taking powergen to court

queeniebuttercup

Hi Quentin

I see your point, and know your helping me, Im now having doubts because the points you have made are very valid.

dellxps

queenie,
when you first signed up with powergen you should have been sent some terms and conditions. Ask Powergen again for these, preferably through their complaints dept. there's no point in talking to the same dept.

Terrylw1

queeniebuttercup wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

Energy watch say they are entitled to back bill prepayment customers 2 years.

I have decided to pay of £280 and leave a debt of £100, doing this means I can change supplier, and by switching I will be saving £30 per month. Could of been better not to pay it out in one go but I dont want to give them any more custom.

Filled in court papers yesterday and need to take them in and pay the £50.

Even if theyare willing to come to court I think Ive got a good case that
1. there are no terms or conditions (so how am i suppose to know what could of happened with regards to back billing)
2. statments every 2 years, could of known I was in debt
3. Its a key meter that should automatically charge new prices.
4. If you recieve a normal bill, they will only back bill 1 year
5. can list other companies that will wipe their charges when their at fault.

I will see this through until the end as im furious and feel that people on prepayments pay higher electricity through them anyway and are generally on a lower income.

Hi,

Ok, just a few points for you to consider.

1 - they all have had a terms & conditions in place prior to de-reg years ago. Request a copy. Metering is also fully covered for workings & collection processes by Ofgem & the DTI. They dictate the terms and conditions under the Supplier Licence and it's ongoing reviews.
2 - if you haven't had a statement in 2 years, they 1 year backbill applies to you if it has arrisen this year. Why haven't you had any bills at all? If you haven;t had any bills at all, they have to backbill for any charges per the Ofgem agreement.
3 - Yes correct but all devices can be faulty. Thats under act of god, etc etc. They are not responsible for meter safety or maintenance although they have a duty of car for you. They could only have done this from your account, so I think the argument is more about how they did not monitor this from your payments & bills. The device was not actually faulty and you had power, so I think this would be a hard issue to go with.
4 - it's 1 year as of 2007 which is after the 2005 Supercomplaint by Energywatch to Ofgem. So, if this has occurred tis year - Energywatch are mistaken (they have muppets too, I've dealt with some who haven't got a clue about utilities)
5 - thats is not a legal obligation. The CAB & Energywatch are campaigning for Ofgem to enforce this. Ofgem when challenged have stated they can understand the benefits but they have NOT agreed to change anything yet

Honestly, getting some advice before progressing would be good. Currently not even the CAB & Energywatch have managed to change this and they have countless examples of even disabled people or low income people suffering badly here.

The only thing I guess would be to make it too painful for the Supplier to challenge and get them to write off something in good faith.

How are you changing Supplier by the way? Do you know your current Supplier can object? If you have a long standing debt, they will do.

Regards

Crystaltipps_2

The current Powergen Ts and Cs can be found on their website. If you did not get statements in the last year, it is unlikely you have had this version, but have the version before instead.

Normal call centre members of staff don't have access to copies of Ts and Cs, but various people in the back office do, so there should be no problem providing you with a copy.

However, regarding the bit in the Ts and Cs about price increases, I'm fairly sure (without having a copy to hand) that this bit in the most recent update was unchanged from the one that you probably had:

3 Changes to prices or this contract
We may change your prices (unless product-specific additional terms and conditions apply) or other terms of this contract.
If we do make changes we will notify you of when they will take effect. If you do not accept the changes, you can end this contract by telling us within 14 days of receiving our notification and arrange your switch to a different supplier. If you do this, the changes will not affect you unless your transfer to a new supplier does not take place within six weeks. In that case we reserve the right to implement the new terms.

queeniebuttercup

Hi

Still no further forward, I called energywatch again yesterday and they couldnt answer my questions but said theuy would call me back as nobody had asked these questions before.

1. told them that as I hadnt recieved a statement since feb 05 surely I would be covered by the super complaints.

