It's probably about time for an nPower update, no? For initial details of the "give me £8000 or get beaten up and go to court" nPower outrage feel free to check parts 1 and 2. It was left on a cliffhanger "part 3 in a few days"…and that was half a year ago. Please accept Poorhouse apologies for that, but of course it has taken all this time to actually get any more information. Wonderful.

So, do we think the problem is sorted now then - three quarters of a year after the whole farce started?

Well, you may be surprised to hear that it might be getting there. But of course it also might not, and it certainly isn't solved yet. The return call promised in October never happened of course. Later on, towards the beginning of this year, at my own great inconvenience (well, maybe wasn't great but it was annoying) I rang nPower back, quoted reference numbers aplenty and asked to be told what is going on. They didn't know. Whilst my record was there, they didn't seem to understand my case and the only person in the whole world who could possibly help me with this matter was away that afternoon, of course. Naturally they would get a message to him and promise me a call back the very next day. Did I get a call? Did I "my foot". That's a no.

Another 3 months pass before I can be motivated to wreak some havoc. The latest event was spurred not least because I quite want to change electricity companies anyway but don't dare whilst nPower and is still fighting over me, but moreover for the second time some nPower salesman woke me up on a Sunday to sell me his wares. Yes it was probably the afternoon, no that doesn't mean I should be out of bed.

I had the greatest of pleasure again in inviting him in for a lengthy discussion, at the end of which he did not in anyway think of offering me the wonderful chance to switch to nPower. He had no idea what was going on, didn't have the influence to actually help, but was rather shocked it seemed. He also showed me documentation "proving" that I do not have my electricity from nPower despite the fact they previously insisted I did. He was friendly, but I doubt he'll come back.

So I rang up yesterday, armed with this snippet and the surprisingly immaculate records of the last 8 months worth of interactions to get….a really quite helpful lady. SHOCK! She took the time to read my extensive case notes (at times I wondered if she had suffered a silent death between sentences, but I guess they're quite long) and agreed it was ridiculous. Re the nPower salesman they apparently are a totally different company or part of company so she has no idea where they get their information from, other than that as I do have an account with another company that might be where it comes from. I don't really care.

Whilst I was on I did this time think to ask was the account still being paid and in credit. Yes it was, and yes it is. I therefore said could I possibly get the credit refunded to me in a personal cheque. She laughed, albeit I think with me, not at me. Nonetheless I took that as a no.

She confirmed all the malarkey about how my meter is indeed registered to them via the Meter Operator (MOP) but didn't question my notes or subsequent comments about how it also was registered elsewhere. She was the first humanoid to actually accept that it was not entirely impossible for one meter to be tied to two entries on the MOP database (*), because - wait for it - there could be an error in the database. Genius!

(*) we know this - because it has clearly happened. Still, when did evidence ever get in the way of a corporation's ramblings?

It was kind of hard to follow but I think she was saying that something in how some old meters were removed from the non-existent industrial-sized garage supposedly situated in my garden somewhere could have been mis-processed by nPower whereby an assumption was made that the meter left there, presumably the one powering my house, was still functioning and being used. The MOP database should have internal checks on it that would have picked up this mistake from nPower before it could enter the system, but just like all computer systems in the business world (generalise? Me?!) I doubt it actually works entirely properly at all times. Although it must be said any appalling database even the Poorhouse might make can enforce no duplicates rules in about 0.001 seconds worth of design and implementation time.

The MOP database is therefore wrong. However, because of the rule that any customer-facing part of a large business is near-legally bound to not have any actual way of actually practically resolving problems that their customers may encounter, the MOP database isn't under nPower's control so they have to get MOP to change it to remove the record associating my meter with nPower's supply. There is a 10 working-day time period that one has to wait to get anything done (yay corporations). But as it happens they put such a request in in February - not sure why it took ~7 months to write an email but I am nonetheless pleased and honoured someone got round to it before any legal action was inflicted on me. However, it now being way over 10 days after February and no action seems to have been taken by the MOP-heads it clearly got "lost". So the delightful lady at nPower is going to write more emails (I'd deride this as a solution except for the fact this seems to be all one can do in the office these days), chase them hard, and ensure I get rung back with a result. Only time will tell. But I'll save a draft of this in case I need to repost the exact same scenario again in another 8 months.

She also did what I wanted and I thought we all agreed on months ago and put a note for an engineer to come out to verify everything about the meter connections. This doesn't need to be done apparently, but it can't hurt. It will be a long while but I don't need to be involved. This will let them see with their own two eyes that I do not run any sort of car-related business that would use a lifetime's worth of electricity up.

More to come whenever...this series of articles may appear in a book sometime entitled "Least interesting pages on the Interweb" in all bad bookshops near you.