Help getting my money off nPower

shieldsy

I took over the position of secretary at my local church in February this year. Discovered that our community centre had an £850 CREDIT

Long story short ... numerous letters & phone calls and I still haven't received a penny of it back yet!!

Last week sent them a "letter before action" notification - gave them 7 days to make full refund plus interest at the statutory rate plus appropriate compensation else I would revert to court action.

Guess what ... 10 days later ... nothing

Can anyone help me with the actual wording I should use on my moneyclaim complaint.

Also what do you think might be an appropriate amount of compensation to ask for given that I have made at least 6 phone calls and 2 comprehensive letters and have been promised refunds on each occasion but have had nothing forthcoming ... probably taken the best part of a working day in total.

Appreciate anyone's experiences in similar situation

Terrylw1

Hi,

Ok, to refund your money they just have to do this -

Work out your consumption for the next 12 months and then see if you are still in credit for the full amount or part, in which case they refund it. They won't refund sums that you will go back into debt for as it's a way of helping you.

That takes 5 minutes to do unless you have many other issues causing problems e.g. meter change disputes, change of supply disputes etc.

However, you need to be clear that you are actually in credit for £850. For instance, are you due to get a bill soon which will swallow up your credit? Also, are your readings on your meter accurate to the bill because if the bill reading are lower than the meter, you will get your refund and just end up paying parts back.

Give them a reading from the meter as it helps them to properly calculate your credit. For all you know, they may have been overestimating you in which case you may get more.

You also may need to adjust your payment scheme with them which they should do as part of refunding you. It sounds like (if your meter readings atch your bill) have been overpaying. They may have been writing to the previous secrerary about it.

They won't compensate you for your phone calls but may give you an ex gratia payment to apologise typically £20. As far as the letters go, were they recorded/registered? If not, you can't prove they even got there. Have you also factored in time for the postal strikes etc?

They won't pay you interest, again ex gratia apologies are how they deal with things.

I don't understand why you would want to go to court unless you are expecting a lot. You could write to Energywatch and get them involved. they will then monitor resolution of your complaint and keep on the Supplier as there is a timescale for EW complaint resolution.

Sorry if some of the compensation side seems negative on my part but I've seen such claims before and they tend not to get considered as you get people adding in costs for their time etc which they won't even recognise. Ex gratia payments tend to be as far as they will go unless you truly want to go to court over it.

It would be worth you getting your name added as secretary in the address as well so they know how you are if you call in. If they have someone else down as secretary and you call in, they cannot help you as they have no record of you. However, letters on letterhead would be ok.

All the best

shieldsy

Appreciate the response Terrylw1. Sounds like you know what you're talking about

The credit is based on actual meter readings (made by them). It has been getting depleted over the 6 months since I originally asked for the refund. We are still in credit by £580 - again based on real meter readings. We have stopped making payments.

They have acknowledged receipt of letters. My final "letter before action" letter was sent by fax.

Certainly don't want to go to court but I have threatened court action because absolutely nothing else seems able to get the money out of them!

If we were to let our account get £850 into debit and kept making false promises to pay it within 14 days then I wonder how patient they would be. £20 ex gratia payment is almost an insult. It is no exaggeration to say that I have spent the best part of a working day making phone calls, with meter readers, writing letters, sending faxes etc. Had they repaid the £850 when originally requested we would have earnt that amount in interest.

It's not unreasonable in asking for such a large credit to paid back in less than 6 months is it?

After I sent the fax I was contacted to say that they would arrange payment "immediately" (heard that one before though!), that the cheque would need to be made to me personally (even though the account is for "St Mary's Church" and I have repeatedly asked to make the cheque payable to them - I am just an office holder), and that they would offer £20 goodwill. None of those things has materialised.

Terrylw1

I was in the industry for years and the customer service these places offer is often tragic, not to say that it's all the fault of the staff.

Well, if you owed them they would be quick to get the red letters out and pass it onto debt collectors! I totally understand where you are coming from as I've heard it many times.

Suppliers have a quite arrogant attitude towards compensation and use the "fob them off with £20" route.

In the case of some greedy customers this is correct but in many cases it just isn't given the disruption their lack of service causes. Maybe you can argue enough to cover your time & expense etc.

I have found that the higher you go in utility companies, the more compensation you get. Write to a CEO and watch everything happen very quickly because the last thing middle management want their CEO to see is their incompetance!

The fact that they have firm readings is good news because it's easy from there. They just need to calculate your next 12 months and make sure that by refunding you, they don't put you in debt. Even if they do, they could refund you and adjust your payment scheme to take care of it (Suppliers refuse that one, but at the end of the day, they can't withhold your cash if you agree to pay more to compensate for extra use!!!)

They have to send the cheque in the name of the account holder as legally the supply is held with the organisation, not the secretary, chairman or even treasurer. So, hate to say it but again you have spoke to someone who hasn't got a clue. Is the account holder the organisation? You need to be careful because these companies tend to use automated request systems for bills/cheques so they go to the account holder. So, make sure they don't need to add you as the legal account name to do this - or you will end up liable for the supply, so more hassle for you to sort in changing it back!

They have to assess and refund any credits at your settlement quarter which is generally the 12 month anniversary. This is an automatic process but a customer can request a refund at any time - it's your money they are holding.

These companies must make an absolute fortune in interest this way. As I mentioned on another post when I worked in the mobile phone sector for one of the companies you see on TV, they used to have hundreds of thousands in deposit accounts and constantly held back after the time they should have refunded their customers on this basis!

In many companies threatening a solicitor is enough to give them a kick, but sadly that doesn't seem the case here.

If I were you I would send a copy of the letter to the MD and copy it to Energywatch.

Your case takes about 5 mins to deal with. Thats the shocking part! It's a basic training given to their staff and you wonder why they struggle to deal with anything remotely complicated! The only thing with the amoutn may be that the accounts department may need to countersign it if it's over a certain threshold. So, really even if that was the case you should get it within 7-14 days off 1 call to them.

As I've said on other threads, these companies get monitored on the complaints to Energywatch so even if it's simple or even sorted, writing to Energywatch helps to expose their incompetance.

Good luck