how much compensation should i ask for

hannah899

Hi

Basically I moved in to my house in 09 and been with British gas, In 2012 i started to received bills from Npower addressed to the occupier. Over the years ive received bill updates bill reminders and we're here to help you if you cant afford youor bioll letters. After years of phone calls and letters from myself, my mother and my support worker . The bill now sits at £1,527.89 I have a hand delivered letter to notify me of an application for a warrant and a disconnection notice.
I got in touch with ombudsman as npower have only just told me about the service and I didn't know they existed and she asked me what I want from it. I said
* to close the account, wipe the debt and a letter to prove myself or my address has never owed it.
* A personalised apology and an explanation of why they have not resolved the issue
* A good will gesture


My problem is I don't know how much to say. The lady said on average (I'm guessing for a few months complaint) the compensation is £50 - £150.
It just doesn't seem enough. I'd love to say £1,527.89 like the asked me for but lets be realistic. For 2 and a half years of what felt like harassment, Having the company admit that its there fault and the fact all the stress and anxiety its caused, I have a suspected asd so its caused me a lot of stress anxiety and upset and its all been completely unnecessary would you all settle for £150. If not what would you ask for.
Any opinions or advice are greatly appreciated

teddysmum

Have you still been paying bills from British gas ?

hannah899

yes Ive not missed a payment. they have just taken the quarter payment and im over £100 in credit and just received a check for £85 refund from my accounts. that's been the stressful thing My accounts with british gas I periodically check with them, n power know this and agree my supply is with british gas

naedanger

hannah899 wrote: »

Hi

Basically I moved in to my house in 09 and been with British gas, In 2012 i started to received bills from Npower addressed to the occupier. Over the years ive received bill updates bill reminders and we're here to help you if you cant afford youor bioll letters. After years of phone calls and letters from myself, my mother and my support worker . The bill now sits at £1,527.89 I have a hand delivered letter to notify me of an application for a warrant and a disconnection notice.
I got in touch with ombudsman as npower have only just told me about the service and I didn't know they existed and she asked me what I want from it. I said
* to close the account, wipe the debt and a letter to prove myself or my address has never owed it.
* A personalised apology and an explanation of why they have not resolved the issue
* A good will gesture


My problem is I don't know how much to say. The lady said on average (I'm guessing for a few months complaint) the compensation is £50 - £150.
It just doesn't seem enough. I'd love to say £1,527.89 like the asked me for but lets be realistic. For 2 and a half years of what felt like harassment, Having the company admit that its there fault and the fact all the stress and anxiety its caused, I have a suspected asd so its caused me a lot of stress anxiety and upset and its all been completely unnecessary would you all settle for £150. If not what would you ask for.
Any opinions or advice are greatly appreciated

Ask for what you think is reasonable, and give an explanation for why you think it is reasonable. If you can quantify your time then charging it at £10 an hour seems reasonable to me. (If you can justify more than this as an hourly rate do so.) If you have evidence of the letters you sent and the phone calls you made then supply details to back up your claim.

The Ombudsman may not give you what you claim, but that should not discourage you from claiming what you believe is a reasonable amount.

Assuming you have made reasonable efforts on a number of occasions to alert npower to their mistake I think you should be due quite a bit more than £150. The more effort you put in to trying to get npower to realise their mistake the more compensation I think you are due.

(If I had not dealt with npower myself I would have found it hard to believe that they would not have listened to you sooner.)

footyguy

hannah899 wrote: »

Hi

Basically I moved in to my house in 09 and been with British gas, In 2012 i started to received bills from Npower addressed to the occupier. Over the years ive received bill updates bill reminders and we're here to help you if you cant afford youor bioll letters. After years of phone calls and letters from myself, my mother and my support worker . The bill now sits at £1,527.89 I have a hand delivered letter to notify me of an application for a warrant and a disconnection notice.
I got in touch with ombudsman as npower have only just told me about the service and I didn't know they existed and she asked me what I want from it. I said
* to close the account, wipe the debt and a letter to prove myself or my address has never owed it.
* A personalised apology and an explanation of why they have not resolved the issue
* A good will gesture


