npower = NO Power (NPower)

Member Name:

Product:	NPower
Date:	06/09/00 (605 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can't think of any

Disadvantages: Can think of too many

In March this year my partner was stopped in the street and asked some questions about electricity supply as part of a survey. He was asked to sign a form to confirm he had took part in this survey and he was given an information pack on electricity supply, well that is what he thought.
He got home to find what was in this pack was a copy of a contract, signed by him together with information on npower listed all their claims to be the best electricity company of them all. There was also a cancellation letter giving us 14 days to cancel the contract.
We immediatly sent this cancellation letter off to npower as we didn't want to transfer mainly because they were more expensive than I current supplier Scottish Hydro Electric.
npower acknowledged receipt of the cancellation and said everything would return to normal.
Two weeks later we got a welcome pack from npower together with a letter titled "Thank you for changing your Electricity & Gas supply to npower and welcome to better customer service" Well that made me laugh. Mainly because we haven't even got gas.
I tried to phone them to see what they were playing out but got the normal response that you get no matter who you ring these days "sorry all our operators are busy your call is important to us and will be answered shortly"
I hate it when I get this message as I have a call timer on my handset which shows me just how long I've been listening to that horrid music and annoying message.
I finally got through to a human being after 24 minutes(well I think she was) she told me that I had telephone the wrong department (can't see how as they only have one number listed) and she said I would have to ring again using a different number (note the numbers are national rate!)
I asked to speak to her supervisor she refused stating that she was in a meeting.
I rang the new number she gave me where I went through the holding process again. This time a ma
n answered or should I saw grunted and he told me that I needed post-application customer service and I had come through to pre-application customer service.
At this point was becoming very annoyed. I work in a Police Communications Room and I know there is no need to pass everyone around and if they do have the wrong number then it is always the organisaion that has got it wrong for either publising insufficient or incorrect information or for another member of staff putting you through to the wrong number.
This time I was able to speak to a "team leader" don't know how they think they work as a team as they obviously don't talk to each other.
Anyway this is already becoming very boring so I will get to the point.
After speaking to 3 supervisors, the Manager, The senior Manager, the OFGEM (the electricity marketing watchdog) and the coffee machine I had a reply confirming that everything had returned to Scottish Hydro and that I would receive no bill from npower. They also gave me a £10 M&S voucher for innconvieniance (WOW -Big Money!!).
OFGEM also replied stating they were happy that all of their proceedures had been adhered to and that the matter was now sorted out. That was back in June this year.
So far I have not had any bills from Scottish Hydro and was starting to become concerned until last week when I received a bill from npower charging me for electricity used to date.
I had never been reconnected to Scottish Hydro and they were now going back on everything they had written to tell me they had sorted.
I am now waiting for a reply from the Managing Director of npower and from the Director General of OFGEM. Come back next year and see if its sorted yet!!

If you enjoy being treated like this then switch to npower for the worst customer service you can get (and pay more for it as well)


**** UPDATE ****

I have today received a letter of apology from Npower and a cheque for £50 i
n compensations. This just about covers the costs of all the letters and phone calls I have had to send. My electric has also now finally gone back to Scottish Hydro who I must say have much better staff!

Summary: