Npower has failed to bill me for over two years since I moved into a rented property in 2012. I involved the ombudsman which prompted an invoice in August 2014 for £565, and £350 compensation. I arranged to pay the sum and subsequent monthly amounts by direct debit, but npower failed to collect the money.
Since then it has issued three further bills going back to 2012 and is claiming I owe £1,800 in back payments. I have been making monthly payments to it by bank transfer (as I don’t trust it with direct debit), but I can’t make sense of its calculations; as a single parent on a very tight budget I can’t afford to make the level of payments it is suggesting. CC, London
Ofgem, the energy regulator, gave npower until the end of August 2014 to sort out the fiasco of its new billing systems or face a ban on telephone sales. You are one of many thousands of customers to have pleaded in vain to pay your dues and, sadly, your experience suggests that npower has overshot Ofgem’s deadline. It’s frustrating that it takes the company a single day to sort out your account after I involve its press office, and it finally admits its service has been “less than acceptable”. No energy company can back-bill for a period longer than 12 months; so quite apart from its incompetence in setting up your account, it has no business charging you for 2012 usage. A spokesman explains that it did reduce your bill under the back-billing code, but calculated it incorrectly so you were still overcharged. Now, lo and behold, it discovers that instead of £1,800, you owe £688.69. It will deduct £230 from this as a goodwill gesture and promises to call and discuss an affordable repayment plan with you. The only good news for you is that, as a result of npower’s incompetence, you received 12 months of free energy.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
