@npowerhelp Webby vs Npower (was "Npower - pre-payment meters")

[WebMaster]

Ok, more fun. Still no reply from npower regarding the complain I made, but this morning I had a 'letter' from Debt Managers Ltd simply saying:

 

I confirm I will be calling between 5.30pm and 7.30pm. If incovenient, please contact Mr Scott on 01709 758494

 

Regards Mr J White

 

Any advice please? They haven't taken the non-existent debt to court (yet), so I'm assuming that whoever calls has no powers what so ever. Of course I won't be letting them into my home, and I'll probably just ask them to leave my property (well the driveway to my house) immediately, on threat of calling the police. From what I've read on here, taking a note of their car's registration number is a good way to freak them out a little too.

[JOSH_IOU]

I assumed You contacted Energy Watch.

If you have not contact them with a matter of urgency.

Inform them you have been contacted by a debt management agency in regards to this debt.

 

They will delete the appointment off the system.

There is a letter on Cag about revoking someones licence to attend your premises.

 

Make sure you give a copy of this to the person that attends.

Under no circumstances discuss any debt with him or any other member of the debt collection agency.

 

I will find the letter for you.

[JOSH_IOU]

Account Ref 123456

 

Please be advised that I will only communicate with you in writing,

and if you intend to do a “doorstep call”, then please be advised that under OFT rules, you can only call at my home if you make an appointment with me and I have no wish to make an appointment with you.

There is only an implied license under English Common Law for people to be able to visit me on my property without express permission; the postman and people asking for directions etc (Armstrong v. Sheppard and Short Ltd [1959] 2 Q.B. per Lord Evershed M.R.).

Therefore take note that I revoke license under Common Law for you, or your representatives to visit me at my property and if you do so, then you will be liable to damages for a tort of trespass and action will be taken, including but not limited to, police attendance.

Yours faithfully,

 

Sign and hand over.

[JOSH_IOU]

Oh by the way that £19,000 bill has now been reduced to £25 thanks to help on this website.

[JOSH_IOU]

keep us posted

[WebMaster]

Cheers for digging that out for me Josh - as you've probably realised, I may be the webmaster, but I'm not an expert on consumer issues at all.

 

Nobody turned up at my door, and as someone has pointed out, the letter was probably intentionally ambiguous - "we will be calling" could mean phone or in person - in an attempt to make me panic and phone them.

 

I complained to npower around 25 days ago now, so I'm waiting another 5 days before I contact Energy Watch (I asked for a response within 30 days). Assuming npower don't respond, that'll give me something more to take them up on.

[JOSH_IOU]

Hi Weby Thats ok. I Mean I've never had the courage to approach a checkout up until a few years ago. (its not something I like telling evryone I meet I just like to keep track of my money and paperwork.) Now I'm going to court. give them 31 days then please call energy power if not before hand.

 

You want to show the court you've been trying to sort this out as much as possible if it gets there.

 

It is worth mentioning there is an energy supplier ombudsman thats been set up. Ive been passed onto them by energy watch. This is before they reduced the bill over the telephone. And I've had no response since its been 7 days i think.

 

I find Energy watch much more efficient. I think they have more staff. They really helped me out and were not afraid to talk to me. Just be nice don't treat them like you would Npower. They are there to help.

[WebMaster]

It'd been over 30 days since I sent my letter of complaint to npower, and still no response from them (and the DCA are still hassling me). So I rang EnergyWatch this morning.

 

I was a bit disappointed actually. They listed to my problem, then put me through to npower's payment collection department. Npower confirmed that I didn't owe them anything, and said that they'd inform Debt Managers Ltd that the debt had been paid.

 

Unfortunately, I've heard all this before from Npower - they've told me the same thing on two previous occasions. Time will tell. I guess I'm just disappointed that Energy Watch didn't take a more aggressive stance

[JOSH_IOU]

Get back in touch with Energy watch tell them what happened.

 

Emphasize you are feeling hassled by these people (this is a must).

Ask them to confirm on the phone that debt collection has been canceled and if they say it hasn't ask why not. Be nice though.

 

They are trying to find out what is going on and confirming what you have said to be true.

 

You will gain there support trust me.

[WebMaster]

I decided to wait and see if I received any more demands from npower / Debt Managers Ltd; and the good news is that so far I haven't.

 

Npower only have 3 days left to respond to my SAR though, so I'll need to read up on what to do about that next.

[ozzywizard]

I would send them another letter informing them they have 7 days to contact you or you will report them to the information commisioner and send same letter to energywatch. Unbelievable how such a large company cannot respond with 40 days.

[JOSH_IOU]

Hi Webmaster.

 

Sorry to hear you have been having trouble worth energy watch. They are normally so helpful which is why i referred you to them.

 

I agree with the comments on the above post by ozzy that would seem to be the next logical course of action. At least your doing something rather than nothing about it and its not on your mind to much.

[WebMaster]

Don't know if anyone is still watching this thread, but for the sake of anyone searching I thought I'd keep it going.

 

It's been 40 days since Npower cashed my cheque enclosed with the SAR, and still no response. Actually, it's been over 60 days since I sent the SAR, but since I (stupidly) didn't send it recorded delivery, I can only prove receipt from the data the cheque was cashed.

 

Anyway, I've made a complaint to EnergyWatch and the ICO, so we'll see what happens. Pretty unbelievable that a company like Npower could take so long to answer a SAR.

 

They didn't respond to my letter of complaint sent 3 months ago either - so I've got EnergyWatch onto that too:P

[JOSH_IOU]

Hi Webmaster

 

I am back online now with 3 mobile. Wish there was a cheaper no cap mobile broadband service though.

 

Glad to hear you are going through the correct steps.

