Npower - Offer to pay.

spendthrift66

Hello everyone

Can anyone tell me whether Npower HAVE to accept an 'offer to pay'.

I have a £1077 bill, which was basically run up over a period of year, because they kept underestimating, and (of course) I fell behind with payments because I lost my job etc etc.

Also I asked them to allow me to set up a DD which they would not allow (???) as it was a payment plan. Now, I'm not saying I have been blameless in this but I have just written to them, enclosing a £50 cheque, and offering to pay them £97 per month which I have worked out will clear the arrears over 18 months and also pay money towards my useage.

I don't want a prepayment meter as they are very expensive and also it would be down the cellar which is not particularly accessible.

Does anyone know if they have to accept a reasonable offer? Or is this not a reasonable offer?

Thanks in advance.
S

spendthrift66

Can anyone advise? Please?

Broken_hearted

My arrears are close to £400 including this months bill, they are refusing dd under £70 and have canceled two dd set up for less. Our meter is being changed later this month as they put in the wrong type(?) for our usage, but I'm stressed when they get here it'll be a key meter.

MABLE

Not sure if this helps but about 8 years ago when we sold our house we had not received a gas bill. The problem was Bgas or the other company were arguing who should be billing us. I advised them I was moving and needed to settle the bill. The amount was £1050.

Bgas agreed they were the ones who should bill us and and said they would settle on a figure of £750.00 and if unable to pay off immediately would accept £50.00 per month. We just issued a cheque for the outstanding amount.

As you can see in our circumstances they were willing to come to some agreement.

chimp_choker

Npower do not have to accept a reduced payment as you have used the gas / electric. If they are offering to put in a pre payment meter then you are indeed right in the fact that they are the most expensive form of payment and DD is the cheapest.

To keep on a credit meter as you are now they will generally insist on the debt being paid back within 12 months at the most but I don't know why they will not take a DD on a payment plan, sorry. I know a lot of companies are running massive debts from non paying customers. E.on for instance (formally powergen) is now running at £68 million ( up to December 07) so you can see that debt is an issue for the companies.

The problem you have is that you cannot swap suppliers to get a better price as Npower have to agree to you being taken by another supplier and this only happens if you are in debt to around £50 per meter ( gas / electric). As a very cynical utillities salesman I did / do have a very sneaky suspicion that the companies in general allow people to run up a debt larger that they should in order to keep them as customers. The number of people I met as a utility sales executive / home energy consultant that were in debt was in the region of 35% of all contacts. The common complaint from customer or potential customers was that they had not received a bill or that when the prices increased they ( the company) never increased the DD.
Sadly it is on the onus of the customer to keep a check on their bills so if Npower are going to put a PAYG meter in then you don't have much choice as I read the rules but keep paying off the £97 if you can and try to get an agreement that you will have the credit meter re installed and the pre payment meter taken out once the debt has been paid.
However it is up to the company and if they think you will get into arrear again then they will not change the meter. Even if they do agree to the meter change they will require a deposit of £150 and 6 months of regular payments before they do this. This is a general response industry wide but in general it is what happens. Sorry. One good bit of news is that once the debt is paid off you can swap to a cheaper supplier as a payg customer and there are a lot of them cheaper than Npower. What you also need to find out is who is the local supplier for your G&E. These are invariably the most dearest so if Npower is your electric generating / distribution company then you need to swap like wise with gas.

HTH

chimp_choker

MABLE wrote: »

Not sure if this helps but about 8 years ago when we sold our house we had not received a gas bill. The problem was Bgas or the other company were arguing who should be billing us. I advised them I was moving and needed to settle the bill. The amount was £1050.

Bgas agreed they were the ones who should bill us and and said they would settle on a figure of £750.00 and if unable to pay off immediately would accept £50.00 per month. We just issued a cheque for the outstanding amount.

As you can see in our circumstances they were willing to come to some agreement.

What happened in your case was that when you changed supplier you probably kept paying the old supplier( either by design or default probably default if BG was involved, lol.) so money you paid to say npower should have been going to BG or visa versa. There is a slush fund in operation that all this money is put into by the industry so that when there is a dispute on who the supplier is the money comes out of this fund.

spendthrift66

Thanks all.

So it looks like a big fat NO then to my question.

Apparently they have to go through quite a few hoops to get the right of entry - can they just break in? Oh dear. Well, I have sent the letter and the cheque - so hopefully it'll stall them a while.

Thanks again.

dollydoodah

Have you tried contacting Energywatch to see if they can help on your behalf?

http://www.energywatch.org.uk/

spendthrift66

Thanks, MY OH mentioned that - but I don't think they can help... as chimp choker says - we've used the gas. I just wish they would accept the arrears over 18 months. I can't see how it can be cost effective for them to be putting in a pre-pay meter when I am clearly offering to pay. Oh well, thanks again for the link!

MABLE

chimp_choker wrote: »

What happened in your case was that when you changed supplier you probably kept paying the old supplier( either by design or default probably default if BG was involved, lol.) so money you paid to say npower should have been going to BG or visa versa. There is a slush fund in operation that all this money is put into by the industry so that when there is a dispute on who the supplier is the money comes out of this fund.

We never paid anyone for about two years because of the confusion no one would accept responsibility for the supply. The only time we paid was when Bgas agreed £750.00

SwanJon

They probably don't want to offer you the discount associated with DD seeing as they have already given you £1000 interest free. Most plans work over 12 months, so asking for 18 was probably also a stumbling block.
Getting a warrant to enter the house takes a few weeks, but when did they start the process.
Pay what you can now towards the balance, keep an eye on your account.
If the meter goes in, keep making the extra payments, and make sure they update your meter so you don't pay it twice - then you can get it out again sooner.

Generally once it has got this far you can't stop it. Keep in touch with them to see what can be done, and keep an eye on any estimates.