Npower billing errors - £4000 bill for a 2 bed flat?! Ombudsman not helped!

jamesaitken42

Evening all,

I have an ongoing dispute with Npower regarding a £4k bill which they sent me because of incorrect estimations. It is very, very complicated - much more complicated than simply being billed by incorrect estimates - as Npower persistently failed to inform me that my bills were incorrect, up to 6 months after I had started sending them actual meter readings.

I have disputed this with the Ombudsman and they concluded that it was RIGHT that I should pay for the £4k. I appealed, and provided more evidence, but the Ombudsman concluded again that I should pay up and there was nothing more they could do (apart from order Npower to credit me £50 for a shortfall in customer service. What a joke!). I rejected this, so I won't be getting the £50, and I'm left to fight Npower on my own.

The issue I had with the officer at the Ombudsman is that she failed to see that what I was disputing was the fact I could have swapped suppliers sooner had Npower informed me I was racking up huge bills sooner. Instead the basic reply I got was "you've used the energy therefore you pay".

I'm going to paste the full e-mail thread below. It is very long and very complicated. I just want somebodies (anybodies?!) opinions on whether I'm in the wrong or the right.

Here is the e-mail thread.... happy reading.
(note, obviously none of the referenced attachments are there, so you'll just have to take my word for it that they exist!)

Original e-mail complaint, sent after I received letter from Ombudsman in the post:

Hello,

Please see attached documents relating to complaint reference 01384768-01 against Npower, including signed permission slip. Please let me know if you need anything else.

I've included an e-mail I received after the case was raised as curiously the amount outstanding was reduced without any explanation, but is still extortionately high.

Please bear in mind that the first letter received, on 11.05.16, was the first actual bill I had received since around October the previous year. Npower had sent me several letters in the months between October - May informing me that they were having issues with my bill so they were being delayed. I didn't think anything of it, I simply expected a higher bill when it did finally arrive, so I binned all the letters. I hadn't anticipated the bill would be several thousand pounds. If I had known then I would have looked into it much sooner.

Npower did in fact send me some bills directly to my online Npower account. But I had no e-mail notifications and I had previously only received paper bills. So I had no idea I was getting these bills as I had never had to check my online account before,

I've now switched to Utilita and my electricity (I have no gas) is costing my £50 a month.

Hope this all makes sense, it's a bit confusing...

Thanks,
James

Reply from Ombudsman (was a letter but found this online copy)

I am writing to confirm the outcome of my investigation into the complaint you made about npower. I have considered the information provided by both parties. This includes your complaint form and copies of correspondence. npower has provided a file that includes its summary of the complaint and copies of correspondence, account notes and bills. You tell us that you received a bill from npower which you paid in December 2015 and after this you did not receive a bill for a few months. In May 2016, you received a bill for over £3,000 and it dated back to 2015. You say you have since switched suppliers and have been receiving debt collection agency (DCA) threatening you with court action if you do not pay. You dispute the balance. npower tells us that in July 2016 you called to query the balance of £3,732.64 and you disputed the balance. It says a complaint was raised off the back of this call. npower explains that an estimated bill was issued in December 2015 for £13.96. It advises it then issued an actual bill on the same day to your customer readings dated 9 September 2015. npower confirms that you were on quarterly billing and there was a delay between December 2015 and May 2016. It confirms it did issue a letter to you advising you of the delay. It says you have had an activated online account since July 2014 so all bills have been uploaded to your online account since then. npower confirms you left supply on 7 August 2016 and a final bill was produced on 19 October 2016 to an actual reading, leaving a final balance of £3,859.31. I have reviewed your account and can see that you have an online with npower. The online account was activated by you on 16 July 2014 which has meant since this date, all of your bills have been uploaded online. I can see that from July 2014 to December 2015, regular bills uploaded to your online account. I can see that you provided a customer reading on 11 August 2015 and again on 9 September 2015 however these were not used on your September 2015 bill. I believe this is an error and a shortfall in its customer service. Should it have used this reading in September 2015, it would have highlighted the large balance to you sooner. On 22 December 2015, npower issued a bill billing you from your customer reading on 11 August 2015 and 9 September 2015. This resulted in the outstanding balance of £1,436.29. As your account has been estimated since 12 July 2014 and as a result underestimated, causing a large catch up bill when an actual read was given. It is a customer responsibility to provide regular meter readings to ensure they are being billed for their actual consumption. It is accepted industry practice for an energy provider to estimate an account where no actual reading is available. I find no error in its actions with estimating the account. I have reviewed your meter readings from July 2014 to August 2016 when you left npower and can see that your usage increases and decreases dependent on the seasons. I do not believe that your meter demonstrated any faults, you are simply a higher usage across the colder months, as expected. npower issued the final bill on 19 October 2016 using readings agreed with your new supplier. As your supply left npower on 7 August 2016, it should issue the final bill within six to eight weeks of the supply leaving which would have been by 2 October 2016. The final bill was issued after the industry guidelines so I believe that this is a shortfall in its customer service. As the final balance is based on meter readings agreed with your new supplier and npower has used customer readings since August 2015, I believe that the final balance of £3,859.31 is accurate and owed by you. You have requested that a reasonable figure by discussed however we are of the view that energy consumed should be paid so I would not suggest a negotiation for a valid balance. npower has since passed the debt to a DCA, which I find no error in as no payment has been made to npower since December 2015, despite you being aware that you had used energy and continue to use energy. We believe that a customer should continue to make payments, even during a dispute as ongoing energy is still being consumed. I have reviewed the payments made to npower and I can see that these were not regular as when you first joined npower in July 2014, the first payment was not made until 29 September 2014 and the next was not until 27 January 2015. This would have allowed a balance to build up just in the first six months of you being at the address. As the balance is now with a DCA, you will need to contact them to discuss a payment arrangement for the balance. npower or I cannot get involved with this as the debt has now been passed to the DCA. For the shortfalls in its service, I will ask it to issue a letter of apology and a gesture of goodwill of £50. I consider £50 to be fair and reasonable and consistent with complaints of a similar nature.

