Ms S is a single parent with two children aged three and nine. She initially came to us with a debt issue as she was unable to keep up with payments on her gas and electricity bills. Her supplier, NPower, was pursuing recovery action against her. She was concerned about the possibility of being disconnected and the impact this would have on her young family.
We contacted NPower and made an offer of payment towards the arrears, based on her financial situation. NPower were not prepared to accept this offer as it did not meet their recovery guidelines. We explained that under Standard Licensing Conditions, if the customer can maintain current payments, the company should look to accept offers on arrears based on ability to repay. NPower did not agree and continued to press forward with recovery action including the installation of prepayment meters.
In order to install the meters, the company forced a warrant of entry process, for which they charged Ms S £400. Despite our efforts to negotiate, they stated that this was the only way forward.
We wrote a letter of complaint arguing that the meters should not have been installed under warrant. We asked for the charge to be refunded, as Ms S would have been happy to have prepayment meters installed and had previously asked NPower to do this.
This request was refused. We asked for a deadlock letter to be issued so that we could escalate the case to the Ombudsman. NPower made contact to advise that they had overturned the original decision and refunded the charge of £400.
Ms S is very happy with the outcome and is finding the prepayment meters useful in budgeting and avoiding further debt.
