@npowerhelp Massive Bill received through NPower

[jdb321]

Hi was wondering whether someone could advise me please. Below may be long but bear with me.

 

I moved into my rental property back in Sept 12. After contacting NPower to carry on supplying the property they informed us that it wasn't them previously. After contact Southern Power they informed us to check the suppliers website and low and behold NPower supplied the property. We contacted NPower again to then be told it was them. We set up the account for Dual Fuel and the Direct Debit to what we normally pay which was £120 pcm.

 

Thought nothing of it and a DD went out for only £40 but thought this was a part payment. During this period we still received mail from NPower for the previous tenant after contacting them on numerous occasions i was told to return the letters back to them and after a month they would stop. . It wasn't until December that i noticed no payment for Nov was taken and none for December itself. Contacted NPower to find out the account hadn't been created correctly and that it still appeared in the previous tenants name. I was told they would correct it.

 

On the 27 Dec i received a letter from Debt Collectors for the previous occupiers. I again contacted NPower to verbally complain about the service received. I was told that the account still hadn't been recreated correctly and that it would be corrected. I spent a fair amount of this day discussing this issue.

 

Again in Jan 13 no payment went out so contacted them again. I spoke to the Customer Services Onwatch Manager who apologised and assured me that the direct debit would be set up for £120 as discussed. I also discussed the outstanding amount from Oct 12 and was told that my account was currently not showing this amount. I waited until Feb 13 and no payment was taken this time i contacted the Complaints Dept and spoke with them. I discussed my concerns about a large bill due to there incompetence and was basically told to suck it up!! The DD was created but i was told it would be Apr 13 before the first payment would be taken. Low and behold a week later a payment of £120 was taken which crippled me for the next month.

 

I contacted Ofgem who told me to write a complaint before they would it involved. I wrote my letter and received a response to contact them. This i did and got a slightly different response to last time contacted them. They apologised stated that the amount from Sep 12 - Feb 13 was not showing on the account and offered £40 as compensation for my trouble. I received a few bills and all was normal until today when i received a bill for nearly £900. I contacted them today and the initial response was "and what do you want me to do about it" however after giving them new readings i was told there was nothing they could do until a new bill was generated. I also informed them that my husband was about to lose his job on the 16 Jul 13.

 

What can I do?? I begrudge pay these clowns as i feel they are at least 75% responsible for this. I was the one doing all the chasing after all.

[Surfer01]

First thing to do is look for another supplier, but avoid BGAS. Dual fuel is not always the cheapest so you may be better off having electric with one supplier and gas with another.

Check the meter serial number on the meters and make sure it matches up with the meter serial number on the paperwork. Did you take meter readings when you first moved into the premises. If so use those readings to calculate what you owe Npower.

Sadly if it is £900 you will need to make a payment arrangement to pay this over a period of time if you did not keep the money aside. This "bad" debt will not prevent you changing suppliers.

[finaldj]

Well can I just say I had a similar problem with Npower. We have recently moved house about 6 weeks now and british gas were the suppliers we have a debt of £698 (big bill from winter) but we asked BG if we could stay with them and would they accept the debt...we were told by BG that they could accept us as a new customer but Npower might not release us with a debt which they told us on the phone that Npower are a bit of a pain for this. nothing I can do now though because we have entered into one of them online fixed price tariffs 2014 so will have had the debt paid back by then, soon as will find another supplier Npower are a really bad company

[jdb321]

As a customer services company who are being paid for the use of their business are they not responsible to ensure that this type of thin doesn't happen.Of course if this was any other business would you not take them to court for breach of contract due to not providing a suitable service consummate with the law. Yes i understand that i have used they energy however had they fulfilled their obligation to ensure i account was correct i wouldn't be in this situation. Its not like i tried to hide the fact i hadn't paid as it was me who was constantly chasing them up to sort this out. I am serious considering not paying them and see if they suck it up!!

[Surfer01]

I am serious considering not paying them and see if they suck it up!!

We all feel that way when dealing with incompetents like Npower, but unfortunately all non payment results in extra charges being added and even bailiffs visiting to cut you off or fit a prepay meter. Did you check the meter serial number and also the readings?

[jdb321]

I have just checked my serial numbers on the Electric is a match but the gas has a discrepancy with the actual number on the meter being S221350 but the bill states 0021350. I take it that this is the same number? The meter reading were taken when we signed up and an updated reading was given on Friday just gone.

[Surfer01]

They are supplying the right property it seems. As you have the opening reading and a reading taken last Friday, it should be relatively simple to work out the cost of your bill to see if it tallies with Npower's bill. If your monthly DD was £120 then if they had taken the DD as agreed, you would have paid £1200 over the past 10 months. Unfortunately although they screwed up, there is not much you can do except come to an agreement on a payment plan. This would mean paying your DD of £120 plus a payment for the arrears. However it seems that the DD for £120 may be a bit high as over the past 10 months you have used an average of £102 per month so maybe you could reduce that amount.

Do another reading in a month's time and work out what they should be paid for the month. It will be a lot lower as you are not using any gas however you will be able to reduce the debt quicker. Maybe to get rid of the debt quicker forget about the DD discount and pay them monthly by debit card for the amount consumed and then extra to kill of the current debt.

[Stevereice]

Hi, I recently had the same problem. Have you checked that your meter has not be miss assigned when it was originally registered by the supplier...basically when a property is built the connections engineer confuse which meter is connected to which property (due in part to developers using plot numbers rather than flat numbers).

Edited August 13, 2013 by honeybee13

[mattlamb]

Jdb321 = They are not billing you correctly on the gas. The meter number they have does not match up to that on the meter. It may just be a typo but the number is quite clearly different (and not just becasue of a different amount of 000s in the meter serial number). Is there a sticker on the gas meter? If so, when was this meter fitted and what is the serial number given for the old meter? Is that the same as the serial number quoted on your bills?

 

 

This is an old thread -perhaps the matter has been resolved?