Npower have just taken £1850 from my account - help

[dilemma456]

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have you rung them?

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When was your last statement? Have you used an horrendous amount of power this quarter?

is this gas and elec or just one?

Outrageous that you have not been notified in advance.

Make sure you are calling a freephone number if they have one, and not a premium number if you are on hold.

If premium number then cheque www.saynoto0870.com to get the geographical telephone number.

soz - check not cheque !!

Not set up a secret nuclear reactor plant have you?

We had a similiar experience with a water company, except they did not take the money out but sent us a bill for £1700 from a 'meter' reading.

Our usual bill was about £300 a year. Turned out they had read a misted over meter and read a 9 for a 6. We did get it sorted out, (demisted the meter with a hot kettle). They are probably on limited service on Sunday. Phone at 9am tomorrow, demand to speak to a supervisor. If you have to pay overdraft charge, make sure Npower pick up the cost. Good luck, it took us a few weeks to sort it out. Take your own meter reading and get them to give you a new figure tomorrow morning.

Take a photo of your meter, as well, with a digital camera that has a date on, ideally.

bloody hell I know things are getting more expensive but that is ridiculous!
I don't really know what to suggest other than keep on at Npower until you get to speak to the appropriate person. I hope someone comes along soon who can give you some better advice.

NPower are shite, have you called your bank?

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good idea from frogs

Phone your bank.
They must have realised it was too large a sum.
They let NPower take it.
Shout at them.

Phone your bank, not NPower. Explain to your bank that this is a cock-up and is an unauthroiosed withdrawal by direct debit. Your bank then have to reverse it. Let NPower contact you if you do owe them money, but in the meantime deal with your bank not Npower.

Agree with LadyMuck contact your bank, that is why there is a Direct Debit guarantee, the money will be refunded by the bank, they then pursue Npower for the amount.

The bank may try to fob you off and tell you to contact Npower - DON'T give in, you want the money refunded straight back into your account.

NPower are crap and their customer service abysmal. they were just rated the worst by Which.

I'm sure the Direct Debit guarantee covers you. Get everything down in writing and blitz the bank and the -useless- utility company with stuff in writing. Don't just deal with the numpties on the phone. I think this is the person we were told to contact by Energywatch.

Sheryl Chappel
Customer Relations
NPower
PO Box 313
Gateshead
NE11 0ZT

That's a fab idea about the photo of the meter. do you have your last bill?

We had awful battles with Npower but won in the end. Poor you, what a horribly stressful situation. I hope it gets sorted soon.

As savetheplanet said, Npower are notorious for crap customer service

After you've got this sorted out, do switch to a different utility company - we are with Ebico who have been brill so far for us

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so sorry to hear about your problem. I had something similar a few years ago which was really stressful. It was with seeboard though who kept doing estimated bills (too bloody lazy to come out and read the meter) and we were abroad a lot so not able to supply proper meter readings. They (apparently!) have a system that means that at the end of your account year they take what they believe is due based on previous readings. They therefore took £475 out of my bank in one go. They have to send a letter saying they will do this but it went to my UK address and as abroad I didn't know til I checked my online banking and nearly had a heart attack. Npower should not have taken the money without notifying you first. Problem you will no doubt find with the bank is that they will say that you authorised Npower to take money (ie by setting up the direct debit) which means that they can pretty much take what they want when they want. Bloody disgusting that they can do this though but if they didn't notify you in advance (which it sounds like they didn't) then you have to insist they put it back until a sensible meter reading/payment plan is agreed. good luck
p.s. assume you will now change suppiers?

dilemma456 - have you contacted Npower yet? What have they said?

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Ebico are great (I linked to them earlier), they are an ethical, not-for-profit (believe it or not ) company & charge all their customers the same whether on pre-payment meter, quarterly billing or monthly DD. Also they did not put their prices up in the most recent round of increases so they are v cheap atm.

Their power is supplied by Southern who are very reliable IME for regular meter reading & billing.

I disagree WW just used their on line prices and my last bill would have been over £100 more if I were with Ebico!

I tried a price comparison website recently & there was one that was a bit cheaper (can't remember which one it was), but that one also hadn't increased its prices yet & I'm guessing that Ebico will be the last to do so

Also, although I put in my total DD payments for the year - £1452 - we actually had a rebate on both gas & electricity earlier this year which was over £100.

Anyway I didn't switch to them for lower prices but for their ethical stance - the clincher for me is the fact that they don't charge more for prepayment meters.

Apologies WW having looked again we are still on a "pricefall" plan and have yet to have the current round of price increases inflicted upon us. I'm sure the prices will be more competitve then.