Read through the super complaint and it states that if you havent had a bill for a year or longer your covered, as mine are statements not sure if this would apply to me, it doesnt state anywhere thats its just for billing customers not prepayment.

queeniebuttercup

Hi

Just a quick update with some good news.

I phoned energywatch again as on thier website it states that

Powergen: The company has promised to recalibrate all meters within three months of a price change. Recovery charges will be a low rate, agreed with the consumer.

Also I am covered by the super complaint as I havent recieved a statement for 2 years and have never been informed of a price increase.

Energywatch contacted powergen for me and Ive got to fill in a form with all the readings from my meter, when this is done i Have to send it back to powergen for their final figure. But energywatch said worst case scenario I will only have to pay the last 12 months and I might be able to get away with 3 months as the meter wasnt recaliberated.

Either way I will be happy, the guy at energywatch said most people give up and end up paying as making a complaint isnt that easy.

Thanks to everyone.

Terrylw1

Hi,

Nice one, glad it worked out for you as this way is far quicker than the legal route.

As far as Energywatch's comment on people giving up - thats more a reflection on their poor representation (and Ofgem's poor regulation) than of Suppliers who are in there to make money until they are regulated to change!!! Energywatch & CAB are supposed to be getting Ofgem to change the whole policy on PP recoveries like this but have failed so far. It's worth noting that only 3 Suppliers still operate this way.

The statements & bills issue is a bit of a loophole that should be closed. In reality Suppliers generate blls & statements the same (in the cases I know of) so they shouldn't be distinguished between like that otherwise you just create a loophole for Suppliers (well done Ofgem). The Suppliers I have worked with certainly never treated their customers any differently in this way.

MarkR_2

Good Luck Queeniebuttercup, hope you can get somewhere with Powergen.
I have a similar problem with them (although no where near as bad as yours I admit). I have a property that I let out and that has a "prepayment" meter in it for which i was responsible for during about 9 months ( yeahh long while I know, guess I spend too much time reading sites like this!) while was decorating it etc. Well I, like most others I would think ,thought that prepayment meant just that, you are only getting the energy supplied AFTER you pay for it, I rang them a couple of times on the freephone number, 1st time thinking bill for £90 odd quid was a mistake and got a well snotty woman, thought about it for a few days and rang again,hoping to get her again being a bit more prepared to give her back as good; but the bloke I got was actualy quite pleasant, but wouldnt/couldnt budge on the bill apart from to say i could pay it monthly, so I left it to think about it. My intentions are to string them out as long as possible, but guess I will have to give in eventualy. Having read your post I will definitley try giving energywatch a call, if nothing else it might register as another complaint about unfair practice from powergen.
The "prepayment"(think it needs renaming to "partpayment" )meter belongs to them, and its not my fault that they havent got it set right. Its also realy bad customer relations, as most other energy companies arent "back billing" in this way.. I'm hardly going to go around singing there praises or consider being a customer of theres again if they dont change this unfair practice.

Terrylw1

True Mark, only 3 to my knowledge do this but they are also the major playing in the PP market which explains why!

Energywatch & CAB are trying to Ofgem to make this compulsory but so far Ofgem seem to acknowledge it's unfair, but do nothing.

Seems like these companies need some bad press to see if they can be shamed into changing as the other players have done.

MarkR_2

Thanks for your responce Terry, and to Queeniebuttercup for starting the thread and mentioning Energywatch. The website for energywatch is http://www.energywatch.org.uk/ , it makes for some interesting reading.
I called Energywatch, who are putting a complaint in for me, the chap I spoke to was realy helpful, apparently its something they are getting a fair bit of complaints about.
I think I will end up having to pay it, but the more people that complain about it, the more chance that Powergen will be shamed into ending this unfair practice.
I can afford to pay it, but i realy begrudge doing so.
A lot of people on prepayment meters will be on them because they are struggling financialy, and a large company like Powergen being able to put them into debt through no fault of there own I find disgusting.