 

Next step is the ombudsman should Energy Watch Fail.

And afterwards its the Small claims track. (theyve breached the contract by not sending your data out)

 

Keep us informed. I for one am still reading this thread and keeping an eye on the date of the last post of course.

[Bigmac versus]

It shows how they feel about their customers then dosent it.

Not much.

[JOSH_IOU]

I agree and dissagree.

 

Having worked on both sides of a telephone Especially for banks. And both sides of the telephone as a cival cervant (lowest of lows down there with estate agents.) I get a small amount im going to say understanding of the people that work on these phones and in the customer care centre.

 

Todays industry is always targat driven. By that I mean the sales staff have a target of so many people to get on there books. Most of the time the sales staff have daily targets to hit and were talking just the Joe Blogs normally these days the blonde Manday Dandy off the street charachters on the phone. And when we get to management the management have a target for there staff to hit on a whole. and this goes on and on wirte up to the top.

 

Now the customer service department is "always" driven to keeping the customers on the books and keeping them happy. They have targets also most of the time its to keep the level of callers that want to leave the company to a minimum. If the member of staff gets good at that then they become a bigger rat. (hence the rat race)

 

I would imagine we fit in as a priority somewhere along the line thats only if we get a team on the phone that has not reached there target for the week.

 

An example: When you here these NHS managers on the radio saying the NHS is in a disaster what they are saying is yes they have a lot of complaints on a daily basis and this never used to happen. There is nearly always a reason for this its normally the way a service is priced or the level of service from the suplier or the supliers expenditure margins.

 

You can safely say they care more about money than there customers. Which I admire at a certain level but its dose not help our pockets dose it.

 

The only way to change what is happening is to complain evry single time you get the opportunity. You are doing the right thing webmaster.

 

Now if the complaints procedure fails the last thing is court and this might be the best move if there customer service staff dont care.

 

I hope you understand BigMac how correct you are. The only way one will is to research the subject or to actually have been a manager or a director of a smaller company like me.

[Bigmac versus]

I run my own business and have a couple of staff, i wouldnt ignore any of my customers and go out my way to please all my customers as I believe thats what brings success, the problem is as always when people get ignored or left unsattisfied with the answers given then it does nothing to promote their business.

A reputation takes years to build but can be destroyed in days.

[JOSH_IOU]

I agree with you 100% bigmac.

 

I run my own business on a voluntary basis. I do not employ staff i contract my work out. This dose not stop me helping thousands of people getting Guarnteed business bank accounts and personal accounts.

 

You have to know where to look and there are large banks that do this.

 

I refer people to Utility companys through the Utility warehouse. As one of there agents.

 

Iam an agent of sky Digital TV, I run my own estate agent with guarnteed buyers I offer a 7 day guarnteed sale (ive not failed yet).

 

I run a travel agent as part of my group and many other companies. I am a work alohic and enjoy going out there and meeting people.

 

I dont take profits out of my company i put them in.

 

The best oart of my job is reciveing a bottleof vodka or a 6 cans of newcastle brown simply for helping my customer out.

 

What a great business to be in. I do all this with acute learning diificulties and memory problems you can see my grammor is crap its how you present your self that wins a loyal customer base. oh and not to mention a a slight lisp. And with all of this i could never get a full time job working for someone.

[Bigmac versus]

Take care of the customers and the rest will fall in place.

[WebMaster]

I can't believe how much npower are dragging their heels over this S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) (either that or they're terribly disorganised).

 

I contacted Energy Watch on the 15th May. Had a letter back on the 17th saying they'd written to npower asking them to contact me within 10 working days. No contact from npower of course, so on the 3rd June I contacted EW again. This time the adviser has told me that if npower continues not to response, he'll escalate the matter with his team leader. I guess I just have to sit back and wait while npower dig themselves in deeper.

 

Incidentally, I contacted the Information Commissioners Office almost a month ago. Should I be expecting a reply from them, or is it just a case that they will note my complaint?

[Bigmac versus]

I would expect correspondance from the I.C.O, Npower are as you say terribly disorganised.

[WebMaster]

Finally some sort of response from Npower - a telephone call from their customer services department saying they would get my SAR 'sorted out' and refund my 10 pound SAR fee. Seems like more of a PR exercise - they gave me a line about 'there was no need to send the 10 pound, we'd have been happy to provide the information for free' - and to keep EW off their back.

 

They didn't seem too sure about the SAR though - at first they thought I just wanted a copy of my old bills, and they seemed to think they were doing me a favour, rather than complying with the law. Oh well.

Edited June 16, 2008 by WebMaster

[JOSH_IOU]

Its the attitude the banks are sadly adopting webmaster.

 

They do not want you to look at the way they use your information.

 

You are however entitled to know exactly how they use it.

 

Youre entitled to know who where why and how they use your information. If they do not wish to provide it contact the Information Commissioners Office if they have responded then you can cpntact them now.

[WebMaster]

Needless to say npower still haven't responded to the SAR(despite the phone call mentioned in my previous post), so I've filed a small claim against them, asking for them to be forced to reveal the information. In hindsight, I think I'm maybe pushing my luck by claiming 100 pounds in compensation, but we'll see.

 

Actually, I did hear back from the ICO a few days later too - seems they're still snowed under, hence the 2 month backlog

[WebMaster]

Npower are defending the claim that I filed. Their defence is that I didn't issue the SAR in writing, only via telephone, hence they aren't obliged to deal with it. I assume they're referring to an occasion last month when they phoned me (and only because Energy Watch had pestered them) and I reiterated my request.

 

Interestingly I received the reply to my SAR this morning, and in there was a copy of the original SAR that I'd sent (in writing) back in March. Should make for an interesting court case. Muppets.