powergen charging me £677 when i am on a pre payment metre!

[BARNSIE146]

I run up a debt on my gas and electric with Powergen during 2005, they then fitted prepayment metres and started taking the debt off each week. I changed suppliers 9 months later and the debt had been paid off, but I then recieved a fianal bill for £270. When I called them they said it was because i hadn't paid my final bill, I explained that i was on a pre payment metre and so how could I run up a final bill? I spent all day on the phone being passed from pillar to post and in the end it was resolved and they admitted they had made a mistake. I was assured that was the end of it. After moving house, 9 months later I get another bill claiming that I now owe £677! it's nearly trebbled! considering I never owed anything in the first place! I called them and they said they would look into it and call me back, to no avail! I heard no more for nearly a month and then I recieved another bill claiming I owed £377 , I then got on the phone again, waited in a queue for 45 minutes before someone answered the phone! Eventually I got through and the lady looked into it all and then said she would ring me back, much to my surprise she did! She then told me that the debt has now accured because they didn't actually put it onto the pre payment metre when they switched us onto it! I told her it was put on , I know, I put on the money and watched it dissapear each week! She then said that they were going to look at all the amounts of gas and electric used and ammounts of payments put on and work out whether we had been paying off the debt and call me back before 4pm tommorrow.
I don't know where they get thier figures from, they seem to make them up every time they send us a bill. They never actually attempted to even come and read the prepayment metre either!
Can they charge us now for a debt dating back to December2005?
Can they charge us for something that they "cocked" up on 2 years ago?
How do I prove that they have actually worked anything out and aren't just sending out another guesstimate?

[pula]

Can't really point you in the right direction but something like this happened to someone I know. She was also with powergem - been on prepayment meter for 15 years (7 with powergem) and then moved to another supplier. Received letter from their debt collectors (Buchanan + wells) threatening legal action etc over £600. It helped to get through to the prepayment dept closed acounts although situation is only suspended by 3 months while they investigate. So you aren't alone. They are obviously in a mess and making certain that consumers take the stick! The way I see it, if you are on a prepayment meter how can you owe them any money? It might be helpful if you have any receipts so they can check if your payments went to the wrong supplier. Apparently this does happen (although it's not your fault). In addition they also recieve payments which they can't identify from whom they came. I certainly wouldn't admit any liability if I had prepaid and received my power as a result. Good luck!

[ozzywizard]

No they cannot claim the money back off you now. Lets await their response and take it from there.

[BARNSIE146]

It's now been 2 days since they said it would be looked into and they would call me back, and surprise surprise, they haven't called back.
I spoke to a friend of mine today and told her about it all and she said she has recieved a debt collections letter from a company used by Powergen for a bill of £8000, yes thousand, from her previous address and she is on prepayment metres and has been for nearly 15 years!

[ozzywizard]

I spoke to a friend of mine today and told her about it all and she said she has recieved a debt collections letter from a company used by Powergen for a bill of £8000, yes thousand, from her previous address and she is on prepayment metres and has been for nearly 15 years

This is a mistake, im sure she owes nothing, get her to phone them if she has not allready.

[kregrs]

I am having the same sort of problem with Powergen, I moved house 9mths ago, for the 7yrs I'd lived in previous property I'd been using a pre-pay meter, fitted by previous owners. I had a bill for for £619, rang Powergen and asked why? Was told it was for increases in charges that hadn't been applied to my meter, explained that it not really my fault or problem, that I had no way of applying said charges to my meter, they were the supplier and any changes would have needed to be made by them. They said they'd look into it, then on Saturday I got a letter from Robinson Way & Co demanding £619 or go to court. I've rung them andtold them I'm in dispute with Powergen, but all they said was "tough, not their problem, pay up or else". I'm quite prepared for it to go to court, I'll gladly fight my case against them and see what I can get out of them as some form of compensation for all the stress this has caused.

[ozzywizard]

I have replied to you on your own thread Kreg.

[slikmik]

hello
more or less same thing happened to us, we were paying monthly direct debit for about 20 month all fine, then woke up one morning bill through letterbox £600 odd , contacted power gen straight away said we hadn't been paying enough direct debit even though they advised us when we joined them disputed this with them asked if they had read the meter and could not of contacted us earlier, they replied by law don't have to read the meter until every 2 years it is now in the hands of a collections agency we don't know what to do from here , surely they could of informed us at an earlier stage we got rid of them anyhow as customer service is sh@t now with British gas.spoke to a few other people who have had the same thing happen to them.
i smell a RAT !!
any advice greatly appreciated

SLIKMIK

[BARNSIE146]

hi again,
nearly 2 months have gone by and yet again Powergens only reply was in the form of a threatening letter! After stating they would work out our usage and payments on our top up card and then phone us back, THEY DIDN'T!! What a surprise!
So now we have recieved a letter warning of legal action, stating we owe them £377.20, well at least they haven't changed the amount again!
My husband is going to call them in the morning, as he's being dealing with it, I'll let you know what happens next!

