Npower rant

kaktus said:
I received the updated tariff for Jan 2017 from Ovo and it is 30.8% increase in electricity and 28.3% increase in gas rates.

I contacted to ovo to say that this is unreasonable and that I found a quote from So Energy which is 2.57p per kwh for Gas and 12.11p per kwh of electricity and 18.9p standing charges on both gas and electricity. All prices inclusive of VAT. This equates to a saving of £313 per annum based on my usage with ovo (20,000 kwh gas, 5,000 kwh electricity)

I got a call from Ovo a day later to say "we're aware that we're not competitive right now but we can't price match unfortunately"

Given I've just had my smart metre installed I figured I'd give ovo 1 more month to see what their new rates will be and if still absurdly expensive then I'll switch to SoEnergy
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I'm currently with OVO too, with my contract up for renewal soon. So I too am watching with much interest to see what sort of competitive rates OVO will be offering, if any. Going by comparison sites at the moment, I'm facing an increase in my bill whatever happens. :mad::(
 
Ill openly say we aren't necessarily the cheapest out there but all our back office and call centers are UK based and the people manning them tend to know what they are doing, plus if we naff up there's a big drive to putting it right asap lol
 
MatsyLR said:
To be fair though 98% of customers don't have any issues.
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But if they have 3.1 million customers (Google search) that would mean 62 thousand customers with problems.

I wouldn't want to work in the customer relations department with figures like that!
 
A bit of an update regarding my post on here earlier in the thread. The quote below is my current situation.

Droolinggimp said:
Instead of starting a new thread I thought I'll add to this.

Right... I have had it upto my neck with nPower but before I type my rant I am not aiming this at the varying people I have talked to on the phone as they have been excellent. It is basically down to the people who do account investigations in 'back office'.

In March 2014 I had a gas prepayment meter installed due to my ex not paying the gas direct debits and it made in debt with them. It was programmed to take £10 per week off the debt when I topped up using the gas card every week. Great, it got me all organised and kept on top of usage and payments etc. Then in the summer I got a letter saying I owe £1900 (ish) and they would get the heavies round if it's not paid in 14 days etc etc. I called told them im on PP meter etc. Ok it was sorted.

Later in the year another letter I owe £900 ish called them back asking how its dropped 1k when only a few hundred has been taken off the debt via the meter. Account got put under investigation................. Ok I can't be bothered to go through it all so here is a rough breakdown on events leading up to today. In order but spread out the time from march 2014 to december 2016

Ok investigation
Letter after investigation saying I owe 1400
Called them
Investigation
Letter 900 quid owed
called them
Investig....
Letter 750 owed
called them AGAIN
Inves...
Letter Im in credit 480 smackers
CALLED AGAIN
Inve..
letter 500 odd owed
called them
I went on holiday for a week I stuck £30 on 10 for debt and 20 for gas before I went just to cover the standing charges and make sure we have credit for when we get home.
Check meter and its £3 something
Called them they had no idea why. (heating was off during out holiday only programmed to come on if is drops to 5oc in the house, never dropped to that EVER). I was told the debt should have been paid off by now even if it was a 1900 or 1600 debt
Inv.. due to be resolved 6th Jan 2017
topped up £100 (10 for debt and 90 for gas for the 4 week period (old house crap insulation) and I budgeted for £20 per week after that just to get us in front for the Jan/feb cold snap and also to pay 10 quid per week debt
Meter took off £70 for debt and left me with 30 gas for 4 weeks (not including the extra 30 I would put on for gas every friday till next pay day
Called them expressing my anger as I now have no surplus funds to add extra to keep us with gas. (extra 60 taken off when I stuck the 100 on) nothing they can do.
topped up 10 quid 7 came off for debt
called them other day
they told me to top up £1 so the card can get a message to change the meter back to 10 a week.
Didnt work
called them tonight
told me same thing
Topped up a squid
no message added to card took 70p for debt
called back about 30 mins ago
told to top up again with a code to give to vendor.

Is talking to ombudsman worth it right now?????

Its upsetting my wife, myself worried Ill run out of gas. I have a nearly 2 year old we need warmth and means to cook. It crap.