My appeal to Ombudsman with added material to appeal:

Good evening,

I recently received your reply regarding the above the case. For reasons, which I deem wholly unfair, you have decided it was justified that I should have to pay Npowers bill to me for £3859.31. But you are willing to order them to take off £50 for a "good will gesture" for poor customer service.

I believe there are inaccuracies in this case which should result in it being readdressed.

You said I had an online account with Npower and it was activated on 16th July 2014. So you believe that this in itself should have been enough for me to have been aware of the high bills in order for me to have done something about it sooner.

However, this is not the case. I have reminder e-mails dated 9th July 2015 and 30th October 2015 asking me to activate the account. Then I have a confirmation e-mail that my account was activated on 7th November 2015, not 16th July 2014 as you stated. See all attached e-mails. At this point I will have seen a balance online of -£23.82. This will have appeared totally normal to me. I then went on to pay the outstanding £23.82 on 12th December 2015 at a Paypoint machine at my local garage, so as far as I was aware my account balance stood at £0.00.

I never opted to stop receiving paper bills. I had always received paper bills and I always paid using paper bills. Paper was the way I ran my account, not online.

I never expected to get such a high bill which I would have to dispute, or that would cause me to see fit to change supplier. So when I was receiving the letters informing me the bill would be late I had no idea that something needed to be done as soon as possible. Nor did the letters inform me that the bill would still be available online. So it never occurred to me that I would need to start using my online account as the primary.

I did not receive a single e-mail alerting me that I had bills ready to view online whilst I was receiving the letters telling me my paper bill was being delayed. The first e-mail bill notification I received was on 19th May 2016. See attached. This was coincidentally only a couple of days after I had changed my password to my account, although I have no evidence of whether this is connected. Also attached.

Can I please request a log of my logins to the Npower website and a log of when I first opened the online bills? I strongly believe I did not access my online account until I finally received the first paper bill for £1436.29 in May 2016. I would also like a log of any e-mails from Npower notifying me of any bills sent to my online account from all of 2104, 2015 and 2016, as I strongly believe I had none up until May 2016.

I conclude that I did not contact Npower sooner because I simply had no idea that there was any issue to resolve. This was down to a total breakdown in communication from Npower to myself during a crucial time when I needed to know there had been a huge mistake in my billing for the previous year, which would result in a large financial burden to myself. There was no fault on my part as I had provided actual readings on 11th August 2015 and 9th September 2015, to which you have acknowledged Npower did not use on my September invoice. Had I have known in either September or even December, 2015 I would have paid what I owed and changed electricity provider. Instead, I was left totally unaware, so my large bills continued to rack up to the sum of £3161.64, and finally £3859.31. Although my previous bill payments had been relatively sporadic, there was not a single invoice left unpaid up to December 2015. This means that where you mentioned that a balance will have built up in just the first 6 months of being at this address is totally irrelevant to the case.

