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Find financial and money saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum.

Find financial and money saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum.

Money matters

Flipping Powergen .grrrrrrrrrrrr

23 replies

QueenOfQuotes · 04/10/2005 14:18

We're with Powergen for both gas and electricitt and pay a standard charge each month by direct debit. When we got our last bills last week we noticed that the payments weren't enough, as the amount owed is just going up and up and up.

We got a letter in the post this morning telling us that our payments weren't covering the amount of gas we use and that we owe then £185. They then very kindly informed us that if we wanted to clear it we could call up and pay it in one go, or they would take £70 a month (3 times what we're currently paying) to help us clear the amount, which (with the amount of gas we're likely to us) would get us uptodate by the end of 9 months.

If this wasn't ok with us then we had to call them, otherwise they'd just take the money anyhow!!!! DH called them today and told them we could't do that (which they were fine about), but if we hadn't seen the letter, or read it properly they'd have been taking out £55 more a month than they currently are[

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QueenOfQuotes · 04/10/2005 14:37

bump - as you're all busy talking about other stuff

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munz · 04/10/2005 14:41

dear god don't say they're crap we've just switche dot them - if u tell them what u can manage they should set it to that - least that's what BG did when we told them they couldn't have £60, and could only have £45.

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QueenOfQuotes · 04/10/2005 14:43

ermmmm - they're cr*p - we've been with them chiefly because of the extra clubcard points, however, since we've stopped using Tesco so much it doesn't make it worth our while.

However, we can't switch until we've payed them off - which including the electricity - is about £600 )

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munz · 04/10/2005 15:06

don't say that thats why we changed - is it possible to change from them and pay them a DD amount until the balance is paid off? - althou u would then end up with two energy bills.

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SplendidTinker · 04/10/2005 15:08

Change from dd to standing order? My electricity bill is like this, am always getting bills threatening me. But since I am paying something each month nothing ever gets done about it.

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hunkerpumpkin · 04/10/2005 15:10

Powergen are totally crap IME.

We switched when Amerada became Powergen - we had our gas with Amerada and our electricity with Powergen.

Straightforward, you'd think. Nope. The Powergen we switched to was a different company from the one we had our electricity with. So we switched from them too (but still got bills with Powergen on). We had an amount outstanding (about £250) with the old Powergen we were with and it took 9 months and copious phonecalls to sort it out - until the last week, nobody told us that there was more than one company called Powergen (both owned by the same company, but apparently not sharing bills or something?).

They wrote the outstanding amount off, because I'm a rottweiler

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LadyFioOfTipton · 04/10/2005 15:12

they were terrible when we first moved in this house. they said we owed 300 quid after only a week and if it wasnt paid they would cut off our supply. Luckily thewy eventualloy believed we had just moved in! They still tried to charge the old guy who had moved out for the outstanding amount, whoich wasnt even outstanding as the bill was estimated and the house had been empty for 9 months!

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SplendidTinker · 04/10/2005 15:12

Just checked - mine is Powergen as well.

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hunkerpumpkin · 04/10/2005 15:13

Mind you, you've reminded me - they seem to be double-charging us for our gas, so I really out to rottweiler them again. Wankers.

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nutcackle · 04/10/2005 15:15

Our gas is with Powergen too. Am not overly keen on them because when we moved in they insisted we use the pre pay meter already installed. They said we had to use it for 3 mths so that they they could see if we were good customers

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munz · 04/10/2005 15:21

will ahve to get DH to keep a v strict eye on them then British gas we're too expensive which was why we changed.

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puppy · 06/10/2005 23:40

total utter crap company imo,
we have both gas and elect with them, the elec side is ok but they have got our meter readings all to cock from day one and trying to take £232 a month for both, they have said they will send energy effiecient people out and somebody to read the meter and nobody has turned up , they don't ring back when they say they will either.
dh been on phone tonight with them yet again and it looks like we are finally getting somewhere after 6mths somebody is meant to be coming to see us a week on tues, she can see where the error has been made.
Anyway as soon as its sorted and we have settled the amount we are immediatly changing companies, can't wait.

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calpopscalum · 13/10/2005 20:30

sorry guys I ahve to disagree!! We've just changed form NPower to powergena nd just won a lengthy 10 month battle with NPower who had totally ignored all my meter readings then sent me a bill for £500+!! Anyway I got a letter from powergen the other week saying they were raising our payments to £70 pm for what i thought was elecvttricity alone so i went mad!! called them up and they said that was for both although we were still paying NPower for gas!!! Anyway powergen were brill, wrote off our gas bill and took that day's gas reading as the starting point and I ahve paid 4p for gas since Jan with them!!! Am also getting the NPower payments refunded!! hurrah! have to say Powergen were really helpful and worked out a reasonable charge actualy using the meter readings!! So DOWN WITH NPOWER!

