Npower breach of Ombudsman's 28 day ruling

naedanger

Cardew wrote: »

You are correct. Perhaps I should have said the original decision is not binding on either party.


However it is difficult to see what teeth they have if a company ignores their decision.

I think the Ombudsman's final decision is binding on the supplier (but not the customer).

But I agree the Ombudsman seems to have no teeth when a supplier fails to comply with their decisions.

I suspect the Ombudsman cannot do anything other than make decisions and the supplier is required to implement them (by regulation). Therefore the Ombudsman can say he has powers to force the suppliers to do things e.g. apologise, pay redress etc.

However if the supplier simply ignores or otherwise frustrates the Ombudsman's decisions I suspect the Ombudsman has no further powers. What should happen, in my view, is that Ofgem should sanction the supplier for breaching a licence condition (being to have a complaints process that including following the Ombudsman's decisions). However it seems Ofgem don't know what is happening (partly because npower is fiddling its complaint statistics) and the Ombudsman is not even informing Ofgem of certain suppliers repeating failures to implement the Ombudsman's decisions in the required timescales.

I think the main problem is therefore that the Ombudsman is not reporting suppliers to the regulator when necessary. This results in npower (and probably other suppliers) getting away with very tardy complaints handling practices.

amberrye

Thanks for the replies, information and links.


It's so frustrating to see clearly others are in the same situation, yet according to data published by Npower they have zero "cases in which 28 days have passed since ombudsman decision was made" and claim this has been the case for several months!


It's so hard work and so against consumers.


*Happily I found out today that I have now successfully been switched to another supplier


So I am not going to put myself through the stress of contacting and complaining to Npower anymore. They instead can chase me for the money for energy owed over the last year or so.

Cardew

amberrye wrote: »

So I am not going to put myself through the stress of contacting and complaining to Npower anymore. They instead can chase me for the money for energy owed over the last year or so.

Whilst that is understandable, be careful though that you don't 'cut off your nose to spite your face'.


They will quickly pass any debt to a Debt Collection Agency(DCA) and this can adversely affect your credit record.

amberrye

The account balance is zero.


The ombudsman ruled they have to take meter readings to see what is owed and generate a bill. Which of course they haven't done yet.


I will happily pay what is owed. However, they don't seem in any rush.


The main thing is we are now with another supplier, which we are very pleased about.


I would be very happy to get a bill from Npower and pay them off, once and for all.

amberrye

naedanger wrote: »

Npower keep and publish statistics on the number of Ombudsman cases that are outstanding 28 days after the ombudsman decision was made. The following is a link:

http://www.npower.com/home/customer/#tab-2

You will need to hit the complaints tab that is a few paragraphs down the page.

There they show they have had no ombudsman complaints outstanding after 28 days since May 2014. So not only have npower not complied with the Ombudsman's ruling they are fiddling their complaint statistics.

I suggest you complain to Ofgem that npower are fiddling their complaint statistics (and so breaching their licence conditions), which seems to me to be a very serious matter. The email address for ofgem is [EMAIL="consumeraffairs@ofgem.gov.uk"]consumeraffairs@ofgem.gov.uk[/EMAIL]. You need to make clear your complaint is that npower are breaching their licence conditions by not implementing Ombudsman rulings and failing to keep accurate complaint statistics. (Ofgem do not investigate individual disputes.)

I made a similar complaint to Ofgem, who said they were interested in hearing about it. I have not had an update but did not expect one as I am fairly sure Ofgem will be required to keep any investigations confidential. Obviously the more people that tell Ofgem what is going on the better.

Thanks, yes I will certainly be contacting Ofgem.

chanz4

If you are with another supplier,you do know npower wouldn't be able to take a read don't you and will be upto your new supplier?


This would be a valid defence, also about raising a further complaint would fail as you have already had the case deadlocked before, ceo by the way is the same complaints team as normal no different.

naedanger

chanz4 wrote: »

also about raising a further complaint would fail as you have already had the case deadlocked before

No the further complaint would be about a separate failing.