You asked why this information had not been brought to the case sooner. This was because I was not aware the use of my online Npower account would be the deciding factor on whether I would be liable.

I would like to make clearer what I believe to be a fair amount for me to pay: I am happy to pay for any electricity I used prior to my September 2015 bill which I did not pay for due to incorrect bills because of incorrectly estimated readings. Because if this bill was correct to my August actual meter readings then this entire case would have been avoided and I could have found a new provider sooner.

I look forward to your response at your soonest opportunity.

Regards,
James Aitken

Second and final decision from Ombudsman:

Dear Mr Aitken 

Your complaint about npower (residential)
Thank you for your patience while we considered your representations to the investigation.

You tell us that your online account was not activated until November 2015 and not in July 2014 as I suggested. I have reviewed this again and can see that the online account was in fact activated in November 2015. I can see that in July 2014 when you joined npower, you provided it with an email address which left a note on the account stating activation however upon review of this I can see that this was notification that the account could be activated. This means that bills were sent to your address between July 2014 and November 2015. I have checked the addresses on the bills and am satisfied these were sent to the correct address.
I can see that regular bills were issued but it was not until 22 December 2015 that a bill was issued with a large balance. Before the 22 December 2015, your account did show a debit balance of £23.82 which you did pay on 14 December 2015. I should highlight that all bills issued between July 2014 and September 2015 were based on estimates so this balance of £23.82 was not based on your actual consumption.

The bill issued on 22 December 2015 did not use meter readings provided by you in August 2015 and September 2015. I would have expected these to have been used on the bill issued in September 2015 and as already explained in our proposal, I believe that this is a shortfall in its customer service.

As no readings were provided between July 2014 and July 2015, the account had to be estimated and in this case underestimated. It is accepted industry practice for estimated readings to be used if no actuals are provided at the time the bill is produced.

As your account was activated for an online account in November 2015, all bills was uploaded online following this. This means that the bills issued December 2015 were uploaded to your online account and as a customer you have a responsibility to manage your account by checking your bills once they are produced. I am satisfied that a notification was issued to you in December 2015 following the bills being uploaded as these happen automatically. As you received the notification in May 2016, I find no reason why you would not have received this in December 2015.

As explained the proposal, I have reviewed your usage and am satisfied that the usage is consistent with the seasons so I am of the view that you have only been charged for what you have used. I believe the period of a year where no readings were provided allowed a large catch up to be produced. It also should be highlighted again that payments were not made regularly and I believe that this would have helped the balance increase further. Between December 2015 and August 2016, you made no payments to npower allowing the balance to escalate even further.

We are of the view that energy consumed should be paid and as I have no evidence to suggest that this balance is not valid, I believe you are liable for this.

I would not expect you to have to pay the outstanding balance immediately. I consider that npower should offer you a payment plan and it does have an obligation to do so. The payment plan and its terms must be decided by you and npower.

We have now reached the end of our investigation process and there is no opportunity to appeal. You now have to decide if you agree to accept our decision in full and final settlement of the dispute.

The decision is that npower (residential) is required to take the following action to resolve your complaint:

• provide a written apology for the shortfalls in customer service; and
• credit your account with £50 as a gesture of goodwill.
If you agree, we will contact npower (residential) and confirm that you accept this in full and final settlement of the complaint.

npower (residential) will have up to 28 days in which to implement the remedy.

By accepting the decision, it does not prevent you from seeking redress through the courts, however, a court may take into account the fact that you have accepted our decision.

If you do not accept this decision, or fail to respond, the decision will not be binding on npower (residential).
Please contact me using the details below to indicate your decision. You must confirm your response no later than 14 days from the date of this letter.

Yours sincerely

April Cole

Investigation Officer 

Telephone: 0330 440 1624

Email: osenquiries@os-energy.org

My last e-mail to Ombudsman:

April,

The reason I didn't get a notification of the bill in December 2015 is because npowers billing system was malfunctioning. You're accusing me of covering up the December 2015 bill, withholding evidence as such. I totally admit that this is my word against theirs, which is why I asked for some sort of email log from npower to prove it. Instead you have told me you're satisfied because it "should" be automatic. But how can I possibly prove that I did not receive something?

