Npower Obscenities – is it just me?

Smodlet

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

When I posted I deliberately avoided mentioning MoJO40’s highly speculative compensation claim; :eek:

...however, God loves a trier.

Yerrs... I imagine nPower find the OP very trying! I wonder what they have written about him/her on Xoserve by now? Maybe this is the right thread, after all.

ChrisDB

Smodlet wrote: »

Thank you, ChrisDB. If I get any sshh, I will post back here if I may? I have spoken to nPower's complaints team a dozen times at least, I should think and have found them mostly OK but occasionally indifferent, as you have.

Please do not take this as a criticism but one thing I have not done is walk away with no compensation. Many times they have written to me to advise they are closing a complaint; if I did not consider it resolved, I told them to open it up again pretty darned quick and they have.

You really need to show them who is the customer and my default setting is to escalate at the drop of a hat; it does tend to focus their minds. I take the same approach with my telecoms provider; it is sometimes the only way to get their attention and having such words on a file is the very depth of unprofessionalism. I think it was Houbara who mentioned the consequences for the perpetrator.

I was once spoken to as if I were something this little creep called Paul had stepped in. I was incensed. It was years ago and I can still remember his name and the amount I received. He thought he was fireproof because he was the only person in the whole of nPower who knew about solar panels. I had to wait forever to speak to a manager but, when I did, I had the whole of my last bill refunded to my account, over £100; that is how bad he was so it is worth holding your ground.

If you can be bothered, I hope you too can obtain some compensation for the shock and distress this horrible revelation must have caused you.

Thanks Smodlet! Yes, feel free to post back in this thread. It would be nice to get it back on topic! To be honest I was all set to fight Npower for a bit of compensation but they caught me off guard. They'd been due to phone me no later than Monday but they left it until 7:40pm on a Friday night. Usually I'd be working but I'd had a cancellation and was enjoying a rare glass of wine. So I was rather mellow and didn't want to change my mood so when I was asked "can we close your case?" I said "yes". But as soon as I put the phone down I spent the rest of the evening and weekend feeling like I'd given in to the school bully. I posted about it on my Facebook page and one of my friends who is also fighting Npower had also received a call that Friday night. Watch out for that one! It seems Npower have a policy in their complaints department to use Friday night to close awkward cases. They probably hope people are full of that Friday feeling, which includes forgiveness and something alcoholic.

Looking forward to hearing how your case goes. Keep up the good fight!

ChrisDB

Smodlet wrote: »

One would certainly hope so at least of the big 6. As for the others, I would not like to hazard a guess. All I can say is, my experience with nPower has been pretty much as Houbara describes except the default amount used to be £25 rather than £30.

Yes, this is what I found with Npower when they failed to turn up for an appointment to replace both my smart meters. Without me asking they automatically gave me £25 compensation. At that point I was thinking Npower seemed like a pretty good company because nobody in my household had been inconvenienced by the failed appointment. Yet Npower have no policy for compensation for obscenities by their staff relating to their customers. Really?! If they'd offered me £25 I wouldn't even be on this forum ranting about it, and I wouldn't have posted it on Facebook or told everyone I know about it (I haven't even started the reviews all over the internet yet!). This has resulted in at least two people deciding they wont renew with Npower, which effectively has cost the company a lot more than £25.

ChrisDB

BTW, if my problem happens to someone else, or something similar relating to your information held by an energy provider, it's worth considering making a subject access request (SAR). A friend of mine who works in compliance recommended that I do this. My data on the Xoserve might not be the only data Npower are responsible for that got changed or messed about with. So I sent a message to Npower's Data Protection Officer making a request for my information in accordance to the Data Protection Act. That was on the 19th June and they have a calendar month to respond. Needless to say I haven't heard a pee out of them even though their time is nearly up. I wonder how much it's costing them in man hours to search their system for my data? Probably a lot more than saying sorry and giving me £25 compensation, as they should have done in the first place. That's assuming they've even started dealing with my request.

Smodlet

Sorry for the tangent your thread took, ChrisDB.

I do not anticipate any issue with nPower during this switch as I know I am in credit and they confirmed this in an online chat yesterday. I did ask about the Xoserve thing and they confirmed they do not send this information unless it is requested. I will own I do not really understand why anyone would need it, tbh. I am not inclined to look for trouble but anticipate it with Eon, having just had my first chat with them.

The operator called me in the middle of it (a first, in my experience) and sounded as if she were high on crack. I could not get a word in edgeways. Not a great start but price trumps customer service every time if you are a :money: right?

If you are really unhappy with nPower, why not contact their complaints dept. and tell them what you have just posted here? I have had several complaints re-opened, admittedly not after I agreed to their being closed but you could always try.

ChrisDB

Thanks Smodlet!

Sounds like your switch will go OK. I'm moving to Tonik and it was them that informed me about the obscenities on the Xoserve database. Once Npower had changed my address Tonik told me that the postcode was still incorrect but now they were sure it was my data record they were happy to proceed and fix my postcode after the switch. This makes me wonder if they could have done the switch even with the obscenities in my address field but chose not to because they didn't want to be held responsible for it sometime in the future. Tonik confirmed that it's only your existing gas provider that has the rights to update your information on the Xoserve database.

I've considered contacting Npower's customer complaints team to reopen the complaint but for the sake of £25 compensation I don't feel it's worth the hassle. The switch isn't complete yet and the Npower complaints team are so incompetent they'd probably screw up the move if I got them involved now. And once the move is over I'll want to forget all about it, except for bad mouthing Npower for the rest of my days.

Thanks for your replies and help! If anyone else encounters something similar hopefully they'll find this thread during a search and some of what has been discussed proves useful.