/rant on

I've just received my water bill/statement, the toe rags gleefully announced that I was £80.00 in credit!?! I pay by direct debit for goodness sake, I gave them the ability to take the amount required whenever it was due and instead they have just been syphoning off almost a hundred quid from my current account!?! how is that right?!? And what's more when I phoned them up I had to select about ten options on my shonky telephone keypad just to speak to one of the most surly, uppity little madams I've ever had the displeasure to talk to! oh and then she had the nerve to tell me that their policy is to take up to twenty one days to give me my money back! well thats just not on!! I shall be charging them 77.5% Interest daily, an unauthorized borrowing fee, the cost of a phone call and an unhealthy administration charge as they clearly don't appear able to administer our business!

AGH! the bloody cheek of it, its just not British!!

/rant off

I shall be charging them 77.5% Interest daily, an unauthorized borrowing fee the cost of a phone call and an unhealthy administration charge

Mrs PP was owed some money by American Express (Long story, but she won a prize) after several months of no money, she took them to the small claims court and won. She billed them for her time, phone calls, the lot. And she got it…..

You are lucky! Just been told i owe £300! I rang them to say I pay by direct debit so how can i owe them when i have been paying them automatically. To be told that my usage has gone up and it is not for them to change the direct debit amount!? I said well it should be, to which I was told that it would be far too much work….. So much for automation!

Did you check the contract you signed, before you signed it, OP?

We ended up over a grand in debt to nPower after they spent 18 months only taking £2 a month for electricity and not bothering to read our meter.

"We will need the money by the end of next month"
"F*** off"

We ended up pating an extra £30 a month for a couple of years until it was cleared.

miketually

Erm, not quite sure all the blame lies with npower on this one, did you not think it was wrong !!

Not defending nPower by the way as all the energy compaines and utility suppliers are in my opinion, a bunch of scum sucking weasels.

nPower got my DD wrong too and I spent 14 months paying half what I should. Now paying a £60 a month extra but I'm sure if I don't check it they will keep taking the extra until they I am hundreds in credit.

i was under the impression the way dd's work with service co's is that you just pay a fixed amount each month based around an average consumption for the property. If you use less, than you'll end up in credit, if you use more, you end up in debt. it's what you sign up to. most co's do seem to work it so that most people's accounts end up in credit though…

Which makes sense or people end up with outstanding debts they can't pay…

Can't see the problem myself, surely you have to take some responsibility for setting up a DD unless you send them your meter reading each month so they can keep track of whether you're over/under your expected usage…

its just not British!!

Unfortunately, it is!

Actually alot work it so you are in debt for a couple of hundred. Underestimate your usage when you sign up, customer thinks they have a good deal because they are paying less than they were with the old supplier. A few months in start upping the bills but not enough to clear the debt. Customer gets grumpy cos the bills have gone up but then realise they'll have to stump up £ 200 to change suppliers.

coffeeking signed nothing!

I got a faulty meter fitted by our water provider, every time something with a big electricty draw was switched on (like a kettle) it bumped up the meter.

It was only when I receved another bill for my old flat after I'd moved out having thought I'd cleared it that I phoned up to query it. I was told that it was the final bil and the previous "final bill" had been the last period not until the day I moved out.

A helpfull water co employee probably talked himself out of a job next.

I called to query the bill after he had given the above statement he casualy asked if I'd lived at the flat on my own to which I said yes and he commented that the meter might be wrong as I appeared to be filling an olympic swimming pool each day from my meter.

Still took three months and two missed appointments to get it sorted not to mention my having to get access to my old flat again.

nPower did similar to us. They took twice the amount we'd agreed on for quite a while. It was only when another company tried to get us to move to them that I checked and found out we were 400 quid in credit.We moved to the other company, still waiting for my 400 quid, mind.

Erm, not quite sure all the blame lies with npower on this one, did you not think it was wrong !!

I probably should have spotted it, but it was bundled with the gas DD as well. When we were paying £60 a month we built up credit, so the £30-something they were taking didn't seem too strange.