I am £5 in emergency credit probably lats till tomorrow afternoon as its bloody cold outside tonight. If this code thing doesnt work in the morning I will have no heating untill I find some money. even them whatever I stick on it it will take 70% off for debt until this code/message it received by the card.

Npower are useless. I have never known a company that cant communicate, or even help out more to make sure people dont suffer. yes I got into debt, not directly myself but still my problem for not trusting or checking the ex was paying the bill or not. Still, can't they help?? I asked if they could add £50 to my card to just to see us through till payday but they can't.. It's ridiculous.

Im with OvO for electric and talked to them about it a bit ago and they wanted to help if they could but the can't obviously as I am not with them on gas YET.... I cant even get npower to take my debt off and set up a payment play direct debit as its under investigation. If they did that I would only top up what I know I need and not worry sick over it every week. The debt would be coming out my bank every month till it clears and it would not be an issue..

I am sat here panicking like a mad man..:(

Rant over. sorry if its bored you.:mad:
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Monday I got a letter from Npower telling me that now my account investigation has be finalised they are happy to tell me that my balance is £545. Alarm bells rang in my head as I have been told this before only to find out the figure was the credit they apply to an account that is in debt and the debt recovery on my prepayment meter takes it from this so called credit. Anyway I called them and got them to confirm that this £545 is credit and not debt. The lady I spoke to was very nice and understanding and she couldn't understand the situation either. Anyway, she put me on hold and confirmed with the Complaints director and her immediate manager the £545 is in fact MINE. She looked further into my payments as I told her about taking the debt off my meter. She had no record of me paying debts off since Feb 2016. My debt was cleared then, in Feb 2016. WTF???? so I have been paying £10 per week/topup towards my debt and the meter takes it off as debt. So this £545 is the debt I over paid since last year. Useless company. I told them last year the debt would have been paid off by then.

Cheque in the post :D I am also getting the meter updated to reflect the finished debt, I have to top up £1 for a few days at the same shop to receive a message on my card. Once the message is on the card I pop it in my meter and screen 27 will show £0 on the debt. No more £10 coming off each week. I top up what I use and nothing more. It's a great feeling getting rid of this debt. I did mention getting the meter swapped for a credit one. I was told the debt would have to be off for 6 months, I really couldn't be bothered talking much more as I was going to work but I will be calling them again to swap it as as per my investigation the debt was cleared 11 months ago.

I will wait for the money to be in my bank and screen 27 showing £0 debt then I will be taking things forward. Demanding things happen in my favour.
 
I have been with Npower since I bought this place - last year they wanted me to up my DD but I refused saying I will pay debt off if there is one at next bill - They didn't like that and upped my DD to £49 a month -- So did a shop round and found the difference in prices between each on wasn't that much so called NP and got a fixed price deal for less than £49 - £43 in fact -

I also like the NP web site where I put in a weekly meter reading - Lo and behold three weeks ago after I entered reading a box came up saying "You are over paying " - I can reduce payments to £37 or £39 and £12 rebate - the one I picked was leave it as it is so if need to use more if it gets cold again I am covered - Might reduce it comes spring time.

So overall I have been pleased with NP for last 7 years.
 
I'm tied to npower for my solar power payments. Thankfully they've always paid me the money owed for my generation but they are shockingly crap at turning up to review the installation.

Example: called November 2016 about making an appointment for a man in a van to assess the equipment. Appointment made for December 28th as I was off work. 8-12pm? perfect...

No sign of the man in a van. No letter about a missed appointment, nothing. For all they know I've rigged up another few kWs in the garden :o

There must be a way to switch away from them (I'm with Ovo for the gas and elec), but I'm too lazy to change it.
 
We had similar from BG. Telling us first of all they had been when I knew they hadn't. Then that they'd been but couldn't get access to the meter which was absolute bull crap.
Thirdly that they'd been but couldn't see the meter.

The meter is on the side of the house visible from the road with open access via a path - our gate is further down the path.

Basically they just didn't bother.
 
EVH said:
Example: called November 2016 about making an appointment for a man in a van to assess the equipment. Appointment made for December 28th as I was off work. 8-12pm? perfect...

No sign of the man in a van. No letter about a missed appointment, nothing. For all they know I've rigged up another few kWs in the garden :o
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I've just faced something similar.

