Npower
Contact Details
Npower
PO Box 93
Tyne House
Birchwood Drive
Peterlee
SR8 2XX
Contact Information
- Customer Services 0800 073 3000
- Customer Services - Minicom 0800 413 016
- Email helpline@npower.com
* Open: Mon - Fri 8am - 8pm and Sat 9am - 5pm excluding public and bank holidays
General Information
One of the UK’s biggest energy providers, Npower currently supplies to around 6 million customers, both business and residential.
Selling points
- Claim to have excellent customer service along with lower prices.
- Free energy efficiency advice
Supplier services
Green
Economy 7
Online
Dual Fuel
Fixed Billing
Packages on offer
Electricity Economy 7 Tariff
Pay less for units consumed during the seven hour night period.
Electricity standard tariff
Electricity units are charged at the same rate regardless of when they are used
Gas standard tariff
Gas units are charged at the same rate regardless of when they are used.
Prepay tariffs
All of the above tariffs are available as prepay options.
Npower Juice
A greener option for electricity customers.
Discounts
Discounts are available to customers buying both gas and electricity from Npower. These savings are greater for customers paying monthly by direct debit.
Ways to pay your bill
- Direct debit
- Cash
- Cheque
- Prepay at pay point
Special Services
Npower have an additional needs register for elderly, disabled and sick customers. Bonuses of this register include:
- Password scheme - private word only known by yourself and Npower that can be used to ascertain whether visitors to your house are genuine Npower representatives
- Minicom system for those with textphones
- Talking, large print and Braille bills for customers with sight difficulties.
- Bill sent to another address
Worst experience ever with npower, I imagine they think of a number and times it by 12 and then a nought on the end to work out your monthly bill. The customer service is laughable, these people have surely never had customer service training in their lives! Phone lines are a minimum of a 40 minute wait. Npower will take no responsibility for anything and have lost some of my payments. If paying by card over the phone be sure to get your authorisation code from them…you might need it! Expensive, dreadful was going to say service but not by any definition of the word can you call them that! Grudgingly rated them one because couldn’t rate in the minus!
Customer services? You are joking! I have never had such poor service ever. I don’t receive bills then get a reminder that takes over 3 weeks to arrive even though I haven’t had the original bill. I received a bailiff letter giving me 7 days to pay 8 days after the date I was threatened with!! I called and was told that it wasn’t their fault as it had gone out on time, I suggested that as they were the customer of TNT Mail services they might like to investigate how long their mail took to get to theri customers - they said it was nothing to do with them. I was prepared to give them a second chance but it’s happened again so I am going to change suppliers. nPower? They just are not good enough.
Hey come on Guys, all companies have their problems. Npower actaully won an AWARD for there excellent customer service.
Extremely poor service, incorrect billings for addresses I haven’t lived at, monthly payments that have more than doubled, owing money and not being told only to be threatened by debt collectors. Absolutely ridiculous.
I have NEVER known a company like it!!They messed me around constantly with my direct -debits taking the agreed payments out on the wrong day and for the wrong amount, so consequently giving me the hassle of bank charges on top as I did not have all the money in the bank at the time.I have not heard a good word about them.Npower; the name STINKS.!!!
This company has made bungling incompetence an art form, I am totally dismayed at the lack of service. I moved into a property and could not make sense of the meter readings. I found out that they had put a recycled meter on the property but had not zeroed the meter. Over the past four years I have explained this to them, but they totally ignore this fact and send bills for several thousand pounds based on estimates. The next bill showed they had cancelled the money owed and had put in a new meter, I checked, guess what, it’s the same old meter, but with more cobwebs round it. I now have a new bill based on this so called, new meter. For the last quarter £700, estimated. They have sent several letters since, saying they will have to estimate bills because they cannot make sense of the readings on their NEW METER. Rating: Don’t get me started.
If you can talk to anyone out of hours about a problem with your gas meter then I’ll give you a million pounds, bad service.
