I am looking for some advice dealing with the DCA chasing after an alleged debt they say I had with Npower.

I paid every month by direct debit and as far as I was concerned all paid off and sent the final meter reading on the day I moved out.

I called them few months later and was told what the final bills was £36 and paid off.

Now a DCA sending letters, but the company name is Npower Northern which I have never known.

My bills had the name Npower and not Npower Northern.

Have they changed names?

How can there be an outstanding amount when paid by monthly direct debit ?

I have read so many posts regarding their incorrect bills.

I am going to call them today and send a SAR request and start the process from there.

It is so unnecessary that we have to do this as when we pay every month and trust them to send correct bills.

Could be a total fake demand. I thought it was just NPower.

Don't bother with SAR. Just email NPower customer services with the account reference number and ask them for an explanation.

I would not waste money on a phone call, you might never get back

Check your credit record just in case this debt has been noted.

Which DCA? You can totally ignore them as they cant do ANYTHING.

Thank you both for quick responses. It was Westcot chasing after. I know they can be a bit troublesome sending intimidating letters to frighten people. Does anyone know the email address or the postal address for the Npower? I will write to them direct.

It is annoying when DCA's send these letters to stress you out when you think you have settled the bill every month without fail and given them the final reading before moving out.

Many thanks again.

Raise a complaint. Contact details in link

https://customerservices.npower.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/694/~/how-do-i-make-a-complaint%3F

I would not worry about Westcot at the moment.

Many thanks UB67.

I will contact Npower direct and send my formal complaint. Is there a template letter anywhere? If not I will draft something out.

Thanks again, and much appreciated.

No relevant template.

Just provide NPower with the customer reference,

supply address it related to,

the name on the bill.

Just say that you have received a debt collectors letter asking for £xxx

, when you are certain that the final bill based on the last reading was settled.

OK great. Many thanks for your help.

Will update as and when I do hear from Npower. I had a look at the link, and it seems there is a Npower Northern, but it must be in North of England. But I live in South of England. May be they got mixed up with account numbers.

May be they got mixed up with account numbers?.

Wouldn't surprise me at all, and DON'T call them, you need to fire off an email to their complaints department/customer services, and follow it up with a hard copy.

As for Wetcloths, they're a joke, you can definitely ignore them, check your credit file too, see if they (Npower) have been marking your files.

Thanks BB.

I tried to call Npower now, and I am already fed up. Passed onto three people, and the last person spoke to gave me a completely wrong account number.

I think time to send a letter of complaint to the Customer Services complaints department.

Many thanks for your help.

CB

2 people advise not to call them, as it would be a waste of time, so what did you then do. There is a reason behind the advice people give.

NPower use an Indian call centre for some work and it would not surprise me if your erroneous bill was created there.

NPower don't do customer service.

You have to complain in writing.

Hi UB

Yes I know it was a waste of time.

But I had to get the account no to check it matches the one that Westcot stated in their letter.

I do not have any bills since paying off the bills as I have shredded them when I moved house.

The guy I spoke to initially gave me one account number and the last person I spoke to gave me a totally different number.

I am going to enclose the letter from Westcot and hopefully someone will come back to me with correct details.

If you provide your name and address of the supply, even if the reference number was wrong, they could presumably do a search. They use an energy industry database, where they can check supply details at an address.

Just be prepared to wait awhile to get a response from NPower.

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes I will put the address details and the dates when I was living at the time.

Do I need to send any bank statements as proof of payment at this stage or do I send them later once they have established account details? I will only send copies as they may loose them.

No you don't send bank statements. You can just confirm the date of any final payment made and amount paid.

OK. Many thanks.

Will update when I do hear from them - hopefully in a couple of weeks.

CB

I received a letter from Westcot offering 50% discount. How generous!

I was stupid in the past and fell for these letters. Thanks to this site I have learnt to ignore and only deal with the company direct. So still waiting to hear from Npower.