[Yoda]

We have had a similar thing with NPower. We had a new meter fitted because they said the old one was out of date. That's when our problems started. We had bills ranging from £200 to £1200.00 and bearing in mind that with a prepayment meter, if you don't have tokens, your electric goes off, this is just rediculous.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we phoned every time we had a bill/letter and asked how it could happen (no token, no electric). They would promise to get back to us & never did. They said they would send someone to recalibrate the meter so we could pay off the debt via the meter - we refused as the debt was in dispute.

We have had this for approximately 2 years now & on the last bill, they put through an adjustment credit to clear all debt. This bill has come through and we are in credit.

And all without them ever calling us back.

Stick to your guns & just keep questioning them. There is no way with a prepayment meter that you should be in so much debt & if you ae, then they are at fault for not recallibrating your meter when the cost of electric went up.

Good luck with this

Yoda

[dx100uk]

just as a side note to all with problems
no energy Co can reclaim anything that dates back past 2 yrs.
this is the period set by the energy watchdog.
if they dont recal their meter atleast once in a 2 year period with their new rate it is too late to retro charge a customer.

its on the cag site somewhere

dx100uk

[emmaf01]

I'd say if you are not happy with their (lack of) response to your queries, you should take your concerns/complaints to Energywatch.

They can generally help to get the energy companies moving!

[Anne26]

Hi there

I used to work for a utility company on the prepayment department so I may be able to give you some advice.

The only way that someone can owe money on a prepayment meter is:

(1) If the meter was fitted for a debt accrued by a Credit (normal) meter and you have changed suppliers before the debt has cleared, or not enough debt was set on your meter in the 1st place so you have not cleared the ful amount.

(2) The meter has not been set to the new prices. Some customers' meters are still set to the old prices. So say, for example, that your current prices are 10 pence per unit, but you meter is still collecting 5 pence per unit, this means that you are underpaying by 5 pence for each unit of electricity you are using. Depending on the amount of time and the amount of electricty you use, this can build up to a lot of money.

The two cases above are the only ways you can genuinely owe the money. In some cases the debt may be showing on your account but is not genuine. This could be due to estimated readings, so if your account is over estimated, it will make out as if you have used more electricity than you really have, so will show a debt that you don't owe.

I think that someone at Powergen needs to look though your account and investigate it fully. There should be a complaints number on the back of your bill or statement. Call that number and tell them that you need this to be investigated. If you still do not feel that you are not getting anywhere, then ask them to pass you to their manager. Keep onto them until they can prove to you why you owe this money.

In your case BARNSIE, I don't think that the debt can be due to your meter not being set to the correct prices, as the price increases only started in 2004 and if you changed suppliers 9 months after have the prepayment meters installed, i don't think that you could have accrued this much debt. I think that it is either incorrect or your initial debt was not actually cleared when you changed suppliers.

I hope this helps

[BARNSIE146]

hi, we have now had 2 phone calls from debt collectors, working on behalf of powergen. My husband is ringing powegen back AGAIN tonight to see if they will look into it properly, like they said they would 2 months ago! I will take my concerns to Energywatch and see what they say. Thankyou for the replys and useful information, I will let you know any more out comes.

[Sarah_Pussycat]

Originally Posted by dx100uk

just as a side note to all with problems
no energy Co can reclaim anything that dates back past 2 yrs.
this is the period set by the energy watchdog.
if they dont recal their meter atleast once in a 2 year period with their new rate it is too late to retro charge a customer.

its on the cag site somewhere

dx100uk

Just found this quote on the Energywatch site -

However, as a result of the ‘super-complaint’ submitted by energywatch in April 2005 to the energy regulator, Ofgem (see below), energy companies have been told that, as of July 2006, they should no longer bill for any energy used by consumers more than two years previously where the company themselves has failed to provide a bill. As of July 2007, energy companies will be expected not to bill for any amount that dates back longer than a year.

[emmaf01]

No wonder the energy companies are busy little bees at the moment- rushing to send bills out for the next few weeks!

[BARNSIE146]

Hello everyone,
We have reported our complaint to Energywatch and they have sent a letter to Powergen who are ringing and keeping us up to date with their investigation!!!!!
We have now been told that the £377 was a mistake and we don't owe anything on that bill, BUT they are now claiming that we owe them £99 for something else, which they can't actually pinpoint what! So we have one of their customer service team looking into it and they are going to call us back, We got a call yesturday to say that their computers are playing up and that they will ring us back again tomorrow (today). So lets see what they come up with today!
Speak to you soon..................... ..