.
When this analysis has taken place could you provide a simple (£) Pounds and (p) pence comparison of how the old meter charged me over the last 19 months and how the new meter would have performed under the same conditions ? Could you also produce the same query in a separate report applying the best tariff that could have been made available to me at the time covering the 19 month period.
we are unable to confirm if your meter was faulty during the past 19 month period
based on this statement surely N-Power need to prove the meter was reading use correctly, again something which is not possible as the meter is now for all purposes broken. Hence the request for the new meters reading to be applied across the bills entirety. The question of a faulty meter was raised as soon as supposed “meter read” bill was produced in October which later turns out to contain both estimated and meter read data, and again in the bill produced for December.
I have investigated the history on your account and I can find no records of payment being refused
I can if needed produce times I contacted N-Power if you would like to check those, payment was not refused as such, the person(s) at the end of the phone simply told me I did not have an account so was unable to make a payment. Could you clarify the date my account was actually created and the earliest time I could have made a payment,
Once we have obtained 10 day readings, I shall manually estimate your annual usage and provide a comparison for tariff options available from the date your meter is exchanged, I shall also be more than happy to back date your tariff also to the date your meter is exchanged.
As stated in one of my very first mails with yourself, I was never offered the choice of any tariff as I effectivley did not have an account, due to this I would request that any alternative tariff that could have provided me with a cheaper service be applied to the bill in its entirety. Extract below taken from mail sent 17/10/2014
“I also feel that due to the length of time this has been ongoing the lack of a bill has left me unable to retrieve any competitive market data from any other supplier that may have been able to offer a cheaper service.
Am I on the best pricing plan for my use / needs? “
With regards to our gesture of goodwill, this was offered once your account was bought up to date and took into account the time taken to produce a bill against your account along with service failures, when considering a goodwill gesture we also take into account a customers payments throughout the complaints process and in this instance we believe our offer of reduction is fair, we shall therefore not be looking to offer an increased goodwill gesture.
Why would I the customer make payments throughout a complaint that at its heart is about inaccurate & untimley billing ? N-Power have so far not been able to justify or even verify with any tangible evidence the figures they have produced. When an accurate bill has been produced with the evidence to support this or analysis taken from the new meter is calculated and tariffs etc.. are applied I will be more than happy to settle the account, paying / funding the bill has never been the issue.
Should you remain unhappy with our response to our goodwill gesture, once your meter exchange has been completed and your account billed to your new meter, I can arrange for your complaint to be reviewed by our Head of Customer Relations. This means our final position will be issued therefore meaning you will have completed our internal complaints process. You will then have the opportunity to contact the Ombudsman Services, Energy
I would much appreciate this to be forwarded to the head of customer relations once the meter exchange & recalculation process is complete.
I sent the below mail yesterday but as I have not yet received a response could you include the reply in your response to this mail.
Hi Paul
I will respond to your email tomorrow, but please this is the 3rd time the below has been asked, can you provide any information?
Again these highlighted areas seem to have been omitted from your reply and a response would be appreciated.
“Regards to the letter around visits I assume that the reports and readings would have my meters serial number attached?”
“I provided meter readings at the start when “Trying” to open the account, these were physical readings given by the landlord. Around 6 months in when calling to try and arrange payment a lady at the npower call centre confirmed she could see I had given readings, I saw no reason to hang on to these but would expect N-power to have a record, if N-Power does not have the record how can they have an accurate starting point to charge me from, more so if there were no readings from the previous tenant.”
Could I also have a response to the below which was sent 11/02/2015
I also came across the governments new initiative to install smart meters in consumer’s homes, http://www.smartenergygb.org/get-a-smart-meter As I am due to be supplied a new meter on February 17th could this type of meter be installed?