My problem is I don't know how much to say. The lady said on average (I'm guessing for a few months complaint) the compensation is £50 - £150.
It just doesn't seem enough. I'd love to say £1,527.89 like the asked me for but lets be realistic. For 2 and a half years of what felt like harassment, Having the company admit that its there fault and the fact all the stress and anxiety its caused, I have a suspected asd so its caused me a lot of stress anxiety and upset and its all been completely unnecessary would you all settle for £150. If not what would you ask for.
Any opinions or advice are greatly appreciated

The ombudsman will review your complaint, and where appropriate, ensure you are put back into the position you would have been in had the reason for your complaint not have occurred.

It appears you haven't been billed anything by npower (bills addressed simply to "the occupier" are unenforcible) and you have not been cut off.

At best, assuming your complaint is upheld, nPower will be instructed to stop sending demands for the outstanding account they have (which would not be yours) to your address.

But something is fundamentally wrong if nPower have an ongong account for years for your address but no name . The ombudsman will work with the supplier and hopefully get this resolved. The ombudsman should be able to explain what went wrong, and so what has now been done to stop this ongong issue.

The ombudsman may, depending on the results of their investigation, agree that a letter of apology from nPower should also be sent to you.

As regards to other consequential losses, such as phone calls & postage stamps, again depending on the circumstances, these may be included in the restitution where you can prove they were wholly and necessarily incurred in dealing with the complaint that you say has not been resolved for years.

However, as nPower offer an 0800 number to contact them, I suspect you may find justifying telephone call charges difficult.

Made up charges for your own time & effort are not included in restitution, and if they were I'm sure HMRC would be most interested in hearing about them

With regards to goodwill payment, again this depends on the individual complaint, but where offered is typically in the region of £50-£150 as you have already been advised (more typically towards the lower end of that range)

JJ_Egan

Take the £150 if its offered .

naedanger

footyguy wrote: »

The ombudsman will review your complaint, and where appropriate, ensure you are put back into the position you would have been in had the reason for your complaint not have occurred.

It appears you haven't been billed anything by npower (bills addressed simply to "the occupier" are unenforcible) and you have not been cut off.

At best, assuming your complaint is upheld, nPower will be instructed to stop sending demands for the outstanding account they have (which would not be yours) to your address.

But something is fundamentally wrong if nPower have an ongong account for years for your address but no name . The ombudsman will work with the supplier and hopefully get this resolved. The ombudsman should be able to explain what went wrong, and so what has now been done to stop this ongong issue.

The ombudsman may, depending on the results of their investigation, agree that a letter of apology from nPower should also be sent to you.

As regards to other consequential losses, such as phone calls & postage stamps, again depending on the circumstances, these may be included in the restitution where you can prove they were wholly and necessarily incurred in dealing with the complaint that you say has not been resolved for years.

However, as nPower offer an 0800 number to contact them, I suspect you may find justifying telephone call charges difficult.

Made up charges for your own time & effort are not included in restitution, and if they were I'm sure HMRC would be most interested in hearing about them

With regards to goodwill payment, again this depends on the individual complaint, but where offered is typically in the region of £50-£150 as you have already been advised (more typically towards the lower end of that range)

I am sure the Ombudsman will agree the OP was billed. (I have never heard it said before that a bill needs to have a named addressee on it to be a bill.)

What the Ombudsman actually says about financial awards is:

"If a financial award is needed, this will be an amount that we consider appropriate to the individual complaint.
We can award up to £10,000 but the most common award is much less, about £100."

They also say:

"We can award up to £10,000 but the average award is much less, about £135. These are financial awards required by the ombudsman in addition to any financial goodwill that the company may have already offered during its earlier attempts to resolve the complaint."

So the amount is basically what the Ombudsman thinks "is appropriate".

