ME AND MY PARTNET LIVE IN A ONE BEDROOM FLAT THE ONLY THING WE HAVE THAT ARE RUN BY GAS ARE 4 RADIATORS 1 COMBI BOILER AND 1 COOKER WE WAS ON A PAYMENT PLAN WERE WE PAYED £30 PER MONTH FOR OUR GAS SUPPLY AND HAD DONE FOR ABOUT 4 YEARS THEN WE GOT A GAS BILL FOR £767.57 SWHEN WE QUERRIED THIS THEY SAID THAT WE HAD BEEN UNDER PAYING FOR OUR GAS WE COULDNT AFFORD TO PAY OFF THIS AMMOUNT ALL AT ONCE SO WE HAD A QUANTEM PREPAYMENT METER INSTALLED ON THE 14THDEC 2006 AND HAVE SO FAR PUT £230 ON THE CARD SINCE DEC2006 I AM SURE THAT WE HAVNT USED THAT MUCH GAS AS THE DEBT THAT THEY ARE TAKING FROM US THEY ARE TAKING AT £3.00 PER WEEK SO WE RANG THEM AND THEY SAID THAT THIS IS RIGHT SO I THINK THAT WE MUST BE PAYING FOR GAS FOR THE WHOLE OF THE STREET WE LIVE IN SO WHEN THE DEBT IS PAYED WE WILL BE CHANGING OUR SUPPLYER OF GAS BECAUSE POWERGEN REALLY DORIP YOU OFF END OFF

I've been with Powergen since September last year. I have always paid £30.00 per month and that semed to be fine. It just about covered the electricity I used each month. However, recently Powergen came to my front door asking why I have not been paying my bill. To cut a long story short.... (i live in a flat with all electric meters kept in a cupboard on the ground floor)  When I opened the account with them they asked for the readings from meter "a"... It turns out that is the wrong meter and I have been paying someone elses electric bill since September last year. They have also demanded nearly £1000.00 in unpaid electric charges....

I ALSO HAVE A PREPAYMENT METER WITH POWERGEN, WE WAS PAYING MONTHLY BY DIRECT DEBIT,FOR OUR ELECTRICITY THE PAYMENTS WAS SET BY THEM, WE RECIEVED A LETTER TO SAY WE OWED THEM £690, WE ARE NOW CLEAR WITH THE DEBT, PHONED POWERGEN AS WE WANTED TO CHANGE IT BACK TO A STANDARD METER ONLY TO BE TOLD WE HAD TO WAIT TWELVE MONTHS TO CHANGE IT BACK,COULD NOT BELIEVE ITWE WANTED TO CHANGE OUR SUPPLIER, WE ARE TAKING IT FURTHER I THINK THEY MAKE IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG.ANYBODY READING THIS DO NOT EVEN GO THERE.

Hello

Just to let you know we are in the same situation.We had a big bill of over £400 when I rang them up they admited that they should have sent me reminder and aslo a follow up call by phone however they didnt. We agreed to have a pre payment meter and have only just been told that we wont be able to have a change of meter or supplier for 12 months.

I pointed out the the mistake was there fault and over 5 years ago but they insisted that they cant justify a change in meter because they feel that i will fall behind in payments. In the last 5 years I have changed cars opened 3 new bank accounts re morgagaed the house and had extra money for improvments and lastly had a barclay card with a decent level of credit.

My point to powergen is that if all of the above has happened why on earth can powergen not move on???????? everyone has a bad point now and then but thet decide to keep you hanging by and not looking further than there noses

And it gets worse . . . on the other end of the scale, if you are in credit, they won't refund you the money you've overpaid !!! 

I pay by DD and 5 months ago had a debit outstanding of £164.  So Powergen decided to double my monthly payments to £99 a month.  I received my new bill 2 days ago and I was £90 in credit.  They didn't review my payments and would quite happily have carried on taking this amount if I hadn't phoned them.  When speaking to them they agreed to reduce my payments to £55 a month, but this will take 6 weeks to happen (it only took 10 days for them to increase it originally!!!).  When I asked for the credit refunded, I was told I couldn't have the whole amount as it "Company policy" to hold onto 1 months DD payment.  So trying to get MY money back is harder than getting blood out of a stone.  They seem to be VERY quick at taking peoples money, It's a pity they're not quite as quick to pay it back !!!

 Unsurprisingly, today I have switched to a different supplier,  as this seems to be the only way to get my money !! 

Hi Issy

Congrtualtions on changing your supplier I hope all goes well

It just goes to prove that in a lot of peoples opinion power gen are a rip off merchant an just like any insurance company etc they fail to refund money with out making limp excuses to hold on to other peoples money this will be so they can get the intrest from there bank even then i can imagine them looking for more excuses to hold on to even more time specialy at the year end

I have made it my mission to get rid of powergen and will look at every angle to get rid of them

regards

nick

 

 

Hi we too had a bad experience with powergen, we paid £27 per month for our electric economy 7 in our tiny 2 bed house for two years. No one ever came to read the meter.  I set up online acc managment so we could submit readings and manage our acc online. To my horror I founnd we were in arrears to the tune of 900 quid. After several emails and phone calls I managed to get them to write off half. We increased our payments to over 80 quid per month.  But then we moved house. Without informing us in writing they took the balance of 400 quid from our account sending us overdrawn. I got them to refund it and agreed  a payment plan. However the utterly incompetent customer services made several clerical errors with the arrangments and gave out wrong advice. Without going into details as its far too long a story suffice to say I was reduced to tears on the phone with sheer frustration. We ended up paying the debt off by credit card just to be free of them as they were threatening legal action despite the payment plan agreed, then reneged on by them. They "lost" one of my payments etc. I could have pursued it but it was causing so much upset and stress it was not worth the hassle. They even rang me at work to chase payment.  