Regards
Mark Prior
EMEA IT Service Desk Supervisor
EMEA IT Accounts Supervisor
Arup
Central Square Forth Street Newcastle NE1 3PL United Kingdom
t +44 20 7755 1531
d +44 20 7755 2360
m +44 78 8763 2716
https://www.arup.com

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From: Executive.Complaints@npower.com [mailto:Executive.Complaints@npower.com]
Sent: 11 February 2015 16:00
To: Mark Prior
Subject: RE: RE: Your npower query
Dear Mr Prior
Unique reference: 99523138
Account reference: 158122929
Thank you for your email dated 11 February 2015 and prior email dated 5 February 2015, please accept my apologies for the delayed response due to annual leave. The reminder you have received is in relation to your latest bill produced on 17 December 2014, the balance shown of £256.03 relates to your charges for the period from 4 September 2014 to 15 December 2014, I am sorry for the confusion this has caused.
The time taken to change for meter should take around 20 minutes to complete, however all appointments are raised with the same priority and it is unfortunate that previous appointments failed. This is outside of our control and can be caused by emergency appointment requests being raised, force majures or other issues which can affect our meter operators. It is due to this we arrange payments under our guaranteed standards for failed appointments.
As your meter was showing an advancement until recently we are unable to confirm if your meter was faulty during the past 19 month period, however based on your historic meter readings, once we have your ten day meter read results from the new meter, we shall also conduct a usage analysis and compare your usage across both meters, this shall also be completed using seasonal variations. I must also advise that a blank display does not confirm if a meter if faulty.
I am sorry you found my suggestion for payment offensive as this was not my intention, I have investigated the history on your account and I can find no records of payment being refused. My suggestion that you begin making payments towards your usage was to reduce the impact of your account balance once we have completed all actions required.
Once we have obtained 10 day readings, I shall manually estimate your annual usage and provide a comparison for tariff options available from the date your meter is exchanged, I shall also be more than happy to back date your tariff also to the date your meter is exchanged.
As agreed I shall pass your account to our back billing team to re-investigate you account, however as previously advised I am unable to guarantee if you shall be eligible for a further write off.
With regards to our gesture of goodwill, this was offered once your account was bought up to date and took into account the time taken to produce a bill against your account along with service failures, when considering a goodwill gesture we also take into account a customers payments throughout the complaints process and in this instance we believe our offer of reduction is fair, we shall therefore not be looking to offer an increased goodwill gesture.
Should you remain unhappy with our response to our goodwill gesture, once your meter exchange has been completed and your account billed to your new meter, I can arrange for your complaint to be reviewed by our Head of Customer Relations. This means our final position will be issued therefore meaning you will have completed our internal complaints process. You will then have the opportunity to contact the Ombudsman Services, Energy.
I must also advise that the hold place on your account has been extended until 1 March 2015 and after this time our collections process shall commence.
Your sincerely,

Paul Hocking
Executive Complaints Team
npower
Cygnet Way, Rainton Bridge Business Park, Houghton le Spring, DH4 5QZ
Tel. (External): 0800 3161492 Landline
Tel. (External): 0330 1008614 Mobile
Extension: 1199 163
Mail to: Executive.Complaints@npower.com

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________________________________________
From: Mark Prior [mailto:mark.prior@arup.com]
Sent: 11 February 2015 08:15
To: Executive Complaints - UK
Cc: mr.justice@ncjmedia.co.uk; ian.robson@ncjmedia.co.uk
Subject: RE: RE: Your npower query
Hi Paul
Is it possible to get the queries in my last email dated 5th February 2015 addressed?
Also I have attached a bill sent by N-Power, this states my outstanding balance is £256.03, if this is correct I would like to arrange payment immediately. However I suspect yet more inept billing by N-Power, again displaying just how badly the company operates and misleads its customers. If this is an incorrect number how do N-Power derive to this figure?
I also came across the governments new initiative to install smart meters in consumer’s homes, http://www.smartenergygb.org/get-a-smart-meter As I am due to be supplied a new meter on February 17th could this type of meter be installed?
