@npowerhelp My 2 year ongoing hell with npower

[Desperatenpowercust]

Sorry new to forums so hope I have posted in the right place. I am banging my head off a wall with npower and no longer know what to do to get things resolved. No one in exec complaints seems to know how to fix it. A really long story so think best to post email I sent to ceo and exec complaints. Apologies in advance as its really long but you couldn't make it up! Any advice anyone could provide would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Dear Mr Massara,

 

 

I am begging you to help me, in fact just now I am pleading with you to help me resolve the 2 YEAR complaint that currently have ongoing with your company. I am sure that once you have read my e-mail you will be just as shocked, disgusted and overall disappointed with the level of service that your company has provided me with on trying to get my account rectified. It is an extremely long and I feel sad story about the way the company has treated me. I hope you have the patience to read my e-mail thoroughly and come to a resolve for us. I apologise if I get some of the timing wrong, as you would hopefully understand it has been going on for a long, long time. Let me begin.......

 

 

July/August 2010. My young family and I moved into our new private rent accommodation. A small three bedroom ex council mid terrace house. The rent would be more expensive for us coming in at £450 a month but we needed the extra room as we have 3 young children. Having been customers of Scottish power previously, we thought them to be a little on the expensive side, and as we were trying to save money we decided to phone around the major energy suppliers and see who could provide us with our electricity the cheapest. We phoned up npower who told us over the phone that they could provide us with electricity for £40 per month. "Are you sure?" said we. "Yes absolutely." advised your sales agent. We even called back and spoke to another agent to make sure that this was correct. "Yes, this is correct!" Was the answer. We were delighted and signed up there and then. Very happy customers. But then..........

 

 

 

 

Appox 6 months later. We get a bill out for approx. £400. We were concerned and contacted your customer service team immediately. My husband spoke to a lovely young gentleman who advised him there was no need to worry. It was obviously wrong. He asked for our meter readings and told us everything was fine, the £40 direct debit would continue as normal. Brilliant, we thought.

 

 

June/July 2013. I apologise that so much time has passed here, but you must understand we did not think there was any issue. My wife and I were both working hard full time to support our family. One day my wife was home and there was a knock on the door. It was an agent from Scottish power out to read our meter. He did so and left. But after that my wife got thinking. When was the last time anyone came out to read the meter. So, that evening she asked me when the last time I had seen one of these agents was. I told her probably about a year prior. That's a bit strange don't you think she replied. Come to think of it, when was the last time we received a bill from npower?

 

 

Again, we immediately contacted npower to ask why we have not been receiving bills. Again we spoke to another lovely gentleman who advised us he would look into it and put us on hold. He came back to us and advised us that there was a major issue on the account. He did not know why, but for some reason there was a massive debt building up on the account but could see that the direct debit was in place for £40. He could also see that no bills were being sent to us. He then hit us with the bombshell that £560 was pending to come out of my bank account and advised us to cancel the direct debit immediately. There was a debt on the account that ran into thousands! My wife checked her account and noticed the payment had actually let the account. She was frantic. We don't have a lot of money and to us this was a huge amount. It left our family in hardship. We made an indemnity claim with the bank to get the money bank. It took a few days. We have a young family. I'm sure you could imagine how that felt. The gentleman advised us that he would raise this with the executive complaints team as a matter of urgency.

 

 

August 2013. After we chased it up a few times, a member of the executive complaints team eventually got back in contact. I think her name was Kayleigh, but cannot be sure as I have spoken to so many agents. She advised us that she had been assigned our case. Not to worry as she would look into it and get things back to normal again. Brilliant, we thought. She told us that she would go away and look at it and she would be back in contact with us. She gave us a date and time she would contact us because as I have explained my wife and I are extremely busy people. And she contacted us exactly when she had said! In this conversation she explained that there had been issues with some accounts when npower moved to their new billing system and it looked as if we were affected. She had sent off for it to rectified. I told her I was extremely alarmed about this debt on the account as there was simply no way we could afford it, and as we were paying £40 per month direct debit without ever missing a payment that this was not our fault. She agreed. She advised that we were not to worry she would sort out the issue and the debt on the account would be wiped. The account would be reset and we would start afresh. She warned us that the direct debit might be higher going forward once the issue was resolved. We were delighted. It felt like a weight off our shoulders and the result we were looking for. We left it in what felt like her safe and capable hands. How wrong were we?

