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

System

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

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?

As said earlier in this thread, you are now on your own. Consumers should only go to The EO if they believe that they have a cast iron case, or win or lose doesn't really matter. The best you can hope for now is that the supplier gives you time to pay but there is no guarantee that it will do so.

SwanJon

cranford wrote: »

If you do go to court you will need to set out exactly what you are claiming for. You appear to have had a supply for about two years. So you will need to set out year by year how much you have been charged and how much you think you should have been charged. Since you have meter readings you should be able to do this. If I understand this correctly you are claiming because if you had of know that the tariff you were on was expensive you could have switched sooner and you could have paid less. But I would question whether your current £50 a month is enough. If you check on this forum you will find that heating by electricity can be very expensive and could cost a lot more than the payment you are making.
Having said that if you think you have a case you can fill in a few forms for the Small Claims court and represent yourself. All it will cost will be the court fee which will be no more than £209 depending on your claim size.

Agree with this.
Look at the payments you have made as well as the actual readings you have. The only mention I can see of a previous bill was for £23, obviously way to low for a quarters use so it may be a left over part of a bill.
If you still have (acces to) the preceding bills you can use these to help build your case. Do they obvioulsy show the readings as estimates, or do they have some meter reader ones in there too?
How much do you think you should pay for 2 years worth of electricity? (How many kWh did you use in that time?)
How much have you already paid?

To go to the small claims court, you need to have something to claim from them - until you pay them you don't - so you'll need more than the £209 to start

Bob_Bank_Spanker_2

Crikey, I found War and Peace easier than that! So it is not in dispute that the energy was used, and the correct tariff applied? So essentially this dispute is that the OP was unaware they were accruing such debt. In that case, there really is no point going to County Court OP, you will lose. The only chance you would have is the back billing rule, which cannot apply here as npower were sending bills, albeit online.

System

Bob_Bank_Spanker wrote: »

. The only chance you would have is the back billing rule, which cannot apply here as npower were sending bills, albeit online.

That ship has sailed. The EO will have considered Back Billing in its judgement. The supplier is firmly off the hook. Customers cannot keep complaining about the same issue just because they do not like the result.

jamesaitken42

Customers cannot keep complaining about the same issue just because they do not like the result.

I totally and utterly disagree with this. There is a clear correlation between customer service complaints going up and the amount of customers leaving npower over the past years. They're complaining for a reason.

The infuriating thing is that is so dam difficult for one average person to take on such a massive company. And, in my case, I strongly believe the ombudsman haven't dealt with my case properly either - remember, the ombudsman isn't a legal God. It's just one person looking at my case, along with thousands of other cases. - and now I am helpless!

Either way, thanks to all for the advice...

jamesaitken42

In that case, there really is no point going to County Court OP, you will lose.

....this is the worst part of it all. Deep down I know that's true. Because in court they assume you're an all knowing consumer-robot. Sucks to be human. Farewell 4 grand. Hello debt. Woe is me.

matelodave

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

....this is the worst part of it all. Deep down I know that's true. Because in court they assume you're an all knowing consumer-robot. Sucks to be human. Farewell 4 grand. Hello debt. Woe is me.

If you'd have been paying for your energy over the period in question, you wouldn't have accrued the debt, so you are effectively £4k better off now than you would have been. Unfortunately you've probably got to pay it all in one lump unless you can negotiate a payment plan.

Hopefully you'll now realise that you do need to read your meters regularly and to check that the bills are correctly using the the readings that you are giving. You need get them corrected if they aren't. You also need to make sure that your payments are covering your consumption or get them adjusted if they aren't. Just hoping that it will sort itself out or that someone will let you off because you didn't isn't the answer

10 minutes a month will save you all this aggro.

90% of the problems on these forum are the result of people not keeping an eye on their finances and getting them sorted out before it gets out of hand.

footyguy

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

...And, in my case, I strongly believe the ombudsman haven't dealt with my case properly either

If that is correct (as supported by an independent legal adviser), then it probably would be worth taking the matter to court

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

- remember, the ombudsman isn't a legal God. It's just one person looking at my case, along with thousands of other cases.

Remember, it is essentially just the same in the county court.
The county court judge isn't a legal God (but he/she will be on his/her way). It's just one person looking at your case, along with thousands of other cases.

If you think that the decision by the county court judge is incorrect, you can usually appeal that too.
(again, as long as it is based on good legal interpretation)

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

- and now I am helpless!

This is a bit worrying. Why are you helpless?
Did the independent legal adviser not agree with you either?
If, at this stage, you cannot find an independent legal adviser that does support you - take the hint

stevegrass777

I would look carefully at your billing,find your start meter readings and cross reference them with your end meter readings from your previous company.
I found big errors with npower billing so just check them.
I have had lots of trouble with them not billing for months,it took them 9 months to get my farther a bill and 15 months to get him a accurate bill.
I found the ombudsman useless also.
The big trouble is,there system is rubbish.
They send meter readers around then don't use them or get the readings the wrong way round (Economy 7 every time this happened).
I have sympathy as when you sign up you expect DD and meter readers to keep everything in check but at npower it all goes to pot if you don't send reads in or check every bill,or chase bills that don't arrive or correct everything as nothing seems to work properly.
They have been doing energy billing for donkeys years and now they can't even get the basics right.
Now My farther and me are with green star energy and flow and both seem to do accurate bills no problem,and estimate within a pound or two.
Glad to see the back of them,but do double check your start read and if on E7 the reads are the right way around.
They had my farther paying for energy he had already paid for by getting the start read wrong.

phillw

jamesaitken42 wrote: »

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

My energy supplier always tells me if they used estimated meter readings. Did npower?

What tarrif were you on and what are you on now? I've never seen switching reduce your bills by 90% Are you sure £2000 of npower energy is the same as £200 of your new suppliers?

Assuming your opening reading was correct then don't you feel responsible for not finding out how expensive the energy you were buying actually was? It sounds like they decided that your supplier wasn't wholly to blame, even though they made some mistakes.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/household-gas-and-electricity-guide/who-contact-if-its-difficult-paying-energy-bills/energy-back-billing-your-rights