Hi Velox,

I don't disagree that the act allows this, but I was describing if they arrived looking for payment, especially in the case where no original bill, demand or final demand were sent.

I'm sure that they are allowed to enter the property with a warrant, but not without notice, and could they physically enter the property if refused? Probably not without the police.

I think that everyone should pay their bills, but I'm not in support of the bullying tactics used. He has already paid nearly 1300 of a 1600 bill for the first 3 months at the property. I don't even pay that a year for mine

Sparky.

forumbrowser:

We pretty good with money.

Wasn't aware that the accounts could be managed online.

Not that good then?

OK, cheap shot, but please bear with the criticism. There are plenty people on this board who dislike utility excesses just as much as you do, wanting to help, but there are more subtle ways to let off steam.

For starters you have made no mention whatsover of your meter readings (apologies if you have) but the £sp of of a bill is only half the story. Specifically, which NPower tariff are you on? Some Npower tariffs, uniquely, feature a "gotcha" called primary unit seasonal weighting. This can unbalance the bill between winter and summer as if the winter bill wasn't bad enough already. Another thing, its possible that if your tariff features a discount, it may not be paid until you have been with NPower for 12 months. While I understand you want nothing more to do with NPower, you could be cutting off your nose to spite your face, when with patience you could get some of your own money back. Why give them free money?

Clearly we are good with money as we have managed to sort out most of the bill fairly quickly despite being on a low income.

The gas and electricity have averaged out as £124.60 each week for the 3 month period. But that is what it is.

Do you think that utility companies have the right to bully and be agressive? We certainly don't.

forumbrowser:

Do you think that utility companies have the right to bully and be agressive?

Not at all, but still no information to allow you to be helped. Really want to help scr*w this type of utility behaviour but on this occasion will settle for my 5000. That's points BTW not a genuinely low salary.

Forget the bills. They are some what irrelevant.

There is no excuse for not sending out the right correspondence to customers. With the gas supply we haven't had a single letter from npower - nothing (and before it's asked, we did ask npower what was happening with the gas). We have had to pay them blind without the bill.

Npower sent a debt collector around who basically told us a warrant was going to be applied for if the account wasn't settled immediately. We advised her that no bill or correspondence had been sent to us relating to the amount she was attempting to collect for.

As it happens we settled the account on the telephone that same day but made it very clear to npower that the bill should be re-sent to us as a priority. That was 3 weeks ago. Npower have been advised again today to send out the gas bill so that we can see it.

Now that telephone call was quite a remarkable experience. The lady we spoke with was exceptionally rude. She immediately assumed that we didn't have the money to pay the £770.00 bill and took the stance that we were trying to get out paying the amount by saying correspondence had not reached us. She was so opinionated and so sure of herself that she tried to end the call without even giving us an opportunity to pay; she just said that npower would proceed with court action to get a warrant issued in earnest. When we did get to talk about money, it got pretty aggressive again. We were basically told you will do this and you will do that or else. That's disgraceful behaviour. Thankfully we had the funds in our bank account to pay the bill.

It's pretty worrying when you have a young family and you are being told that a warrant is going to be issued to put a meter into your house. In hindsight we know now that npower would have had to have gone to court to get the warrant and we could have gone to court to defend ourselves. If we knew that at the time then we would not have paid.

Even with the bill paid, why haven't npower sent us the documentation for the bill? So not only do we have to put up with a rude, aggressive customer services team but also have to put up with not getting basic documents with which we can manage our account with!

The electricty was different. We got the electricity bill first. It was the largest bill we have ever seen for a given quarter and by about £400s. It's only nature to assume that there is either an issue with the readings or with the meter appliance itself. So we called npower to discuss this.

In not having any previous issues with npower ( as they have supplied gas and electricity to us in the past ) we made the mistake of saying to npower that we disputed the bill. It seems to be as soon as you use the word "dispute" with npower then their staff switch in defensive, arrogant robot mode. We were forwarded to the complaints department pretty sharpish and had a manager there tell us that the meter would not be checked. We had to make pretty damn clear that the meter would be getting check. Reluctantly he then told us that npower would write to us about that request - that was 6 weeks ago.

We are making the point that this Company isn't that great. Really feel for anyone who has had big bills from npower and is properly struggling to pay them.

We'll be switching as soon as possible. Discounts or not.

Guess we should have been more clear about this from the outset of this thread.

What agency was it?

Not sure - think the agent was from npower debt collection company. Can't remember now what the name of the company was.

Gas suppliers always leave a notice of intent to apply for a warrant

Your record keeping, to be blunt, is shocking.

In your own words: "I am a programmer and built the fraud detection system for an investment bank about 10 years ago on the Isle of Man. Funnily enough the project was called Paranoid." (Is that funny?). You run a small business, and yet you seem unable to deal with utility bills from nPower, or keep even basic records.

Can I smell something here?

When i read your story i was having flash backs at what happened to us. I work from home trying to get an internet business off the ground and my wife is working on not a particularly high salary. We had a reading from Npower and soon after was landed with a bill of over £2500 for gas. I was dumbstruck as normally we didnt get anything over £270 a quarter, they said this happened as they have not taken a reading for some 9 months or so, and previous bills were estimated.

This then went into a dispute as i wanted the meter checked. This they did with a waiting time of 6 weeks and stated the meter was fine. I tried to arrange a payment method but they wanted too much upfront which was not possible for me to pay.

To cut a long story short my bill ended up at £4000 and i am on a prepayment meter. Legally they can only take back £50 a month of the debt and on the meter.

Anyway i just got the prepayment statement is not showing all the gas we bought. it is costing us at least £60 per week. I called them and they said the each we top up the card this data is not sent to them until the shop keeper uploads the data and their supposed to do this every day.

I cant believe their system is to poor. I am going to keep all the receipts of payments made and keep a register from now on. They left me with no choice but to have this damned meter or it was their other alternative the bailiff. (actually he did turn up and lied to me saying he needed to take a meter reading and therefore got in the porch of the house and then issued me with a notice, very dirty).

My advice is simple get rid of npower. what a bunch of cowboys

energycompanycon:

My advice is simple get rid of npower. what a bunch of cowboys

I won't defend energy company excesses but the fundamental problem (if the metering is correct) is your massive (for a domestic premises) gas consumption. Are you any way towards getting a handle on that?

I take it that the old meter was removed and a replacement credit meter was fitted (before the prepayment meter). Did the replacement credit meter also record massive consumption?

Thanks for the reply.

The old meter was removed and tested. I was told it was fine. I am now on a prepayment meter which is charging us appox £60 a week. (£13 is for debt and standing charge) I dont know why its so high as our heating is on maybe 2 hours a day maximum, but it is a combi boiler and my kids have 20 min showers (aagh).

No it is too high i need to have an energy expert come and see why. But this is the worst part. when i got my statement our debt had not reduced, i noticed that only a quarter of the gas we bought was actually showing. i rang them up and they stated that the shops you top up from need to upload the data at the end of each working day. If not then they have no record. I could not believe it that the system cannot make recordings of when we have purchased gas. I will keep my receipts and a log of whenever we top up. seems there very happy to keep us in debt for as long as possible.

IM HAVING A REALLY SIMILAR PROBLEM, AND WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE SOME HELP/ADVICE....

MY THREAD IS "MASSIVE N-POWER BILL..PLEASE HELP?!"

this is really starting to worry me now, i have tried everything in my power to assist n-power, but it really feels like playground bully tactics, and i dont know where to turn...

please help?!