npower alleging non-existing debt

christopher_gallagher

Npower allege that we owe £267.66 on the account from our previous address. We dispute this. A decade ago we accrued, not entirely through our own fault, a massive debt which we had cleared by deduction through an Npower pre-payment meter. A change in circumstances meant that in May we gave up the lease on our flat and moved to a new address to look after my mother. As the move date drew nigh I had my eye on the meter and could see that we were going to clear the debt by the time the lease was up. On the day of our move it was down to 8p and on the day we handed back the keys it was nil. There was also still £8.00 of credit on the meter. Since then the agents have being doing decorating and refurbishing. Other people who helped us move saw the meter and I have been back to the property a month ago to photograph the screens, particularly the S screen which shows outstanding debt. What should I do next?

Ectophile

Did you remember to tell NPower that you had moved out? If not, they will keep billing you until somebody else takes it over.

christopher_gallagher

Thanks for your reply. The landlord's agent has that responsibility. The terms of our lease require that we leave the electricity supply as is when we hand over the keys and they deal with the notifications. However, it's a prepayment meter, so charges are taken from the credit we left on the meter. There should still not have been anything outstanding.

nPower

christopher_gallagher wrote: »

Npower allege that we owe £267.66 on the account from our previous address. We dispute this. A decade ago we accrued, not entirely through our own fault, a massive debt which we had cleared by deduction through an Npower pre-payment meter. A change in circumstances meant that in May we gave up the lease on our flat and moved to a new address to look after my mother. As the move date drew nigh I had my eye on the meter and could see that we were going to clear the debt by the time the lease was up. On the day of our move it was down to 8p and on the day we handed back the keys it was nil. There was also still £8.00 of credit on the meter. Since then the agents have being doing decorating and refurbishing. Other people who helped us move saw the meter and I have been back to the property a month ago to photograph the screens, particularly the S screen which shows outstanding debt. What should I do next?

Hello christopher gallagher,

Thank you for your post. If you can email the account details and more on this to the address on our profile page one of the team will be happy to look into this for you.
Thanks, Carmel

brewerdave

Had the prices (p/kwh and p/day) been updated on the prepayment meter? It's possible that the meter wasn't deducting sufficient credit for power consumed, if the debt has taken several years to pay off - particularly if the meter was an old type.

mac.d

christopher_gallagher wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. The landlord's agent has that responsibility.

It's your electric bill, so its your responsibility. Its amazing how many people are happy to leave it to a landlord/letting agent, though I guess understandable that people think its a pre-payment meter so there's no need to bother. However, nPower chasing you for a debt is exactly the reason why you should always take note of opening/closing reads.

If it's not that long since you moved out and you have photos of the meter reading and the screen showing the debt left on the meter, then that's great (it's always a good idea to take a photo of the meters the day you move in/out of a house). As the nPower rep has made contact here, send the photos to them along with the account details and hopefully you'll get it sorted. Though be aware of what brewerdave has just posted too, as you could still owe them money. Good luck.

christopher_gallagher

Actually it was a term of the lease that we left the electricity supply connected and they would arrange termination and changeover, so we had little choice.

worried_jim

christopher_gallagher wrote: »

Actually it was a term of the lease that we left the electricity supply connected and they would arrange termination and changeover, so we had little choice.

Not really, just do a meter reading the day you move out. Job done.

christopher_gallagher

Actually, that is a really good point. I assume that such updates would occur when the meter was read. In fact Npower were quite dilatory in coming to read the meter, prefering to record us as late paying with Experian, rather than updating their records. Surely, if they increase their prices, the onus must be on them to advise customers using prepayment meters that those meters need updating, so that the customer can arrange a time and day for a correction. (See one of my earlier threads).

christopher_gallagher

We did. A (credit) = £8.00, S (outstanding debt) = 0.00.