Regards
Mark Prior
EMEA IT Service Desk Supervisor
EMEA IT Accounts Supervisor
Arup
Central Square Forth Street Newcastle NE1 3PL United Kingdom
t +44 20 7755 1531
d +44 20 7755 2360
m +44 78 8763 2716
https://www.arup.com
From: Mark Prior
Sent: 05 February 2015 08:44
To: 'Executive.Complaints@npower.com'
Cc: 'mr.justice@ncjmedia.co.uk'; 'ian.robson@ncjmedia.co.uk'
Subject: RE: Your npower query
Hi Paul
Please see my responses and further questions below,
“Thank you for your email dated 27 January 2015, when we obtain readings from a 10 day period and recalculate your usage, we apportion this to allow for the difference between summer and winter usage, however as your meter was showing an advancement in September 2014 this would not have a large impact on your account”
Please be clear with the above, will this bill be recalculated over the entire billing period using the data from the 10 day testing period? (Even if the meter did show advancement there is no way to test this meter was not producing an excessive reading as I have always suspected, due to what we now know to be a faulty meter)
This appointment (17th February between 08:00 & 10:00) is fine, however please advise on the question asked in the last mail.
“How long should I expect the physical installation of a new meter to take as I will once again need to arrange time away from work? Does this replacement carry more importance than the test as I do not want to be in the situation where 3 appointments are missed as previous. I would expect 1 appointment to be made and adhered to.”
Should I expect a single appointment to be adhered to, can you take any action that ensures this?
“With regards to receiving a large bill, I would suggest that you begin to make payments towards your usage as this will ensure your balance does not continue to increase.”
I find this part of your email very strange and as a customer bordering rude. As for over a year I did try to pay but was refused, I would like to suggest a few things myself
a.) N-Power send out bills in a timely manner avoiding the need for any of this. You seem to forget that none of what we have discussed here is as a result of my (Your customers) doing, everything within this complaint is to be laid entirely at N-Powers door. Just a few examples:
1.) Late Billing
2.) Length of time complaints take to get anywhere near resolution
3.) Inaccurate billing
4.) Missed appointments with no notice or attempt to contact the customer.
5.) Faulty equipment
b.) Massively improve your complaints procedure, the length of time I tried and the amount of times I contacted N-power and got absolutely nowhere is a joke, it was not until I contacted the press that my complaint was even looked at. This goes far beyond acceptable.
c.) Arrange appointments and adhere to them, at the very least where this is not possible, contact your customers so they do not waste time waiting for an engineer that does not attend. This is not an unreasonable request.
d.) Where there is faulty equipment and N-power need to replace, give a priority to this. Again this is not unreasonable
e.) Accurate billing, do I really need to explain why this is important?
You also failed to comment on the below yellow highlighted section, can you confirm that N-Power will arrange this best possible tariff for me?
“What I would like to see happen is:
New meter installed & attached to the best possible tariff.
The 10 day test to be carried out, those figures then applied to my account balance over the last 19 months talking into consideration that we are currently in the cold / high usage months and a spring/summer rate should be charged & illustrated at a lower usage.
£30.84 Back billing charges removed as previously agreed
£248.59 Goodwill gesture significantly increased as we are now 19 months away from when I initially tried to join N-Power, I have wasted so many hours with what should have been a 10 minute phone call to set up an account and be billed accurately. Not to mention the ominous loom of an extremely large electricity bill that will land on my doorstep.”
Again these highlighted areas seem to have been omitted from your reply and a response would be appreciated.
“Regards to the letter around visits I assume that the reports and readings would have my meters serial number attached?”
“I provided meter readings at the start when “Trying” to open the account, these were physical readings given by the landlord. Around 6 months in when calling to try and arrange payment a lady at the npower call centre confirmed she could see I had given readings, I saw no reason to hang on to these but would expect N-power to have a record, if N-Power does not have the record how can they have an accurate starting point to charge me from, more so if there were no readings from the previous tenant.”
Regards
Mark Prior
EMEA IT Service Desk Supervisor
EMEA IT Accounts Supervisor
Arup
Central Square Forth Street Newcastle NE1 3PL United Kingdom
t +44 20 7755 1531
d +44 20 7755 2360
m +44 78 8763 2716