N Power Fined for Piss Poor Customer Service

The energy supplier npower has been fined £2m by Ofgem for mishandling customer complaints.

It is the second heavy fine levied on one of the "big six" energy firms over complaints handling in four months after a £2.5m fine for British Gas in July.

Ofgem said npower had failed to record all details of the complaints it received, did not give customers enough details of the redress service offered by the energy ombudsman and failed to put in adequate processes to deal with complaints.

The regulator said it was also investigating the way EDF Energy, another of the big six suppliers, handled its complaints.

Sarah Harrison, Ofgem's senior partner for sustainable development, said: "Consumers have a right to expect that energy companies will comply with the standards. Npower failed to do so and, although it took remedial action, it has incurred a penalty for failing consumers."

Ofgem added that the fine would have been higher had the company not admitted the breaches of regulations and taken action to improve its complaints procedures.

Npower, which is owned by German group RWE, is the UK's fourth largest provider and supplies about 3.3 million customers.

This month it put up its average tariffs for gas by 15.7% and electricity by 7.2% because of rising wholesale power prices.

The firm was fined £1.8m in 2009 by Ofgem for mis-selling after complaints from customers about its doorstep sales team.
From The Guardian website.

HAHA!
I'm totally glad they got that fine, although from N Power's veiwpoint 2 Million squid is probably much cheaper than actually sorting out the problems they cause and billing customers in a correct manner. Even so I feel I contributed slightly to this fine and would like to thank Ofgem, for eventually getting round to making a totally token gesture on our behalf!
Chumps.
N Power can still suck my balls..