You say that I have used the energy so I should be liable to pay. But this is not the point at all. The crucial part of this case is the December 2015 email which I never received, and you have simply decided you're "satisfied" with no substantial evidence whatsoever.

I did not know I should have been continuing to pay npower whilst this was in dispute. Nor did I have any idea what amount I should have been paying, as I assumed the 4 grand bill was totally wrong. Hence why I didn't pay anything.

I am not accepting the outcome and would like to know how I am to take this further without the aid of the ombudsman service.

Regards,
James

And FINALLY the last reply I received from the Ombudsman this morning...

Dear Mr Aitken 

Your complaint about npower (residential).
Thank you for confirming you do not accept our decision dated 13 January.

I appreciate your comments and these have been noted.

You have asked how you would take this further without our aid, I'm afraid I cannot give you advice on this.

As you have not accepted our decision, you have lost the right to the remedy we set out. You are free to follow other routes to resolve your complaint.

Yours sincerely

April Cole

What can I do without the Ombudsman to help me?? Do I even have a leg to stand on or should I reluctantly admit defeat?

Thanks for reading. Any advice very much appreciated.

Regards,
James Aitken

Bob_Bank_Spanker_2

Is the bill based on actual readings?

jamesaitken42

Hi Bob,

Yes. But the issue is that once the actual readings were used, and my usage and bills were adjusted retrospectively, I was not informed until the bill was up to £3600.

If I had received the bill at the correct time it would have been around £1000 and I would have arranged a payment plan and switched suppliers. Instead I was left blissfully unaware and it and it went up to £3-4k.

I haven't even mentioned how extortionate it is that in the space of a few months they charged me £2k for what Utilita are charging me around 200 quid. I know I'll be told "well you should know what they're charging you" so I'm not disputing it, even though it is a HUGE bill for a 2 bed flat.

Either way, all I want to do is pay for the energy I owe prior to the first actual readings, and nothing after. I want to play hardball but I fear I'm losing/have lost already...

Cheers,
James

Sparx

Sounds like you just want Npower to do a goodwill gesture and drop it £1-2k, right? Lol

You know you used the energy and tariff rates - ignorance is bliss. You only made it a problem when they corrected the bill...

Sorry bud, all you can do is go back to Npower and (politely) request they recalculate the bill based on a slightly cheaper rate - then agree together a lower amount and pay up.

matelodave

You had the opportunity to read your meter yourself and calculate the bill yourself. You also had the opportunity to change suppliers or tariffs.

You did none of that so you cannot epect that you should be given free or cut porice energy because to were too idle to try and help yourself

jamesaitken42

Hmmm. I just find it so unjustified that I should be liable for an extra £2-3k simply because they didn't send me a bill, or even warn me that my previous estimations had been so hugely miscalculated.

My complaint is not at the cost (even though I think it's a disgustingly large amount), it's at the huge failings in customer service. Surely a 50 quid rebate isn't enough to say "sorry" for customer service errors which resulted in me now owing them 4 grand?

Carrot007

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

or even warn me that my previous estimations had been so hugely miscalculated.

Why were you estimating? Sounds dodgy.

jamesaitken42

Hi matelodave. Did you read it all? The point is that I didn't swap suppliers sooner because I had no idea I was racking up huge bills, because npower didn't bill me correctly after I started using actual meter readings. If I received the bill at the right time then I would have owed them about a grand and that would have been the end of it.

As I said, it is very complicated... :S

jamesaitken42

Hi carrot007. Nothing dodgy! Or at least not on my part? I don't think?? Prior to this fiasco I wasn't very clued up on electricity billing and all the do's and don'ts. So when I was getting estimations for a year I didn't think anything of it... Naive, I admit.

quaybab

So how can a company let you switch supplier with an outstanding debt, not disputing it and yet there are countless threads on here about captive customers?
Perhaps Npower can answer?
I've had fabricated debt of £600+ and switched supplier but I can't advise what you actually owe.

jamesaitken42

Hi quaybab. Interesting... I only swapped once I got the bill for £3600. And there were no issues at all... I think utilita were so sure that the bill was ridiculous that they didn't do any disputing.