'Npower sent a £6,000 bill and threatened legal action - and I'm not even a customer'

Sarah: 'I felt physically sick'

Sarah, who lives in Cheshire, was at a loss as to what to do when she received a letter from Npower about a £6,600 business bill – despite not being a business owner or an Npower customer.

She said: "I was stressed to receive the letter. I felt physically sick.

"Npower should have known that we were two separate people. I've never been a business owner, but somehow Npower had my address to send the bill here."

After MSE contacted Npower, Sarah said an adviser rang and initially offered a £60 payment as a goodwill gesture, but this slowly rose to £100 as she spoke to them.

Below is the letter she initially received:

What does Npower say?

Npower told us that while it was attempting to pursue debt owed by a customer, it matched the customer with another person with the same name and who lives in the same area – that person was Sarah, who received the bill.

It says it has now removed Sarah's address from its system.

An Npower spokesperson said: "We were sorry to hear about the address mix up on the account. Once we realised the error, we updated our records and called Sarah to apologise for the inconvenience caused."