Thanks for updating us. Of course you could claim those other losses – but maybe it's better not to rock the boat. Anyway, well done. It shows that it is worth standing your ground

Yes, I think it's time to move on from this discussion now and take the action that you think is necessary and that you are prepared to go along with.

Okay. I was just wondering whether there had been some repayment plan in place. Apparently not. In that case, it's up to you when to send them a letter of action and how much time to give them.

You are paying what you use – so you aren't paying any of the arrears? So what is the position on the arrears?

Okay. I don't really know what else we can usefully say here. I think you have to make a decision as to are you going to sue them? Do you want to enter into some initial discussions with them about this? If so then how long you want those discussions to last before you give up and send them a letter of claim? Do you simply want to send them a letter of claim now? Are you still receiving regular demands from them at the moment? Are you in some kind of payment plan at the moment? I suppose that you could write to them and say to them that you've been reviewing the situation and that you now realise that the back billing rules should have applied and they haven't applied them and therefore you consider that you have overpaid to the tune of XXX pounds and you want it back. Then if you don't hear from them within 14 days – you can issue your letter of claim. I think it's up to you now to decide how aggressively you want to deal with this and how quickly you want to move it forward

A shame you resumed paying. In the letter which gave you the advice, which issue was it that they were referring to which needed to be resolved?

Yes, I think you may have mentioned this advice not to pay until the issue was resolved somewhere else in these discussions. Can you tell us a bit about that please. What date was that? Have you got anything in writing or simply a reference to it in the disclosure? Did you then resume paying despite that advice? Why? The advice to you not to pay is very helpful to you. What particular issue were they referring to that needed to be resolved before you should start paying?

If you have taken time off for them to replace faulty meters then this would definitely be recoverable. Do you have the dates and times? Also, please tell us about the wrongful information and the hardship it caused you

There are a number of points in respect of your proposed letter. Firstly, you are referring to the overpayment – "it has not been possible to resolve this matter…" As if this has been an ongoing issue. I'm not aware that it has. I'm not aware that you have had any dispute with them in which overpayment of £116.55 has been the subject. So in that respect, the reference you are making has no meaning. Secondly, you are proposing to provide them with documents which you going to rely upon. I don't think this is the place to do it. This is something that would come after you see what their defence is and you are preparing for a hearing. You are trying to get them too much information to early on. You should provide them with a minimum of information at this point. Your offering the mediation – they are not mature enough to be able to deal with this. If you want to get into mediation then you should say that for later. At the moment they will simply see it as another weak threat from somebody who doesn't really want to take legal action and who probably won't. All the rest sounds a bit like an attempt to be a lawyer – (which is generally speaking not a good thing). Also, you are offering them 28 days. This seems like a long time to me. A normal letter of claim would give only 14 days. As far as I'm concerned, 28 days is simply 14 more days in which to ignore you. I think firstly you need to decide whether you want to raise the issue of the overpayment by writing to them and telling them that you have calculated that you have overpaid them and that you like the money back. Of course this will draw no response whatsoever or it will draw threat. If you take that first step then I'm quite sure that you will be obliged to take the second step – which is to issue the letter of claim. Of course you can simply issue the letter of claim without any other warning. In which case:

If they don't counterclaim… This is an extremely good question and it hadn't even occurred to me that they might not counterclaim. If they didn't counterclaim then I suppose it leaves you wrangling over £116 .55p – assuming that they defend. If they did defend then they would have to raise the issues of what they consider to be the outstanding money and so they would have to counterclaim. The only other very remote possibility that they simply don't respond and you get another judgement in default. So far as inconvenience is concerned, this is a recoverable head of damage – but it's extremely difficult to persuade a judge that there has been a level of inconvenience which is measurable in money damages. I think it would be best not to complicate things at the moment but to think about claiming for inconvenience by way of a counter to their counterclaim. However, maybe you could detail here what inconvenience you have suffered and what it has cost you in money terms.

The very fact that you mention Npower will have a lot of people immediately in sympathy and understanding your frustration. However, you had better understand that it is impossible to organise a group action against these people and the only thing you can do is to deal with their own problem and chip away at them like that. Trying to get a group of people who were all similarly affected and appoint them all in the same direction and to deal with a huge organisation that really doesn't care about its reputation because reputation is already so damaged, is just a recipe for more anger and frustration. The best thing you can do is to layout your story and maybe we can advise you how to proceed to at least sort your own problem out.

I think that doing your initial claim is going to be pretty straightforward. You are simply going to claim £116.55 p being money paid under a mistake. Then the fun is going to begin when they defend it and counterclaim for what they say is the outstanding balance. I think that will be useful because hopefully they will then detail the basis upon which they have arrived at that calculation and then you will be able to defend against their claim point by point. I would suggest then that you defend on the basis of a contract which is implied by the back billing code and also by way of estoppel. So your principal claim will be something like That should be enough to wake up the sleeping Tiger. Do you think there is anything else to add? And as with all of these things, don't forget there is a chance that you could lose in which case you may have to reach a formal agreement as to payment of the counterclaim plus your court fees. Also, don't forget that if this then moves to a judgement against you in respect of the counterclaim, unless you can clear it within 30 days you will end up with a judgement on your credit file. I'm just making sure that you understand the ramifications

I'm not completely sure what is being said above. However, my understanding is that when the vehicle was bought, there was an inaccuracy in respect of the mileage which is recorded against their vehicle. That will be the responsibility of the person who sold it to the OP. It may not have been the dealer's fault, but the OP was entitled to receive a vehicle free of any defects either in the mechanics of the vehicle or in the associated paperwork. I have a feeling that we've all said our piece now and we all know where we stand. You have a consumer-facing view and you have a trade-facing view. Let's leave it at that and see what the OP decides to do. At the end of the day if it goes to court then it is a matter for the judge.

Just a brief response from a telephone. nicely argued but you seem to be making an assumption that we have assumed that the mileage is wrong and the paperwork is correct. Not at all. the mileage could be correct and the paperwork wrong but whichever it is it adds up to a defect.

As one does!