Being the first to announce a massive price increase all their existing customers should switch supplier immediately and then we might see how much they can reduce the price by. This is what the French would do.
I wish that npower would put up a list of pay points where you can use their gas cards.
Having moved house a year ago, I rang npower and gave them my details and a meter reading. After 3 months had gone by and no bill had arrived I rang them to see what was going on, I was told that it was being dealt with, there was a backlog and I would have plenty of time to pay my bill when I eventually got it! I have called every month since, Finally 11 months after moving into my new house I have received a bill. The meter reading was an estimate (dated 03/12/07) and the bill is dated 31/01/08 - does this mean I have been charged retrospectively? I have never known such poor treatment (I can’t bring myself to use the word service) of customers in my life. Npower and I will be battling this one out for a while but in the meantime I am most definitely switching to a company who know what customer service is!!
For the love of god, do not even think about giving your money to this bunch of incompetent people. For months I’ve been trying to sort out my bill and they have no clue. I must have spent hours on the phone waiting to explain the same problem to about 30 people.
I have received a new monthly bill for regular payments for the winter, which have risen by nearly 40% on the basis where Npower assumes that will be cost of what I use, in other words a guess. Considering the cost to them has gone down, this, in my opinion amounts to fraud, npower can dress it up anyway they like but to me that`s the way I see it.
Go to the Ombudsman - I won against them massively. I took a photo of the meters and their reading constantly. Over two years they failed to send anyone to read the meter and also the serial number on the meter didn’t match the bill. I let them know this from the beginning and they where charging me corporate electricity charges at a residential address. The Ombusdman saw all my evidence and told Npower that they had to apologise, write off any bills and also ensure that they came to look at the meter as it is illegal to not have your meter looked at annually on a health and safety issue - which NPOWER wouldn’t know as they never even to this date after I moved out of the address sent anyone to read the meter. I now have EON as a provider and they send someone to read meters regularly and I know what and when and how much I get charged. I stood up to NPOWER and tell anyone to do so also, in this day and age its easier to take photos as proof and always take note of whom and what time you talk to someone on the phone (if you ever get through). P.S. I did the same with Orange and beat them also, I think my Asian language technique is getting excellent after hours of chatting with their engineers so I can’t grumble totally I now have another language under my belt 🙂
You need to know the enemy in order to win your battle.
I read my meters every month and send online. I keep a running account of my consumption and for gas I convert cubic meters into kWh because tariffs are applied to kWh and not cubic meters.
I know we, poor end users, should not be required to do Npower work for them but, trust me, it’s the only way.
The unbelievable garble of their communications is designed to put us off. They are incompetent by design. It serves their purpose.
Beware that the advertised yearly “rebate” is in fact a refund of excessive monthly direct debit payments they have taken with or without our approval. Only after overpaying for a year well over the £80 or 90 or 100 will we get back part of it.
I have been keeping all meter readings and calculations including changes of tariff and it is not so difficult to prove that they routinely overestimate consumption and/or monthly payments.
I brought up the matter with Npower but the problem is that a direct debit contract authorizes greedy companies such as Npower to dip into our money at will. Even when it has been agreed that the monthly payment should be reduced (it has taken me months!), they stall and claim that the payment has already gone through - even if you give them 2 weeks notice.
I am totally appalled that such legalized theft is allowed and that no watchdog body is doing anything about it.
The other curious development is that, when paying by direct debit (and this is to THEIR advantage not ours) billing is only done twice yearly. In the 6 months between bills they constantly propose to raise the monthly payments and once again you must phone and prove that their calculations are way off the mark.
I know, I am retired and I have the time to do all this, it is an absolute shame that we can no longer pay just what we use but have to finance the national greed without any intervention on the part of the appointed bodies.
It would be so much easier and fairer if all utilities companies published their tariffs. Beware of “comparison sites” too. They get a commission for every switch from the company they recommend.
We are being fleeced from every side.