I went through all my bank statements and created a spreadsheet with all the payments made. I am surprised of the astronomical sums of money that I had paid. I remember that I was in credit by over £200 but they still took money out of direct debit payments.

Today I received the copy of the bill from NP.

It seems that they may have not closed the account when I left in 2015.

The bill says the standard variable rate but I had the duel fuel with special offer which was taken on 2013.

Also there were no payments or deductions on the bills which were for the last 4 months - from Feb-May.

Someone not closed the account in May when I moved out, so now trying to get that bill put it onto me.

I am going to send an email to the Director of complaints with my payment details.

Before I do that do I need to send a SAR request to get all the previous bills/statements?

That will take 40 days at least.

I would like to get this finalised asap.

No don't need SAR.

Just send a written complaint to their head office. If you have any paperwork confirming when you moved out and even better anything that confirm you told NP, then send them copies. I suggest you send them a copy of the bill they sent you as well, showing that they are trying to charge you for energy you have not used.

Give NP all the details you have available, as your records might be better than those NP have.

Check your credit record to see if this debt is recorded, so you can ask NP to remove it if necessary when you write to them,

Thanks UB for the quick response.

I checked my bank statements and put all the payments onto a spreadsheet.

In fact I have payment details going back to 2009 as I was paying by direct debits.

It is astonishing to find that every month they had increased the amounts for some reason.

I was stupid not to check my bank statements all these years.

I can prove that I have made payments up to the 1st May.

Normally you pay in advance I have paid May-June bill on the 1st May.

I do not have any DN on my CR file although they mentioned this in their letter to say that a DN was put on in Jan 2016.

They confirmed in their letter that I advised them of the moving date and the meter reading on that date.

they have kept the old details on their system hence they were trying to reach me and could not do so as I do not live in the area where I was.

I called them today to find out what telephone number they were calling and was told the previous number,

I told her that showed someone did not close the account or updated the details on their systems on the day I moved out.

She was trying to tell the bill needs paying etc.,

I asked her to explain in writing how exactly they came up to the final figure.

She said she would.

I am not happy so writing to the Director tomorrow.

on how many more of your threads do you need to be advised to STOP USING THE PHONE.......

it blows anything you do out the water as it breaks the papertrail

Hi DX - thanks for the advice.

The only reason I had to call was that in their letter they said they have been trying to reach me for sometime, and I wanted to check what telephone number they used. That is how I found out that they had not updated their system as they were using the previous number. So I think now they proved that they had not updated their system, it may be that they did not close the account at the time I moved out.

Unfortunately, unless these calls are recorded, you have no way of proving what you think they told you. The person you spoke to may have added notes to the system saying " curiousBee phoned confirming that they had not closed the account in 2015 and updated contact details. They were advised of the amount outstanding that needed to be paid".

Suggest you send the letter to NPower as advised previously with all of the information. Then someone in their complaints department can fully review your account.

The only reason I had to call was that in their letter they said they have been trying to reach me for sometime, and I wanted to check what telephone number they used..

This should be a lesson to newbies, there is absolutely NO reason to call, if they can send letters to your correct address then that is the ONLY means of contact they need.

Many thanks for all your responses. Much appreciated.

Will remember next time not to call them even if they write to me saying they could not reach me. Yes that was confusing as they sent me the letters to the current address, but said they could not reach me on the phone. Surely, when they closed the account they should have deleted my old home telephone number. This may have been a trick they were playing.

Anyway letter sent out today to the head office with my payment details. The bills had no payment details or deductions even though I paid via direct debits. Will wait and see what they come up with next.

Also in their letter they said it is the DCA now dealing with this alleged debt. How can this be as the problem is not resolved yet?. I bet I will receive letters from Westcot now as NP may have told them to continue harassing people to get the money. Unbelievable!

If that happens is my next step to write to OFGEM or the Energy Ombudsman (if any such company exists)?

Thanks again for your help.