Npower to pay £3.5m to customers after breaking sales rules
Not overly festive news for Npower this morning.
The UK energy supplier has, for the second time this month, been ordered to pay out to help vulnerable customers, after an Ofgem investigation found fault with its business procedures.
The £3.5m payment will see at least £25 go to each Warm Home Discount customer.
The probe dates from 2010 to 2012, and centred on the sales processes and information used by Npower when customers were making choices over whether to switch supplies to the provider.
From NPower's statement today:
The decision reflects the fact that while npower was making changes to its sales processes, these fell short of the standards set by Ofgem’s tougher 2009 marketing rules… All breaches ceased by September 2012.
Npower has said that all the issues picked up by the regulator have since been remedied.
Paul Massara, Npower’s chief executive, commented: "We’ve worked very closely with Ofgem as they’ve investigated these previous issues. It’s good to draw a line under this, so we can focus on our goal of becoming number one for customer experience by the end of 2015."
We've agreed to pay £3.5m to vulnerable customers following Ofgem investigation into our sales processes 2009-2012 http://t.co/tD4a0upqc6 ^A
— npower (@npowerhq) December 20, 2013
We'll be writing to any affected customers, but more information is available here: http://t.co/wbqD31poXl ^Adam
— npower (@npowerhq) December 20, 2013