First it was only operators and call centres that provided the screen between provider and user, now the web has succeeded in speeding up what? Npower takes ages to reply (when they actually do reply) to emails and any tariff change requested online or by phone cannot come into effect for 28 days.
Forget the web, the Pony Express was more efficient.
Rating is way below the only possible number.
I hope people are looking at the dates of these comments as they are all old. Npower have won awards for their service recently and are working very hard and spending millions to become customer friendly. Npower employee.
N-power, what a joke. Their call centres don’t open till 8am, if you have a gas problem you have no chance of speaking to any body.
NPower are a joke, I found there service a joke and very expensive. No one I know recommends them and their electricity is expensive Economy 7 more like Npower will take you for every penny they can!
I liked this site as it gave honest opinions as not every gas and electric company is fair, we all know this.
What a rip off being charged £70 because apparently all pre pay meters have been undercharging people. Is it our fault that the meters are faulty? No! but we still get charged for it. Or is it another ploy to rip poor people off? Npower what a joke
Npower are definitely one of the worst power companies out there, it’s only once you’ve tried a few that you realise the differences.
We have been through EDF, British Gas, Eon and now nPower. I had npower before and the worst thing about them was they pretend to be cheap then sting you with a massive bill after a year or when you leave (probably because their meter reading skills are about the equivalent of the painting skills of a bunch of colour blind hedgehogs in a paper bag). British gas are just dead pushy and not all that cheap either. Best combination of service/price experienced so far was Eon (used to be powergen). Never had any really unpleasant surprises with them. The only reason we switched to npower was because of a Mr Lewis ranting about capping. Wish we’d stayed put! Npower as usual are doing the same thing as they have many years before, stinging you with ridiculous backlogs of charges from miscalculated and non-existent meter readings.
I was at the Home Improvement show at the weekend and visited the Npower stand with a friend. I had never experienced such hard sell in the UK until I was accosted by one of their “reps” who did not want to take no for an answer in not signing up for Npower there and then, even though I told him I NEVER sign up to anything without going away to think about it. He was almost shouting at me and telling me I should change that and sign up with Npower. Of course I only saw him as a spoilt brat, probably trained trained in hard sell techniques by Npower. I hated his rudeness, I hated him and I hate Npower for using this sales technique to rope people into their services. npower have nothing to fear from me ever signing up to their service and I promise to tell as many people as I can about their hard sell behaviour and rude behaviour at this show.
I was on SWALEC keep warm. Paying a fixed payment each month however much gas and electricity I used. It started at £35 a month but within 2 years was up to £89 a month. I switched to nPower and am now paying just £40 each month. Its not all bad.
Hi Brian.
Wait another year and you might find (as I did) your DD rise from £60 a month to £250. Then when you leave they will send you a notice saying your balance is zero and then 2 years after you have left barrage you with collections letters for the £1,400 you allegedly owe them. I am not at the point of suicide. So, take my advice leave now.
Hi the same thing happened to me after 12 months my DD went from £79 to £230, when questioned I was told that I had used more than than they had estimated.
The problem with them is they just take the money without notification, I am now going back to a card meter.
Since we all know winter is already here hence I would appreciate more gas to satisfy my home comforts. I do understand I owe your company money for overdue debt, but I think it is extremely extortionate. Each time I put £10 on my gas card I am only receiving £3 gas !!!!! I have been in touch with citizens advice regarding this, so expect a contact from them soon.
Do not understand how I am paying more in my current house which has 5 rooms than my old house which had 9 and I also now have solar panels?????
Top company, cheap and easy to manage.
My gas meter has not been functional since last year November. I have been complaining to npower but no one is here for me to fix my meter problem. Please call me if needed.
It is such a horrible experience to be a customer of npower really….
The worst ignorant services I have experienced so far.
What a joke npower is. Im goin to citizen advice about it. Put 10 on my gas and its gone within a day and a half
A disgusting company who leave their disabled clients without heat. They have not arrived 3 times to change the meter and it was them who said I needed it done. They are appalling, inefficient and a disgrace to the industry. They don’t even return phone calls.