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FrightfullyPoshFloss · 13/10/2005 20:36

Atlantic, no more I think now, have been taken over, and I think things got messed up somewhere along the way. Had the baliffs chasing me about them when pregnant last year. Awful company. Lived in a house split into two flats, but this was too much to understand and so they kept sending me bills for both flats. Think this was how I ended up owing money, but being a silly girly had thrown all bills out (including a final bill for less than £20, not the entire years worth of gas they thought I owed, on, oh, two accounts still?). Caused me weeks of stress and agro.

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Psychobabble · 13/10/2005 20:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

munz · 13/10/2005 21:03

QoQ - yes we rang transco and got them out to check the meter - if u tell them it's not working etc they send someone out straight away it was free for us as well. they checked both gas and elec - turns out both were right - I was reading the wrong figures lol.

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alux · 13/10/2005 21:05

QofQ: you can always cancel your dd yourself with any company. read your meter and send them your latest reading. no company can force you to make payments which may be detrimental to the welfare of your family. you can work out a payment plan with them that is convenient to you not them. as long as you don't refuse to pay outright, they cannot take you to court. I think it is now illegal to take away anyone's gas or leccy supply.

(The can however, get a court order to install a powerkey meter to reclaim any debt so its not a case of never paying for gas and leccy again.)

My best tip, read your own meters 2x a year. in March - end of highest consumption and end of October - start of highest consumption. If suddenly your usage drops or rises, do it in the interim.

That way you can avoid any nasty surprises like you from owing them too much money or they keeping your extra money in their bank acct earning them, not you, the interest.

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moschops · 14/10/2005 11:37

we are in the process of moving from Powergen to Npower........i think they can all be as bad as each other to be honest.

i got a letter from Powergen the other day telling me they are putting my payments up to £108 a month!!! and the worse thing is they never give us an accurate bill even though i do my readings online. they contnue to estimate my night readings as they have shot up dramatically since we had heating installed and use more economy7 power. so they are actually undercharging me.......yet they seem to think i am using over £1000 of electricity a year.

i have used actual readings from March04 to March 05 and Npower have calculated my monthly payments at £62 which is slightly more than we originally were paying at Powergen before they started to mess us about.

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coppertop · 14/10/2005 11:56

fWe had a nightmare of a time trying to get rid of bl**dy Powergen - despite never having actually signed up with them in the first place. The previous tenants were with one company (can't even remember who) and we wanted to move to BG. We cancelled the agreement with company A and BG agreed to sign us up. 2 months later nothing had happened. BG said our previous supplier wouldn't release us. Company A said they'd released us 2 months previously. It turned out that Powergen had signed up a new customer using our address. Worse still because we weren't that customer we weren't allowed any details of what was happening or what was owed. This went on for months. Energywatch became involved in our case and Powergen finally admitted that it was their fault and gave us the entire year's electricity for free. Yep, it had taken an entire year for them to admit they were wrong. The cheeky b@stards then had the gall to ask us if we would consider keeping them as our supplier!!!!

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moschops · 14/10/2005 12:34

well three years ago when we moved house we were £400 in credit at Powergen.....because they put our payments up and refused to credit the money back to our account.......in the end we stopped the direct debit and by the time they had sorted it all out the £400 credit was all used up to pay what we owed them in the interim.

they have put my payments up to £108 for the next 9 months as my current bill is for £92........erm...so i will have cleared my bill and be in credit with one payment!!

we should have changed suppliers when we first had a problem with them, but i guess we were just complacent about it.

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Gizmo · 14/10/2005 12:46

If you've got issues with any electricity supplier, by the way, Energywatch are a very good body to talk to. They can take on your complaint and get it dealt with using some of their muscle - they are meant to represent the consumer, after all.

Can I ask a quick question? If you had a meter (gas or electricity) which sat in the corner of your kitchen and showed you clearly 1) how much much energy you were using and 2) how much it is costing you, do you think you would read it regularly? Do you think you might use it to change your power consumption as the bills went up?

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alux · 14/10/2005 12:47

a company has a legal obligation to make an appt with you to read your meter at least once a year. (many times people are not at home at the time schedule the appt so you can phone them to move it or give your own reading instead of an appt) If you want your meter read by a meterman, you can phone up and request an appt for a day/time convenient to you (working hrs though)and someone has to be home to let the man in. Insist on an appt if you are sick of estimated readings and they are not using your reading. (it costs the supplier money now to send out a meterman so they will try not to do it or will accept your reading)

another point, when you leave or move into a home, read your meter and call the supplier. There is a number you can call to find out who the supplier of the property is. Look at your meter and it will have an indelible 13 digit number (for leccy) and likewise I think for the gas. The number in every distribution area is different for leccy as it is based on the old system of regional leccy boards but phone transco with to find out who the gas supplier for your new home is.

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alux · 14/10/2005 12:51

PS: a phone book will have the name and number of a regional distributer in the front pages where things like the NHS details are etc.

PS: on a leccy meter, it may be labeled: 'MPAN' number

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