Hi, Not sure that I can help that much , had a similar problem changing suppliers form Npower to Southern Electric, the latter have been pretty good but npower dreadful. It took 2yrs to change suppliers cost a lot of time and money and now I am looking for a court hearing to try to get redress. So what would I try if I were you, first call look up consumer direct on the web, follow their suggestions, probably not going to get you very far, you may be luckier than me, also contact offwat and the energy ombudsman, I had two goes at the latter and whilst I did get a positive result it still left me out of pocket so I am now resorting to the County Court after trying mediation and everything else. At least the ombudsman should sort out the reason for the £2000 bill (probably part of the chief execs bonus for good customer service) Sorry not much help but you do know that your ar enot alone in this.

Hi ihateeyes, thanks for the encouragement, yes I do intend to press on, my partner is going to court with me. If npower did want to settle the cost has escalated since the claim because of the court costs etc. I was just wondering if there were any records of the number of complaints that npower have had to deal with over the last few years, or court cases. any way roll on April when I will at last get it sorted.

The problems started almost from the beginning of my account with npower; I had moved house at the end of April 2007 and they were the electricity supplier, there was no gas in the property. The first bill arrived in July as an estimated account and it was considerably more than the actual usage, so I phoned in the actual readings, and continued to try the phone line but was cut off each time so I wrote in with the reading, by the 24th July I had a letter threatening court action if I didn’t pay up, by the 30th July I received the corrected account, a third of the original. That set the tone for the next 5 months with incorrect accounts, a letter threatening a bailiffs call if I didn’t pay up ( the bill had been paid weeks before) and my letters and phone calls totally ignored. By mid January I had had enough and decided the only thing to do was to change suppliers, that took from the 14 .01 .08 to 11.01.10, by the 08.02.08 my choice of new supplier wrote to me to say they could not match my current suppliers service as I had two meters at the property one on a tariff they could not match. The second meter had been removed by npower at my request in August 2007. I spent the next 20 months writing, phoning, e-mailing nearly every conceivable department at npower and involved the Ombudsman who in the first instance was unable to obtain a reply from the company. I did obtain a ruling from the Ombudsman but the offer of payment was well short of the money I had expended in my dealings with npower. When I finally managed to change suppliers it took another 121 days to obtain a correct closing account; despite the new supplier and me both giving the readings on two separate occasions each. Having exhausted negotiations with npower who refused to acknowledge more that a small part of my claim I entered a claim with the County Court. I have tried the mediation service; this was another torturous experience as it took the mediator many attempts to obtain a reply from the company and then set up the negotiations. The latter lasted about 8 minutes as npower halved their original offer and stated they wanted to have a day in Court. So that is where I am at now, slightly nervous of the hearing but feel quite justified in proceeding, naturally npower have filed a defence quoting case history with a lot of legal jargon. Although I cannot afford a solicitor I have had some legal advice which is rather mixed in opinion; it appears you cannot claim for your time but costs, expenses and vexation are a possibility. Am I being very naive in relying on common sense and British justice?