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Short story:
2.5 years ago, I sign up with nPower at address No.1.
1.5 years ago, I move house to address 2.
1.3 yeas ago, I try to leave nPower for Eon, having never been with them before.
Since there has been much to-ing and fro-ing and hassle as nPower muddled the two supply addresses, meter numbers and generally c*ck*d everything up they could have done.
Eon (to their surprise) have opened an account for me at address No.1, that crosses over the date I was moving away from nPower at Address no.2. Amazingly they have meter readings for address No1. The account has been returned to nPower as a incorrect transfer today.
What it means is that I have had biils at Address No.1, stacking up in my name, for 6 months to a year, and now have threats of debt collectors, thankfully being called off by Eon.
nPower claim they would never pass customer information on to a third party - yet Eon have my old address, meter readings and dates that suspiciously tie in exactly to calls from me to npower. Eon have a 'system' note, no name attached from a call handler, that again makes them suspect a mistaken account cock up.
So, who and how could my information have been passed along?
Part of me want's to walk away, but I am 18 months in on endless emails and phone calls to npower, and now my data being handed to third party, that if a co-incidence of meeting old landlord had not taken place, I would be in for a shoeing in court from Eon...
Having had no end of pain and misery from the shower that are nPower ending up with a written complaint that they then wrote off on their own accord 'wll we didn't think you wanted to pursue it...'.
Everything in writing by recorded mail. Request copies of everything and copies of all the recorded calls (there is a charge but if you are serious about sorting it out then it'll be worth it). If you have to talk to them by phone then record it if possible.
I ended up paying then C.£100 to just make them go away as I was getting nowhere and was spending so much time on the phone it wasn't worth it any more. On payment of the settlement of the account I instructed them remove me from all of there mailing / contact lists and that any further contact would be consider harassment.
I hope there entire company goes bust. Over a year ago and the mere thought of it winds me up.
I think the utilities suppliers are allowed in course of their business to transfer some information. The meter readings and address for example but not any other info. The readings should all tie up.
i feel your pain, I am in a similar situation. I moved into a rented accommodation in 2013 and part of the tenancy contract was that I was to use npower as my energy supplier.
I set up an account with them but kept getting bills form british gas. I called them up to explain I was with npower but BG said that we were liable for services up to when the contract was taken over. fair enough send me a bill and i'll pay it.
after a few months of hearing nothing from npower I get another bill from british gas saying we were overdue. yet again I call them up and this time they say that neither service had been transferred to npower. I said that as they were in contact i'd like to set up a contract with them. now this should have been the end of it as all payments were then made to british gas...but then npower stared demanding payments.
it took me a year to finally sort it and get npower to cancel all bills after submitting numerous complaints about them.
and now, almost 2 yrs after moving out...I am getting a debt collection agency call up on behalf of british gas saying we owe money from the start of our tenancy...ARRGH!!!
They are indeed permitted to transfer information but only in terms of the meter ID so that the new supplier can bill on that meter
You can demand that they give you all data they hold regarding you by making a Subject Access Request under the terms of the Data Protection Act. They can charge a maximum of £10 for this
See https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/personal-information/ for details
Then you have the evidence to go 'postal' at them if that's appropriate
I think the utilities suppliers are allowed in course of their business to transfer some information. The meter readings and address for example but not any other info. The readings should all tie up.
This is true.
What is does not explain is how my information was shared for a property that they had no right to transfer information for....
I work for E.ON, but in the generation part of the company, not supply. Make sure at the end of every call with an E.ON call centre you are state 'thank you, but you have not resolved my complaint', (the last bit is part of a buzz word sentence that you should be asked to confirm you are happy with the resolution). Unless they have sorted you out of course. It does sound like E.ON aren't the real problem though, which is good.
If you need to escalate to someone high up the food chain,
David Bird, Residential and Customer Operations Director.
Tony Cocker, UK CEO.
You'll probably not talk to them in person, but they have teams to sort out the real shit.
Hope that helps, good luck.
I used to work for BG on the Energy supply side
All that should be shared at change of supplier is the meter reading.
nPower have been going through a lot of trouble implementing SAP, so this could be the source of the issue..?
Its worth pointing out that the accurate billing code only lets a supplier back bill you for 12 months usage, so if they are trying to bill you for usage further back than that, then tell them to swivel
http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/energy-industry-codes/code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills.html
Its worth pointing out that the accurate billing code only lets a supplier back bill you for 12 months usage, so if they are trying to bill you for usage further back than that, then tell them to swivel
Here is part of the issue. 4 months ago it was all 'resolved', including apology from npower and £50 compensation. I binned most of the correspondence. 😕
I now cannot tell what I have or have not paid, or what bills etc - and 'wrong' bills are 'deleted' - so npower cannot see. Thankfully I have some meter readings and dates still...
Eon seem genuinely helpful, and have already agreed to post a copy of my 'file' to see - I think they see there may be date issue here, that they acted on 'automatically' via system, but did act none the less. It is npower who refuse to agree something is amis or that they maybe need to apologise some more...