npower threats to gain entry

[suewell]

hi there

I have lived in this rented house for 3 years, I have had escalating bills for the last year and a half and even tho I came to agreements to pay, after every review they became so high I now cannot afford to pay what they are asking.

 

The origonal debt was £258 and is now £1200.

 

In between all this added debt, I was trying to set up an AFFORDABLE payment plan, they would not accept what I had coming in and what I could afford to pay out so I wrote a letter complaint to one of the directors of NPOWER and agreed to accept my payments. It was all ticking along nicley and then my JSA was stopped because I went into hospital and they changed me over to Employment and Support Allowance, which in turn affected my rent payemnts etc.

 

Then out of the blue with no warning NPOWER merged both my accounts for GAS and ELECTRICITY.

 

Instead of paying two direct debits they now tried to take the whole amount out at once in Dec 2012.

Back to square one, letters threats of entry.

 

They have tried telling me I need a meter fitted, but I can bearly afford to heat the home now, without the added cost of the meter billing. Plus I am a private tennant, the landlord has told me he specifically does not want a meter fitted.

 

The reason they were separate in the first place was if one DD did not go through I could easilyring and pay over the phone, but with the JSA mix up and the ESA payments be lower than JSA I could not afford to pay the DD.

Any idea what to do next please all help would be greatly recieved.

[i hate bailiffs]

 

They have tried telling me I need a meter fitted, but I can bearly afford to heat the home now, without the added cost of the meter billing. Plus I am a private tennant, the landlord has told me he specifically does not want a meter fitted.

 

 

If you were to move out the property a normal meter can be reinstated no problem

 

With the way things are going N power will take this to court adding on fees they then will force entry and fit pre pay meters

You will need to write to n power keep a paper trail

 

If you think that you will not be able to keep up repayments it may be better to let them change the meters and save on the court costs.

 

with a prepayment they will take so much off the debt each week and you can keep control of things

[nottslad]

With being on a prepayment meter you can repay as little as £3.25 a week towards the overdue balance, whereas repaying by DD they will only give a certain number of months to clear the debt, which is resulting in the payments being more than you can afford

[suewell]

the problem is I am in the private rental trap, I am paying vasts amount of my benifits towards renting and my feul bills have been suffering, when I moved to the property I was married and not a single parent as I am now.

 

I had a visit to the property yesterday from a NPOWER representative, my son answered the door, the man a Mr Jones questioned my son who is 11 years old and asked if I lived there, when would I be back and left a notice they they were going to apply to the court to gain entry, is this a bit heavy handed?

[Bubbl3]

We fell into arrears with npower a few years ago and agreed to have prepayment meters installed. 2 years later its the best thing we did as we find it much easier to budget no stressing about big bills and we are paying our arrears off at £3pw gas & £4pw electric even though we owed £1400 to each.

[LaughingGirl]

I agree. I have to admit, going back onto pre-pay meters is the best thing we ever did. For whatever reason, our bills are much lower now, and we're making a good in-road into what we owe.