Npower to pay £26 million fine
18/12/2015
Energy firm Npower has been forced to pay a fine of £26 million after a series of inaccurate bills and failings in complaint handling.
Ofgem, the energy watchdog, has revealed that Npower has to pay the record settlement for failing to “treat customers fairly”. Its billing issues affected more than half a million customers between 2013 and 2014, where the company issued more that 500,000 late bills and some customers also received inaccurate bills. During this time, Npower received over 2 million complaints from customers.
The settlement is the largest ever agreed by any of the “big six” energy companies. The £26 million fine will be divided between some of the customers that have been affected the most by the failings, and chosen charities. Npower was fined £2 million by Ofgem in October 2011 for a similar offence. The company claims that many of the failings were due to a new IT system that was put in place in 2011.
Dermot Nolan, Ofgem chief executive, said: "Npower failed its customers. Not only have its billing and complaint handling procedures been chaotic, it treated many of its customers poorly, which is completely unacceptable.
"Npower's management failed to act quickly enough to protect its customers when things went wrong with changes to its IT system."
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