NPower charging new customers for old cusomers bills (NPower)

Member Name: pinkyandthebrain

Product:	NPower
Date:	09/01/06 (1145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: paying money for a utility product from before you lived at a property

NPower is a terrible company, unfortunately Britsh Gas, Powergen and probably all the others are just as poorly run by directors who have not heard of "Executive responsibility" and fail to plan the company to enable it to give an efficient performance.

My situation having moved into a property some 6 months ago is that they read the meter (after I had been their for 6 months). I gave the meter reader my name, informing the reader that when I moved in and tried to get the name of the gas supplier the previous occupant did not know. What happened was 4 years ago their was a national computer crash messing up all the transfers, the companies are still sorting it out. I could therefore not give a start point reading (I tried to write one down but cannot find it), anyhow if I did give it they would not accept it.

I did not know where to start to track down the name of the company, and started to even wonder if we were on dual fuel as the electricty company (Powergen) had two meter readings on every bill. The CEO of NPower made no attempt to ensure that customers were contacted in that 4 year period. The previous occupant (and the house changes occupants annualy did not know who the supplier was) and as a shared house of multipul occupancy (people who generally do not know each other before moving in) bills would generally arrive and be shared out with everyone paying a share.

NPower claims that people in that situation should put money aside, well how do people do that, in the last four years approximatly 20 people have lived here how can they estimate bills and pay it down the line. They also expect the current tennants to have the addresses of the previous tennants,even the Landlord does not have current addresses for people who lived here (many of them were in Halls of residence before moving in and then moved elsewhere).

Now NPower expects me to pay 4 years worth of gas (for a time when I was living hundreds of miles away in London, in halls and at other places). I cant prove where I was by utility bills which is what they are asking for as in London it was my parents place, in halls you don't get utility bills and I was also at a friends, staying as he had a room and owed me a favour (so no bills).

It is about to send me to bankrupt, however the irony was that if one of the people who I lived with had answerd the door and had their name put down instead of me they would have been able to provide utility bills. If it was another who speaks little English he would not have known what was happening and would have returned to India (as he was about to go (now meaning I have to pay his share if they work out what the 6 month is, then a bill would have come in his name and we could have said you should have billed him, he's in India and knew nothing about it, if you find him you will need an interpreter to explain it as its more complex than his English can understand (we were going through that by physically showing him the bill each time he had to pay his quater, explaining VAT to him was the worst bit of that.

In their lisence it says prompt billing of customers, if they are incapable of doing that and their CEO fails then why chase anyone at great expence, they know where their CEO lives, they can make him pay up (or take it from his salary). If a CEO starts personally paying more in compensation for failure to do his job and is forced to take "executive responsibility" then surely such a loss would motivate him to work to quickly solve the problem. NPower and its CEO and Directors have yet to learn something most other buisnesses have done for years, you establish who your customers are, you bill them. A bank does not give money to people before you get an account and either put money in or sign a contract with them for a loan.

Oh as for the should have find out and told them who you are and gave a reading when you moved in, guess what you phone a call center and the call center for the company will say they cant discuss customer accounts (as in who is a customer) until they are sure that the person they are dealing with is the customer (data protection act), as you are calling to find out if you are a customer then they can't discuss it (or due to the problem with the computer crash they say "no you are not a customer" you are not on their records and you take them at their word.

Summary: NPower charging new customers for years of old customers usage.