Dealing with Npower

[Deleted member 26715]

@Mods not sure if it's right place, if incorrect, move or delete.

Has anybody had dealings with them? My son moved into a rented house about 3 years ago, it was on both gas & electricity supplied by Npower both on a pre-payment basis. it didn't work out with his girlfriend & he moved back home in May 2015 after she had left & he couldn't manage on his single wage. When he left he gave final meter readings to Npower for both gas & electricity.

Roll on to 3rd February this year he received a bill from them for £546.83 for the period of 27th October 2014 to 31st May 2015, I have been on the phone with them every Friday since then trying to get to the bottom of it. Initially they wouldn't talk to me as I was not either the account holder or authorised by the account holder to talk on their behalf. He is currently in New Zealand which makes it a little difficult for him to talk to them, they advised that he should send an email giving me authority to talk on his behalf. This was done on 4 separate occasions I know as I was copied in on the emails, but each time I rang back they claimed not to have received them, I might also add that the 1st time they gave me the incorrect email address to pass on.

Eventually today they agreed that I was authorised to be spoken to, the lady I spoke to put me on hold for around 15 minutes whilst she went off to find out what was happening.

The story they are giving is that the previous tenant before my son tampered with the meter, that whether he knew about it or not the amount of electricity he used in the period he was in the house was not what he paid for. They claim that the meter has been removed & examined & all this data is available to them, does anybody know if this information is available to them? when the tampering occurred? what usage wasn't correctly metered etc. It seems to be a very sophisticated meter if all of this is available. They have also told me that in the period my son pre-paid £219 which they are saying is far too low for a 2 bedroomed semi house, but TBH after the girlfriend moved out he hardly used the place, he was at work all day, out with his friends most evening often not even going back there at the weekends.

I've told them I'm not prepared to accept the bill & that they will have to prove to me that he is liable. One of the things she did say is that this would not of been the first bill we received, to which I insisted that it was, she then looked further & found that the meter had only been removed on the 20th January 2017.

I'm now awaiting a call from their revenue fraud team, anyone else got experience with them?

Did anyone get as far as this?

 

[Jody]

Roll on to 3rd February this year he received a bill from them for £546.83 for the period of 27th October 2014 to 31st May 2015,

Work colleague has not been with them for over 2 years. They recalculated all his bills, back dated them 6 years and sent an invoice for £1500 Finaly agreed and settled on a balance of £92 but apparently it took a huge battle to sort.

 

[steverob]

I can't be much help with the specific circumstances unfortunately, but I have had my dealings with NPower before and their customer service is beyond appalling, so I can understand how this is only going to exacerbate getting to the bottom of this issue.

With regards to the bill being "too low", £219 for just over 7 months would work out to just over £31 per month, which is on the low side admittedly, especially for pre-pay, but at the same time, not completely impossible. I also live in a two-bed semi and both myself and my wife aren't always at home for large chunks of the week and back at 2014/15 prices, we were probably paying about £55 per month.

This extra £546 they want you to pay on top of what has already been paid would make the monthly cost for your son to have been about £110, which I think would have required his heating to be on constantly and all sorts of appliances left running during the day, which clearly didn't happen. I'd ask how they've come to these figures - my bet is they are working it out on a "typical customer", which based on my experience, nobody is.

 

[numbnuts]

I've been with them for a long time, I pay by DD and never had a problem with them

 

[Jody]

I've been with them for a long time, I pay by DD and never had a problem with them

You haven't left yet. Few quid a month x a lot of years means your going to owe them, big time!

 

[Sandra6]

Not Npower, but i had similar shinanigans with scottish power after my son moved into our flat and they estimated his usage based on the previous bills which had been for a family of 8 not a single guy who only slept there.
The only way I got anywhere near to the end of it was by emailing the ceo directly. Their tune changed massively after that and they wiped the "debt" .
It's worth a try.

 

[Tanis8472]

Friend of mine received a bill for £30,000 for electric. Took him 2 years and quite a cost from solicitors etc to get it sorted. Should have been £300.
Not exact figures but you get the gist

 

[byegad]

You do know that for a little more than a year (IIRC 2014/15) they had no idea what their customers owed them?
I was a customer at the time and they wrote every quarter with an estimated bill, despite my supplying readings and/or the meter reader having visited, with a note saying 'Sorry but we have no idea what you owes us' Kind of "bill".

