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.