 

 

After this period Kayleigh would be sporadically in contact over the phone or via email. But she offered no other information other than apologising that it was taking so long to rectify but it would be eventually resolved. We voiced our concerns over the length of time it was taking but we were assured that eventually the account would be reset for us. We would also get the occasional letter advising that the company was sorry it was taking so long to resolve and that they had passed their 8 week deadline.

 

 

Then nothing.

 

 

March 2014. We called up looking to speak to Kayleigh. She told us that they had activated the back billing process on the account so we would not get charged any further than 12 months prior. But we protested that she had been advising us that we debt would be wiped? She said she would look into this and that for now we should cancel the direct debit until the issue was rectified. But then we realised that the amount that was owed would mean our electricity bills would be almost £300 per month. So there was another issue.

 

 

Kayleigh never did get back in contact.

 

 

We contacted npower again. We couldn't get Kayleigh and explained our concerns to the new agent. She was not willing to listen to reason We asked that the issue be escalated to a manager in the executive complaints team. It was, and we were told we would receive a phone call within 2 weeks. Instead we got a letter 2 weeks later from Elizabeth Gibson, head of customer relations. A very unhelpful one that told us that the issue had been resolved and that this was a deadlock letter. The company was no longer willing to help out with the problem and viewed it as resolved. Compensation of £640 would be applied against the debt. We beyond belief!

 

 

We called up your customer services and pleaded with the agent not to pass us to the executive complaints team just yet. We asked her not to look at the debt on the account for now but to focus on the new issue. As mentioned before, we live in a small 3 bedroom terraced house. We were now being told that electricity should cost us almost £300. We are hardly in during the day. We are in bed most evenings by 11. We explained that we do have white meter heaters and knew that they could be expensive, but surely not £300 a month expensive? She agreed to look over the account. It took her over an hour but we were happy to wait as finally someone agreed with us that there could issue. Not just one, but a few. She advised us that she wasn't 100% sure but when the original agent way back in 2010 took our meter readings and entered them in to the new system that he put them in the wrong way round. She also said she felt there could be an issue with the meter as we were using lower than average during the day but more than 3 times the national average at night time. Plus there was also the issue with the system not generating bills. She advised that she would speak to the executive complaints team and raise her concerns. She said she would arrange for a test meter to be put in place to monitor ours. Finally, someone has cracked it. Or so we thought.

 

 

Our case was assigned to another agent on the executive complaints team. They confirmed that someone would be out to fit a test meter. It took forever but eventually we got an appointment. But they failed to mention that they would need access to our neighbours house. Engineer came out. I took time off my work to be there. Couldn't get access to my neighbour's property. Wasted day. Back on the phone to the executive complaints team. We were advised that they would request another date. They also advised that this time a letter would be sent to my neighbour. Approx a month passed. I took time off work. Engineer came. No letter had been sent to my neighbour and she denied access. Another wasted day. Phoned executive complaints team again. They said that they would guarantee a letter would be sent for the next time, which thankfully turned out it was. It took months to get an appointment again, and the engineer felt like an old friend, and again I took more time off my work.Test meter was installed. We also decided to contact a local charity called I-heat. He said it was worst case he had ever seen. Sheer and utter negligence were his words. He looked at our meter and noticed that the time was wrong. It was showing it was 6 in the morning when in actual fact it was 2 in the afternoon. He contacted npower on our behalf and raised his concerns. He spoke to Michael in the executive complaints team and asked him to take note of what he was telling him. Michael advised that he would look into the account and take over it. You guessed it, Michael was never to be heard from again.

 

 

Time passed and the test meter was taken out. Another day off of work. Engineer advised us that he had updated his system with the results and this would be passed on to npower. He also changed the time on the clock as we had pointed it out to him. We sat back and waited for contact. And waited, and waited. Yes, you guessed it! No one contacted us.