I'd be inclined to tell them to sue me and supply my copies of bills and receipts to the court. Given your son is in New Zealand I'd also wish them 'Good Luck' in getting paid.

 

[Drago]

As bad as they are be thankful they're not British Gash.

 

[Milkfloat]

I had no end of problems with Npower sending me bills read by their meter reader man that was incorrect by a huge amount. I took photos of the meter to show that I was still thousands of units behind what they said the meter reading was 6 months previously, but still they would not budge. In the end after getting too many 'red bills' I went to the CEO to try and get it sorted. even then it took some work because they were completely incompetent and nobody would take ownership of the issue. I did get compensation, some flowers and free credit checks for a couple of years, but it took many hours of my time.

My suggestion - write to the CEO and he will pass it on to a senior enough flunky to sort.

 

[spen666]

They are a nightmare.

I was paying them by DD and built up a credit equivalent to about a years usage ( in just 1 year!). I asked them to refund me the credit, they did so with no issue or delay. The next day I got a letter from them telling me they were to quadruple my monthly payment as I was not paying for what I used!!!!! They refused to discuss this, even when I sent them the calculations.


They then made an appointment to come out to inspect my meter on a Sunday, but did not tell me until overnight on the Saturday/ Sunday. I cancelled all arrangements stayed in all day, they then never showed up! no call or email to cancel. nothing.

When I complained, they said they never intended to come out and denied having made an appointment.

Que a lengthy series of complaints with them claiming to have resolved the matter on the phone with me without ever having spoken to me. Indeed on the date they claim this call took place I was out of the country!

I have not paid their bill for the last 2 years. I have instead billed them for my time which at lawyer rates amounts to far more than they say I owe them ( bare in mind, I live alone and rarely ever need to put heating on). They have refused to issue proceedings against me to recover the debt despite me inviting them to.

They do however, keep threatening to apply for a warrant of entry to disconnect my supply until I quote the relevant law and ask them to confirm they will be complying with their duty of full disclosure to the court.

The nearest we have come to a resolution is an offer of £25 compensation from them. This for the full day I stayed in, all the time spent over the last 2 years etc. They charge the same amount to send me a letter .

They also fail to respond to half the correspondence.

I am looking forward to the issuing of court proceedings and can't wait to see how they will explain their lies to a district judge


I forgot to add their writing to me confirming they had inspected my meter and had up to date readings and then 3 days later threatening to seek a warrant of entry because I had refused their meter reader access to inspect the meter!

 

[mjr]

They supplied one home I moved into. I'd dealt with Npower before and decided "never again!" so I made arrangements to transfer supply to the co-op on the date we moved in, which was plenty of notice for Npower and yet they still faffed about and delayed the transfer by a few days, then many months later sent a bill to something like "A N Occupier" for some silly amount, which they then refused to discuss with me unless I gave them my real name. This discussion reminds me that, because I was busy or ill or something, I didn't pay it and I think they've not tried again yet and it was a few years ago. I've no idea where the bill is, so I couldn't pay it now even if I wanted to... maybe I'll find it and send them a cheque just after whenever cheques are eventually phased out.

On a previous move, edf refused to withdraw a bill for something like half a day's electricity. After a few attempts to get it cancelled, I paid their stinking 32p bill at the Post Office counter in cash because I think we reckoned that even commercial postage and the fee to the Post Office should mean they'd lost money on it.

 

[NorthernDave]

Generally they're clueless, but we've not done too badly reading all these tales of woe.

What really grinds my gears though is that they insist on taking far too much in DD payments - they've written to us several times advising that they're about to virtually double the monthly amount despite us always running a couple of hundred quid surplus by the end of the billing year. A phonecall eventually reduces the amount but it's always too much and for their benefit.

 

[Drago]

I got fed up having the above ^^^ argument with British Gash so in the end cancelled the DD and paid manually online every quarter.

 

[Chris S]

@Phaeton
I had a very similar problem to your son when I moved into my last flat in 2006.
I sent NPower a registered letter stating that they were acting illegally by forcing me to clear the previous occupant's debt in order to obtain electricity. I also stated that I would report the matter to OFGEM unless they removed the pre-payment meter and the previous occupant's debt from my account within 14 days. They did both.

This link might be some help:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/...bout-your-gas-or-electricity-bill-or-supplier