N power complaint

clairewinterbourne

I wonder if anyone has any advice for me when dealing with NPower. I feel absolutely beaten. I have a bill of around £3300 for one year supply. My place has lights and two radiators. I was tying to leave them at the time with a history of confusing bills and credit notes I didn’t ever know which bill to trust. 

I took it to the ombudsman but they didn’t not rule in my favour over the bill, saying it is acceptable to be on the out of contract rates. But they did say that they can see there was confusion and suggested if I accept the decision that NPower must make an apology. 

Now I don’t know how to proceed. It’s making me fell ill. I can’t pay it. I’d like to leave them. I am finding them so brutal to deal with and think I need some legal advice now but am unsure of where to look. I wish I hadn’t taken my case to the ombudsman because I think it means that citizens advice can’t help me now. 

Thank you
Claire 

Robin9

Did you do your own sums to see what you owed ?  ie using your own readings.

welshmoneylover

OP, you are not really stating the reason why you have such a large bill so we cannot advise accordingly.

did you submit regular meter readings?

Gerry1

You need to make sure you are on the cheapest available npower tariff.  Find out your annual consumption in kWh from actual meter readings, not estimates, and start comparing with Citizens Advise and 'Switch with Which?'.  Make sure you always send monthly meter readings.

Ask for a payment plan and top it up from time to time if you have any spare cash.

clairewinterbourne

My bill is so high because the out of contract rate is 3 times higher than an agreed rate. But to agree a rate would mean I am back in a contract and I didn’t want to do that when I was in dispute. Also this was happening over the time of Covid so it wasn’t my top priority sadly. Letting it go on has of course therefore made it worse. 

Now the ombudsman has done this: changed the decisions so that NPower has to agree a payment plan but has to let me leave as I am out of contact/ then NPower escalated this twice more within the ombudsman. The first time the ombudsman stuck with that decision, and the third time has now changed its decision and agreed that I cannot leave NPower. 

Neil_Jones

All a contract rate means is that the price they charge per unit/standing charge will not change for 12/18/24 months (and they may decide to charge exit fees if you up sticks and leave before those 12/18/24 months are up - but unless you owe them money, there is nothing to stop you leaving anyway), while an out of contract rate basically means you end up on a default tariff which is code for "bloody expensive" but they won't charge you an exit fee to move away.

I think this basically boils down to:  You've used the energy and you need to pay for it.  If you can't afford it in one go you need to speak to nPower and agree a repayment plan.  This may involve moving onto prepayment meter(s) where a small chunk of what you top them up with is deducted towards paying off what you owe, leaving the rest for your normal day to day.

Once you've paid off what you owe, the £3300+whatever figure, you are free to move provider and/or tariff.

Gerry1

You are in a contract from the moment you switch on a light: if you haven't registered with them it will be be a 'deemed' contract, although I doubt whether any contract is three times the 'agreed' rate.  And what do you mean by an 'agreed' rate?  The energy company publishes its rates and you have to agree to pay them, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't leave without paying an exit fee.

You still haven't explained the situation in any detail.  Did you register with npower when you started using their energy or have you just been on a deemed tariff the whole time?  Did you provide them with an opening reading and monthly readings thereafter, or are your bills based on estimated readings and perhaps paying for the previous occupant's use?  Have you done the relatively simple sums (based on the difference between the current and opening meter readings) to see whether you really clocked up £3300 in one year?  Have you not made any payments during that time?

What are the VAT inclusive kWh and standing charges you are now paying?  Are you making things go from bad to worse by remaining on a needlessly expensive tariff?

Unfortunately, without having all the relevant facts it's not possible to offer much meaningful advice.

Neil_Jones

Actually having had a thought about this three times the "normal" rate is the sort of rate you'd find on an out of contract business tariff (a place where I used to work had an electric only tariff that had eye watering out-of-contract figures - something like £3 a day standing charge and around 28p per kWh).  The OP isn't on a business tariff by any chance are they?

Robin9

I didn't think the ombudsman dealt with business or that he considered appeals.

More here than we are being told.   I suspect that OP had a considerable debt to start of with.

tim_p

Has to be a business rate unless the OP means the ‘three times the agreed rate’ refers to the DD £ quote they first signed up with but they have gone on to use substantially more, or thought it was an ‘all you can eat’ (non-existent) tariff. 

Ectophile

Domestic energy has a price cap, even if you're on the standard variable rate.  So there's no tarriff that's 3 times the price of the best deal.  Nobody would offer a deal that's only 1/3 of the capped price.