 

 

We contacted executive complaints for an update but were told that npower never had the results. Unknown to us npower had been e-mailing us. But we hadn't been checking our e-mails.

 

 

A bill is then sent out to us for thousands again. We are at the end of our tether. We contact npower executive complaints again. This time we get a call back from Simone. Simone advised us that they didn't have the meter readings back and that they would chase it up. She told us that she would see that it gets resolved and would make sure that contact going forward would be in the form of a phone call or a letter. She also advised us that she would contact us every two weeks with an update.

 

 

Then we receive a bill today for £3,243.76 for the last 12 months usage. Correct me if I'm wrong but this works out a £270.31 per month for electricity in a small three bedroom mid terraced house. I invite you to come and see if you need proof? During the winter we have only been running two heaters as we are frightened that we are going to be charged a fortune for it. That bill is covering the period 13th June 2012 - 7th January 2015. It has been reduced from £6,646.18. At this point I would also like to highlight we were paying £40 direct debit without fail right up until March 2014 when we were told to cancel it until the issue is rectified by your agent. We contacted you again this evening but the executive complaints team is closed and we are now facing a bleak and anxious weekend until we can speak to them. Our personal projection for the next 12 months is £4009.79. That works out as £334.17 per month for our humble home plus we are being asked to pay back £3243.76. My wife has now left work and is a student and we struggle by on my call centre wage bringing up three children. We would struggle to pay £334.17 a month, our monthly rent isn't much more, never mind paying back such a large debt that we were not to blame for on top of it.

 

 

So now I hope you can understand, why I am pleading with you to please get this sorted out. We are at the end of our tether. We have been patient but can take no more. I'm sure that you would agree on reading this that npower has failed us as a company and has not carried out it duty of care that it has towards us.

 

 

I feel this is my last resort before highlighting our plight with the media and warning other potential customers not to fall for you like we did. I certainly can understand why you have been voted the worst energy provider. I hope that you can change my mind and bring an end to our absolute misery.

 

 

Yours desperately,

 

 

 

[Eversir]

How dreadful.

 

Lots of points to address here, but if you haven't done so already prepare a Subject Access Request (SAR) to Npower immediately. Npower will be obliged to hand over all the information they have regarding the account within 40 days. It's really easy to prepare and only requires a short letter and £10.00 fee, but get the ball rolling now.

 

Npower are shockingly incompetent when it comes to resolving issues and it would be helpful to have evidence of this should Npower continue to behave the way they do.

 

An SAR sent to Npower in our own case has revealed serious problems with their complaints handling process from 2013 to 2015 and I imagine it will do the same for you too.

 

In fact, it would seem Npower has a policy in place to close all complaints automatically regardless of whether they have been resolved or not (they call it the Pre-Regent Backlog bulk closure exercise).

 

Have you got solid evidence that the meter was faulty? i.e. photos, videos, independent reports

[batman1956]

Has this been the subject of "reverse billing"?

[Desperatenpowercust]

It has been subject to back billing twice now due to the amount of time they are taking to resolve the issue. It just seems to rumble on and on until someone decides to send the old issue is resolved deadlock letter. I then have to ring up and point out that it isn't as I'm pretty sure electricity for my property should be no where near £340 a month. I had wondered if I should sent SAR. Will get onto that now. I keep telling them I want tariff changed to cheapest and that when backbilling I hope that they are recalculating it on cheapest tariff that would have been available at the time as due to their incompetence I haven't been able to change tariff whilst waiting for it to be resolved. We shall see if they actually do this .......

[Eversir]

You'll probably find at least some of your complaints are on the system somewhere, but they either haven't been actioned at all or actioned correctly. Some may be missing entirely, as we have discovered.

 

As stated before, Npower now seem to have a procedure in place where they close complaints automatically after a short amount of time - regardless of the status - opting instead to open up a new complaint if the customer isn't happy. And thus the cycle continues.

 

It doesn't seem to matter whether the complaint is in writing or via phone, the end result is usually the same. Start recording your calls with these guys, consider corresponding in writing only in future (so you have a paper trail) and definitely get an SAR to them. Draft template can be accessed via the linked "SAR" text in previous posts. Send it to their Data Controller and include your account reference number.

 

Data Protection SARs Team

npower, Building Tio 2

Ground Floor, Traynor Way

Off Shotton Lane, Peterlee

County Durham

SR8 2RU

 

There probably needs to be further action of some sort in relation to your complaint...

 

How would you summarise your dispute in a short paragraph? i.e. Do you dispute the usage? Can you be sure on any energy you have used? Are they attempting to backbill past the 12 month cut off? What is the outcome you want from this?

[Desperatenpowercust]

We have photo evidence to show the problems with meter and an agent from local heating company has also witnessed it and took photos of it and contacted npower to raise issue with them. We pointed it out to scottish power agent when he took out test meter who said he would raise the issue as well. When we got back in touch with npower after hearing nothing we have so far been told. Meter was faulty. Meter has no faults and from our cust exec agent that they haven't had any results back. She was on the case supposedly and in her words the buck stopped with her and she would contact us every 10 working days with updates. 10 working days pass. No call. Chased up and she has moved dept and no one has been dealing with it.

[Desperatenpowercust]

To sum it up. I dispute the amount the amount they say our electricity should be. I dispute that they say 12 months electricity should cost us almost £3500. I just want to be charged correctly for my usage and recieve bills stating what I have used. I accept I have to pay for what I have used prev but I want charged at the correct price

[BankFodder]

Please will you follow the advice given to you by Eversir, above. Send an SAR immediately. You need to get all the information you can about the way the account has been handled. Make sure that you include in your SAR that you want all telephone records. We know that this is possible because Eversir has recently received a portion of a subject access disclosure which includes CD recordings of phone calls that have been carried on over a three-year period.

 

This information is essential.

 

Please read our customer services guide and follow it strictly in any further dealings you have with this company on the telephone.

 

Send them a letter straightaway – separately from the SAR – complaining about their conduct of your case, that they are in breach of their complaints code, but they are not treating you fairly, and that you are considering legal action. Don't make any more definite threat than this at the moment but in the letter say that you consider that the account is in dispute and that they should not take any action on it because if they do they will be breaching their treating customers fairly obligations as published on their website.

 

Please monitor this thread. I will come back tomorrow and try to give some fuller information and some more detailed advice for proceeding.

 

However, I think that you would better understand now that you will be looking at a county court action to solve this. Npower have demonstrated to many people now that they don't take any action and they don't take anybody seriously until the court papers arrive. Once the court papers do arrive though, you will find that they leap into action. Amazingly, they seem to be prepared to spend more money on dealing with a legal case then with the value of the alleged debt. Npower are bullying slobs and they get away with it because most people prefer to get involved in discussions on Facebook groups and not taking any direct action.

 

Where direct action is taken after careful discussion and careful preparation, it can be very successful.

[BankFodder]

By the way, do you happen to know who the previous occupiers of the property are? Is there any way that you can find out from them what their average usage was and maybe they would even be kind enough to let you have examples of their bills going back a year or so together with some details of the size of their family and general commitments.

 

It may be a very personal thing to ask them but if you explain the problem then they may empathise and come down on your side.

 

If you could gain evidence like this, it would be a very good move

 

Here is the link to our customer services guide

[Desperatenpowercust]

Thank you Eversir and BankFodder for your very helpful advice so far. Will get onto SAR straightaway. Unfortunately BankFodder I fear that you may be right in saying county court judgement is on the cards. I actually do know who previously lived here as they are now my landlord. I can recall telling them about the brilliant deal I got from npower which they agreed was a great price as they paid £65pm with scottish hydro. They have 1 child less in their family. I have also contacted the sun who are very interested in our story. Waiting on a journo calling us back.

[batman1956]

Back billing and bill reversal are two different things. Back billing is done when, subject to certain conditions, the amount being billed is over 12 months of usage.

Bill reversal is done when reads are not accurate.

An ex npower employee described it like this:

 

When a bill(s) is reversed sometimes payments that have been made don't show on the amended bill.