The display on our gas meter won't turn on. I assume that the battery has died or something. Phoned up before Christmas and was told someone would come around last week. Christmas is surely a busy period so I thought fair enough.

No-one turns up so I enter a live chat with them. The live chat people are utterly clueless. Can't tell me why the appointment was missed and can't book me a new appointment. Told me to phone up. Phoned them up and was told that the engineer was sick and they didn't understand why no-one informed me. Asked for a new appointment ASAP and they told me that they had nothing for six weeks! I asked to speak to a supervisor and, once through, was told that they'd get me something sooner and would phone me back once booked.

Obviously, they never phoned me back. I can't really leave them until I can take a meter reading though! :mad:
 
Any time an engineer is agreed to visit and is missed you're entitled to £30 under the Guaranteed Standards Of Service. ScottishPower were useless at that, had 3 appointments to sort the timing switch on our meter as the storage heaters weren't working due to that, they didn't turn up 3 times. No text, call, 'sorry we won't be coming', just totallt left us in the lurch.
 
As soon as its squared up and you have your money you need to move from them Gimp, theyll switch the meter to credit mode and not prepayment for you to leave then get it changed with the new supplier
 
Kermit said:
First Utility here too for 3 or 4 years with no massive swings in DD or amount in credit I am that builds up nicely in the summer but slowly depleting now so it'll probably hit £0 credit by about April which is just right.

Have also now shifted both my parents over to FU since they both moved in the last few months
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FU are THE worst company I've ever had to deal with. No one talks to each other.

After a year of being harassed for £1200 debt but yet another billing system showing £1200 credit they couldn't work out that there billing system had broke for some reason. This had to be explained in every. single. phone call!!!!!!!!!

I finally put in a formal complaint and credit to them, I got a phone call a couple of days later and the guy I spoke to was very helpful and removed all my contact details. Not heard a peep since then!
 
One of my friends worked for Npower after we left college, his job consisted of convincing people who called up that their problem was their own fault. Kinda says everything about them lol.
 
HybridX said:
As soon as its squared up and you have your money you need to move from them Gimp, theyll switch the meter to credit mode and not prepayment for you to leave then get it changed with the new supplier
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I have spoke to them and they will switch it over to a credit meter and then I will move to OVO. Just been working out my useage in 2016. With being on prepayment Npower useage on the site shows how much every month we spent on gas including the standing charge. Just a shade short of 15,000 kwh last year was used and that cost me £730 give or take a few p/£ at 4.87pkwh with OVO it will be, based on same 15k useage at 3.68pkwh inc standing charge £560 give or take. £20 short of a £200 saving. Irrc last winter, Jan/Feb was pretty cold and my house being a 3 bed detached solid wall build it take some heating. I checked my usage with npower last year vs 2015 and 2015 was 14800kwh used, now I am 99.9% sure in 2015 I set the thermostat (had new combi boiler installed Oct1'5) switched it to constant so it kept the house at 18c-19c but in 2016 we had it on timer with constant when it was very cold or were in for some time, in my case having it on constant works out cheaper for us so I will give this a try out from tomorrow. I will take a reading tonight just after midnight and note the usage each day at timed with us switching it on when we are in and the next week have it on constant and see what the difference it. The weather forecast seems the same for the following two weeks so we should get a good idea.
 
I recently bought a house and switched from British Gas to OVO after checking on comparison sites and reading a few reviews. I've no prior dealings with gas/elec companies but after only just seeing this thread, I think I made the right move. :p
 
Sighhhhhh.....had a call from them Friday as they've done my bill for the 1/4 and want to increase my DD from £148 to £283. The stated reason is I'm in debit for about £200 and they want to clear that in 5 months. £130 per month increase to clear about £200 in 5 months.

Online my account doesn't show this new bill only they added a £300 and reversed it the same day. This is how it all started last time with being unable to get an accurate bill from them.

The lady on the phone opened a complaint for me as I refused to accept the increase and she said "computer says this is what you need to pay". Doesnt take affect till my end of Feb payment so if unresolved will just cancel the DD and pay by standing order again.

Sadly cannot move yet, outside of the account is about £700 left to repay after the initial screw ups from them. Tempted to just clear it on a card but I'm being stubborn and not wanting this to cost me interest.
 
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