POWERGEN

I changed to Powergen last summer after their prices were shown as being the cheapest according to a consumer website. When I got my first bill in the autumn I couldn’t believe it!!! My electricity charges had soared – yes, I know they have soared in general, but this was ridiculous and for the summer months too when I had barely used any electricity. I checked my readings and they were correct, so then checked on the internet to compare supplier prices.

CHANGED SUPPLIERS

According to the Uswitch.com website it would be cheaper for me to switch to a different supplier, so I did this. The new supplier informed Powergen and I had to do nothing.

Several weeks later I received a letter from Powergen expressing their sorrow that I was leaving them.

Then three weeks later I got another letter saying the same thing.

Then three weeks later....... and so on, it is now February and I switched from Powergen in November yet they still send me letters!

I have ignored the letters, if they want to waste money on sending out repetitive correspondence that is their problem, but no wonder their prices are so high.

PROBLEMS

However, this is not the only gripe I have with Powergen. We have a property which we rent out and when the tenant moved out in October 2005 the agent informed the appropriate utilities that the tenant had done a “moonlight flit”. Unfortunately this happened again with the second tenant in December 2006. Therefore when we got a bill from Powergen saying we owed them 136 pounds for gas and electricity for a period from November to December, we glanced at it and thought it was for the latest tenant.

I rang Powergen and was starting to explain this when I looked at the dates again and realised that the bill was for 2005, not 2006. Therefore, why had it taken Powergen so long to contact us? Apparently they had been sending the bills to the property and not to our home address, and after a year when they had been ignored they realised they should contact us at our home address.

We sorted it out – or so I thought – that we owed nothing and it was the tenant who owed the money and Powergen sent me a Nil statement confirming this.

DEBT COLLECTORS

Two weeks later we received a letter from a debt collection agency stating that if we did not pay Powergen the 136 pounds action would be taken. I rang them, they would not speak to me and insisted I rang Powergen, which I did.

Problem sorted, Powergen would notify the debt collector to cancel the action.

Ten days later we received another letter from the debt collectors, yet more phone calls and further confirmation that Powergen would cancel the action yet again.

Two weeks later – another letter from the debt collectors, this time even more threatening. I rang Powergen, they assured me they had stopped the action but would do it again. I then rang the debt collector agency and explained what had happened, they asked me to confirm in writing and to send a copy of the Nil statement. I faxed this through and hoped it would be the end of the matter.

Another two weeks went by and we received yet another letter from the debt collectors saying they were about to take us to court and send in the bailiffs!!!!!!!!! Now this really shocked me!!!! As someone who always pays everything on time I was horrified and worried that all this action would affect my credit rating.

I rang the debt agency, they insisted they had not heard from Powergen. Well had they received my fax? Apparently faxes were sent to a different office!!! So I made yet another phone call. The man I spoke to was so rude I couldn’t believe it!!!! “Have you received my fax?” I asked. “How do I know if your fax has been received? It is to another department and I am not psychic.”

When I told him I thought his attitude was somewhat rude, his reply was – wait for it – “We are not paid to be nicey nicey, we are debt collectors.”

Ah well, yes, they may be debt collectors but I was NOT in debt!!!!!

Again I rang Powergen and this time refused to come off the phone until they had spoken to the debt collection agency and told them to cancel any action. They assured me they have done this and I now have a letter of apology from them, confirming this and that the problems were caused by “a lack of communication between Powergen and the debt collection agency.”

You can say that again!!!! This letter arrived a week ago, so I just hope now that Powergen have finally sorted things out.

CONCLUSION

I have incurred a lot of cost, not to mention time holding on the phone, sorting this out. But what really worried me was the attitude of that bully boy at the debt collection agency. He was so intimidating, it worries me that if people who are genuinely in debt and unable to pay, how they would feel being spoken like this? No wonder people in debt go to money lenders to pay off one debt if this is what they are greeted with from the debt collectors! I did complain to his manager incidentally, but he had the same attitude!

All this is the fault of Powergen really, their communication skills seem to be nil!