Everything about reverse billing does not work. It's really hard to explain but I will try.

Say a customer has an actual reading in June 2012 and they are billed quarterly and receive a bill in September 2012 and their bill is estimated, the same happens in January 2013 and again in May 2013.

In September the customer provides a read that is a lower that the previous 3 estimated reads. The adviser then has to reverse the previous three bills and delete the reads and add them back onto the account as inactive, (these won't show on an amended bill).

Once that bill (s) is reversed then the new amended bill which is generated will show absolutely nothing about previous direct debit reassessments, reads or payments made.

 

So in a nutshell bill reversal is a catastrophe.

[BankFodder]

Have you read the customer services guide?

[BankFodder]

I think that the way to begin on this is to lay out exactly what has happened in a structured way.

 

I can see that in your opening post – from the letter that you wrote – that the whole matter is an extremely emotive issue for you. That is not at all surprising. However, you had better understand that when you're dealing with Npower and most other big companies, that they are not at all impressed by emotional pleas and they are only impressed by hard argument which makes them feel threatened.

 

I would like to remove your opening post because it is unhelpful because it does not really layout in a nice structured chronological way what has happened.

 

If you could please settle down and produce a well ordered methodical bullet pointed account of what has happened, post it here, then I will replace your opening post with this account and we will consider that that is the opening part of your story.

 

It will then be clear to everybody exactly what has happened and we will be in a better position to ask you relevant questions and to help you to go from there.

[Old Cogger]

N Power my old firm at trouble with them back early 80s, they were rubbish and it took regulators and other organisation to sort it out (VERY) Eventually, so peeps avoid this Company |\?

[steviehowie]

Links to some essential reading for all energy consumers when considering Court action against energy companies.

 

 

 

1. The Electricity Act 1989.- schedule 6 , called the electricity code. consumers rights on disconnection and Energy companies rights in a dispute to dis connect a consumer. Also see schedule 7 as well on meters.
   

2. The Utilities Act 2000, schedule 4 , this superseded schedule 6 of the Electricity Act 1989 and also schedule 7 and replaces them with schedule 4 and 5 respectively.

This is relative to any disconnection and your rights therein in a disputed matter i.e deadlock letters.

3. The Electricity and Gas (Internal Markets) Regulations 2011 - see schedule 2 and 8.

Check out your contract is correct and in accordance with schedue2 and schedule 8.

Note schedule 8 duplicates me of the SLC conditions like 21B.1 and 21.B2. Did npower comply with this?

Check out Clause 22(f) with respect to your contract is your name on the contract / personal details?..

4. 2008 No. 1898 The Gas and Electricity (Consumer Complaints Handling Standards) Regulations 2008.

 

 

 

 

You appear to have started this process so at least be aware of the obligations on the Energy company. But customers do not have to follow it if the so wish, there are pros and cons both ways.

5. The Distance Selling Regulations no longer apply in UK law. As of 13 June 2014 the new consumer contracts regulations - which implement the Consumer Rights Directive in UK law - apply to all purchases you make at a distance.

This includes shopping online, by mail order, over the phone or through a TV shopping channel.

However they appear to applicable to your phone calls at the beginning of the contract with npower.

There is a lot of other points that need addressing about your case, not least I do not understand why you need access to next door? Can you explain in more detail?

Can I also refer you to the forum headed EON trouble many of the points made there are applicable to you as well.

Lastly link to court of appeal case which are essential reading so you follow suit.

see Bailii web site Lisa Ferguson v British Gas Trading ltd EWCA 46

and

Christopher Concelet v npower ltd I think 2010.

Start the chronological events now. Break your starting letter into smaller points with dates, ties , names etc.

Make sure you heating engineer give you his independent report now, before he forgets the facts.

Take pics and video of the meter.

look closely at all the bills . Watch for meter readings that do not follow on. Its not unusual for transposed day/ night meter readings that energy company's gerrymander the readings to hide the truth. See comments on EON trouble forum, the item about bill reversal many be happening to you. Your Bills and previous submission of meter readings are key. Go through them with a tooth comb.

Will get back in touch later with some other thoughts.

Stevie H