I put it down to experience and vowed never to go there again. I am now with manweb for both gas and electric and they read our meters regularly and adjust our payment accordingly. I am pleased to say our payment has just reduced by 40 per month since the last meter reading. So far so good, but then you can't get much worse than powergen in my experience.

Hi

 

We've had a very similar experience.  We pay by direct debit for gas and electricity and our bills have been highly variable ranging from £23 to £250 depending on time of year plus billing interval (varies from 2 to 8 weeks why can't they just send bills at regular intervals?  Could it be to confuse you?!).  Suddenly we got a bill for £428 as it turns out that they had only been estimating our meter readings (even though they had sent people round to read them and got me to enter them online/over the phone) and they had been underestimating and have now stung us for the shortfall.

 Also I found out when I told them that I was leaving them that even though I had registered to manage my account online I was not receiving the online discount as I had to register for that seperately, confusing hey!

 I'm going to npower as I've been with them before and had no problems with them (although I note other people on this site have).

HA HA HA HA TO POWERGEN (THE RIP OFF MERCHANTS)

WE HAV FINNALLY MANAGED TO CHANGE SUPPLIERS OF OUR GAS AND ELECTRIC AND

WE ARE ONLY  USING ABOUT £10 PER FORTNIGHT ON GAS WHICH IS ABOUT RIGHT AS FOR THE

£767.00 WE OWE THEM THEY CAN WAIT FOR US TO PAY IT IN OUR OWN TIME THEY WERE OFF HAND

WITH US ABOUT THE MONEY WE WERE SUPPOSED TO OWE THEM SO NOW I WILL MAKE THEM WAIT

AND I WILL BE OFF HAND WITH THEM WHEN THEY CONTACT US ABOUT THE MONEY I HAVE NEVER LAUGHED

SO MUCH WHEN WE MANAGED TO CHANGE SUPPLIERS IT MADE MY DAY AND IM STILL LAUGHING AND I

POWERGEN READ THIS AND I WISH THEY COULD SEE THIS 2 FINGER SALUTE TO THEM HA HA HA

hi i am having the same problem with powergen they are ripping me off left right and centre.  they claim my bill keeps rising because THEY estimate my usage instead of coming to check the meter its pathetic.  i started off on budget scheme if thats what they call it, and i paid 20 pound a week duel fuel.  i now pay 40 pound and when i finally pay off debt anouther bill comes along with 200 pounds worth of  debt even though i pay every week.  i dont know what to do can u help me !!!!!??? thanks amber-chantell

amber-chantell:hi i am having the same problem with powergen they are ripping me off left right and centre.  they claim my bill keeps rising because THEY estimate my usage instead of coming to check the meter its pathetic.  i started off on budget scheme if thats what they call it, and i paid 20 pound a week duel fuel.  i now pay 40 pound and when i finally pay off debt anouther bill comes along with 200 pounds worth of  debt even though i pay every week.  i dont know what to do can u help me !!!!!??? thanks amber-chantell

Do you have access to the internet ? try setting up online account management and submit your own meter readings regularly. If you have no arrears just switch supplier, use this site to do a price comparison and switch. I changed to scottish power and use online so I read my own meters in between the quarterly readings they do, its much easier to trak your usage and payments then and know whether your account is in credit or debit.

thanks for the help i really want to change but they claim i owe them money i pay them 40 pound a week, £30 on my usage and £10 towards debt but then when finaly pay off debt  i recive a bill claiming i owe anouther large amount!!so when i pay it off and want to change i cant because i apparently owe money again!  i pay by pay point card locally so its easier for me rather than internet is there any other option as i am very confused thnks amber-chantell

you should still be able to register online to manage your acc. You need to submit readings to stop them being estimated, ring them with readings if you can't get online. And keeps records of your conversations. Get a contact name each time you phone.

Hello there I'm an ex-Powergen employee and just wanted to raise a few points people may or may not understand.

 Capped pricing doesn't guarantee how much your bill will be, but merely the unit prices you pay. Therefore if you use more then you will still pay more. Also these tariffs tend to mean paying a premium at first for the guarantee that those prices won't increase for X amount of time.

When Direct Debit amounts are amended the new amount will almost certainly take into account your usage plus ehatever the amount is outstanding at tthe time over a period of say 4 months. If you are unhapy with the proposed rate then contact your supplier. They will usually be happy to discuss an alternative arrangement, or allow you to clear the arrears first and set the DD to uasge only.

I read somewhere people saying that they would change suppler then pay what they owed as they pleased. This is likely to get short shrift from the suppliers and probably a visit from bailiffs.

 Finally if estimated readings are used then this is made clear on the statements issued, usually in large bold print. I always found myself struggling to sympathise with people complaining about this when we later updated their readings given it is plain that the bill may not be accurate