My family and I recently moved in to a new property (1st September 2014), NPower with the current suppliers so I figured we’d stick with them. That was my first mistake. What follows is purely a record of my interactions with them and their incompetence.
At this stage I STILL don’t know:
- When the daytime boost is
- What the
- If the night time schedule is going to change to the correct schedule since the daytime savings shift
1st December 2014
I called up today to submit my meter readings over the phone again and spoke to a young lady that took them and sent them to the admin department, apparently I should receive an updated bill in 28 days!
I asked when the different tariffs kicked in and she gave me numerous tariffs/times, many of which overlapped (which makes no sense) so I can only assume she was either making it up or was reading all the possible tariffs, not the ones specific to my account.
I also asked about the timing of our storage heaters because when the clocks changed, the timing of them didn’t – we assumed they were turned on and off by the meter.
The lady I spoke to seemed incapable of understanding what I was asking her and just kept telling me that there billing changed automatically so I am still trying to get to the bottom of this.
So in summary I could still be being short changed by NPower due to timing issues but at least I may get a bill so they can short change me with some level of accuracy.
30th November 2014
Check my account and everything is still mostly based one estimated readings, losing the will to live in my dealings with NPower – looks like its going to be another phone call.
28th November 2014
So I logged in to my NPower account today to find that of the 8 meter readings that I had provided (four for moving date, four for yesterday), only two of them had been entered by NPower. Wow – the guy had pretty much one job to do and that job was data entry, in-fact – copy and paste data entry.
I used the support for from my account to resend all of the meter reading information – no response so far.
27th November 2014
I received an email saying we had a bill finally – yay! I went on to our online account (something that actually works) and discovered that the meter reading I gave them when we moved in had been ignored and everything on the bill was estimated.
Outstanding. I used the ‘Chat’ option via the website to re-submit the original readings when we moved in and up to date ones from today to get a 100% accurate bill. The chap I spoke to said the bill would be regenerated overnight and I’d received an updated bill the next day.
18th November 2014
I called up again today as we still haven’t had any contact from NPower, I ran the usual gauntlet with the automated attendant. I finally got through to someone, explained the situation and she basically said my account had been setup but ‘was blank’ and that she’d transfer me to the home movers department.
I spoke to a helpful young lady that said the reason my account was blank is because their department wasn’t allowed to configure ‘complex meters’ up until a couple of weeks ago but now she could. I didn’t want to confuse her with complicated questions so bit my tongue.
I asked for detailed information on the times cheap electricity was available to me and while she could tell me the night time schedule (which has been 1 hour out of sync since the daylight savings kicked in), she couldn’t tell me the day time ‘boost’ schedule, explaining that her department hadn’t been trained on the ‘complex meters’ yet.
She said she would transfer me to a different department that would be able to help and that I wouldn’t have to give my details again as she had informed them.
I was transferred to the bloody boiler repair department who didn’t have a clue what I was on about!
The lady I spoke to didn’t have any of my details so I ran through the usual info AGAIN and then she said she couldn’t transfer me back to the home movers department, she could only transfer me back to the automated phone system to start the whole process again.
Unbelievably, she couldn’t even manage this most unhelpful of simple tasks – she cut me off!
I had to tell them my address, phone number and utility type three times for security purposes, one better than last time.
11th October 2014
Still hadn’t heard anything, called up. Chap I spoke to repeatedly said he didn’t know who had setup the new account, despite me repeatedly telling him it was me. He transferred me through to a young lady, I can only assume it was her first day as she didn’t know what to do and transferred me through to the ‘home movers department’.
I asked if they could at the very least tell me what tariff I am on and when the cheap ‘Economy 7’ hours kick in – they had no idea and couldn’t give me any information.
The home movers department said I needed an appointment with an engineer to help determine what sort of meter I had and transferred me through to another lady who took my details and said an engineer would be in touch.
I had to tell them my address, phone number and utility type four times for security purposes.
No surprises no one ever called.
4th September 2014
I called up NPower and gave new meter readings (as taken on the 1st of September 2014), the couldn’t give me any details of my account or tariff but said someone would be in touch. I repeatedly offered to give him the details of the previous tenant – my grandmother-in-law – but he insisted they had everything they needed (a few weeks later a final bill was sent to my granmother-in-law at our address, morons).
