Npower Final Demand Letter

iancrotty

Hi There,

I wonder if you can help me. Today I received a letter from Npower demanding I repay them £132 for my gas or face court action. The problem I have is that I changed over to First Utility a year and a half ago.

I m going to call Npower tomorrow to find out what is going on as I had no idea I still owed them money and why didnt I receive a bill when I swapped over a year and a half ago.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to ask them or has anyone had a similar experience with Npower.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

naedanger

iancrotty wrote: »

Hi There,

I wonder if you can help me. Today I received a letter from Npower demanding I repay them £132 for my gas or face court action. The problem I have is that I changed over to First Utility a year and a half ago.

I m going to call Npower tomorrow to find out what is going on as I had no idea I still owed them money and why didnt I receive a bill when I swapped over a year and a half ago.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to ask them or has anyone had a similar experience with Npower.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

In my experience npower are an awful company to deal with.

I suggest you follow their official complaint process (see link below). That way if you are not fully satisfied with their response you can take your complaint to the Ombudsman after 8 weeks. Don't expect npower to reply quickly, if at all.

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

I also suggest you put your complaint in writing. That way you will have evidence of what is said.

In addition if they have not billed you for over a year they may be required to write off any debt (assuming you have not contributed to the lack of bill). See the following link:

Back Billing Code

iancrotty

Thank you naedanger. when you say contributed to lack of bill you mean conveniently lost it ?.:)

MABLE

Its so easy always to blame the energy provider. Sometimes it pays to be proactive and not assume things. When I left N Power I checked my online account with them and to ensure the final bill had been generated and made sure it was paid.

naedanger

MABLE wrote: »

Its so easy always to blame the energy provider. Sometimes it pays to be proactive and not assume things. When I left N Power I checked my online account with them and to ensure the final bill had been generated and made sure it was paid.

If a supplier does not send a bill for over a year for no good reason then that is primarily their fault. The customer is the one paying, and the service the supplier should be providing in return for that payment includes providing accurate and timely bills.

In addition with npower many people, myself included, are having great difficulty getting an accurate bill despite asking repeatedly. It is difficult to see who is to blame for npower's billing mess but npower.

iancrotty

Maybe I could of checked my online account but at the same time maybe npower could have sent me a bill originally instead of a year and a half later demanding payment in full.

footyguy

iancrotty wrote: »

Maybe I could of checked my online account but at the same time maybe npower could have sent me a bill originally instead of a year and a half later demanding payment in full.

It's normal to demand full and immediate payment on a final bill.

Have you tried calling nPower about the bill if you believe it to be issued in error (e.g. because of the 12 month back-billing agreement mentioned earlier)

If still no success, try this
http://www.npower.com/idc/groups/wcms_content/@wcms/@busi/documents/digitalassets/puttingthingsright100108.pdf

Ensure the bill produced is put into formal dispute pending investigation of such complaint (which will hold off collection actions)

iancrotty

I've spoken with npower today and they have agreed to halve the bill so it's only going to be £60 so have decided rather than have all the hassle to just pay instead but thanks very much for all the advice provided.