I would argue it is appropriate that the OP be compensated for their time and effort in dealing with any significant problems that npower has created. I am not sure why the supplier would argue otherwise, but I suspect they will.

I also believe it is in the OP's interests to argue the amount of the financial award up, but within the bounds of what they believe is reasonable.

footyguy

naedanger wrote: »

I am sure the Ombudsman will agree the OP was billed. (I have never heard it said before that a bill needs to have a named addressee on it to be a bill.)

I didn't sugest the OP was not sent a bill (addressed to "the occupier".

What I said was "bills addressed simply to "the occupier" are unenforcible"

naedanger wrote: »

What the Ombudsman actually says about financial awards is:

"If a financial award is needed, this will be an amount that we consider appropriate to the individual complaint.
We can award up to £10,000 but the most common award is much less, about £100."

They also say:

"We can award up to £10,000 but the average award is much less, about £135. These are financial awards required by the ombudsman in addition to any financial goodwill that the company may have already offered during its earlier attempts to resolve the complaint."

So the amount is basically what the Ombudsman thinks "is appropriate".

I would argue it is appropriate that the OP be compensated for their time and effort in dealing with any significant problems that npower has created. I am not sure why the supplier would argue otherwise, but I suspect they will.

I also believe it is in the OP's interests to argue the amount of the financial award up, but within the bounds of what they believe is reasonable.

You can argue all you like, and I will defend your right to the hilt to do so
But I don't think you need any support in that area

But imho the ombudsman is unlikely to award any more than the £50 - £150 goodwill gesture mentioned for this case as described (and imho that will probably be towards to the lower end of that range, if at all). ... plus of course address the root cause of the complaint and stop it.

There is no other compensation awarded by the ombudsman for the OP's time & effort.

naedanger

footyguy wrote: »

I didn't sugest the OP was not sent a bill (addressed to "the occupier".

You said "It appears you haven't been billed anything by npower" all I am saying is that the OP has been billed by npower.

You can argue all you like, and I will defend your right to the hilt to do so
But I don't think you need any support in that area [

But imho the ombudsman is unlikely to award any more than the £50 - £150 goodwill gesture mentioned for this case as described (and imho that will probably be towards to the lower end of that range, if at all). ... plus of course address the root cause of the complaint and stop it.

There is no other compensation awarded by the ombudsman for the OP's time & effort.

My view is the OP will get at least £100 more than whatever npower offer if they take their case to the Ombudsman.

I think the Ombudsman will not break down their award but simply state it is the amount they consider appropriate. However I think the better the case the OP puts forward the more they will be awarded.

footyguy

naedanger wrote: »

You said "It appears you haven't been billed anything by npower" all I am saying is that the OP has been billed by npower.

Presumably the OP hasn't paid it, and as I said it's unenforcable legally, so the OP is not out of pocket.
(It can't be recorded on the OP's credit file either)

naedanger wrote: »

My view is the OP will get at least £100 more than whatever npower offer if they take their case to the Ombudsman.

I think the Ombudsman will not break down their award but simply state it is the amount they consider appropriate. However I think the better the case the OP puts forward the more they will be awarded.

Why do you think that? :huh:

naedanger

footyguy wrote: »

Presumably the OP hasn't paid it, and as I said it's unenforcable legally, so the OP is not out of pocket.
(It can't be recorded on the OP's credit file either)

All I was saying was they had been billed.

I agree the bill is unenforceable since npower have not actually been the supplier. However if they were the supplier then my understanding was that it would be enforceable. (Obviously they would need to find out the name of the OP to make the enforcement.)

Why do you think that? :huh:

Well the Ombudsman has said "... the average award is ... about £135. These are financial awards required by the ombudsman in addition to any financial goodwill that the company may have already offered during its earlier attempts to resolve the complaint."

The OP's case sounds to me a lot worse than average so if I think I am being very conservative with my view of "at least £100 more than whatever npower offer". Depending on just how much correspondence the OP has had, I would hope the actual amount would be significantly more.

I assume you think the case is less serious than average when you came up with your estimate.