Advice needed please - Powergen

peachymummy

Hi everyone

This is my first post on these boards so apologies if my first posting is a bit of a long one! I've been receiving Martin's wonderful emails for what seems like years now ... I know I've managed to get at least 10 other people to sign up.

Anyway, as the title suggests I now need a bit of advice. Myself, my husband and our two year old son live in a 3 bedroom house. Both my husband and I work (me 4 days, my husband 5). Our current gas and elec provider is Powergen.

Last New Years Eve we received a bill for £890! I thought I had been registerring our meter readings on their website but it had obviously not worked and this was the first I knew of it. My fault for not checking.

I arranged to pay £132 per month which would cover this bill plus our future use. A final date was never agreed but I made a note to check on it in about July/August.

Now I've received a letter telling me that due to rising costs my monthly payments need to rise to £217 per month! I have cancelled the direct debit as this obviously seems quite excessive. I intend writing to them but I have no idea what an average bill would be or what to say apart from I'm not paying it! Any suggestions on where to go from here?

Woby_Tide

how much time was the £890 NYE bill covering? a quarter/a year? with the £132 monthly payment up till August you've only been paying £20 towards the costs for January- August this year in reality. If that £890 was a yearly bill then you'd technically still be owing them £7/800 for this years usage

peachymummy

It was for the year. Sorry, I should have said, according to the same letter I'm £93 in credit now which has been offset against the revised payment amount.

I still don't understand why was it so high in the first place? There are only 3 of us and we're not there most of the week.

Woby_Tide

I wouldn't say it is spectacularly high for the property, similar situation and house and ours is in the £600's but with a new efficient boiler etc. Yo umay need to read the main site and some of the other topics on this forum about excessive bills, quite a few tips on how to establish what you are using and where(lot of it involves switching things on and off an watching the meter) but hopefully you can work out what is costing money etc. ALso worthwhile to start taking readings say monthly, submit them by phoen or online, but also keep them on your PC somewhere, then start seeing how it works over the year to help youstart budgeting for future. ALso it gives you some accurate figures to use on the comparison websites to work out if you should move from Powergen to elsewhere(or if youshould move to a different Powergen Tariff even)

peachymummy

I understand the £890 ... that I can see because there was a problem with the meter reading, but £217 per month .. isn't that high? That's over £2,500 per year.

Cardew

Unless there are unusual circumstances, you would think an average combined bill for Gas and electricity would in the region of £100 a month averaged over a year. Obviously more in the winter months. It is very easy to check your consumption to calculate your annual bill.

How much were you paying before the £890 bill?

If you look through this section of the Forum you will find many similar cases of large debts for Gas/Electricity being run up because the DD was insufficient to cover consumption - usually this occurred because of estimated meter readings, with Powergen a culprit in many cases.


The most likely explanation was, as Wobly_Tide suggests, that your £132 payments only reduced your outstanding debt by a smallish sum and Powergen have increased your DD to ensure the arrears are cleared.


However from your second post, if you now have a £93 credit, it seems that you have cleared your debt with payments of £132. That seems difficult to understand you have cleared an £890 debt and built up a £93 surplus with 9 or 10 payments of £132. Assuming 10 payments = £1,320. This means that your consumption this year has been £337(£1320 - £983); or £205 if you have only made 9 payments of £132.

Obviously if this is the case £217 a month is a mistake. You need to get your facts to hand and talk to Powergen.

Woby_Tide

The £217 is just to clear the outstanding debt, normally they attempt to do it in 6 months or so unless you can tell them you can't aafford it and offer to do it over extended period. If above figures were correct, you've £93 in credit but you've been using gas/elec for 10 months of the year now, which averages about £75 a month, factor in rises this year and you could be about £90 a month average. So taking off your current credit, up to end of Oct you still owe £800 say. 6 months on from now you'll owe another £540 for usage from now until then so you have £1340 to cover in that period(£800 outstanding and usage during that time) which si c. £223 a month. In 6 months time they would probably say "Your new DD is £90" as it will then be purely covering your usage and not paying off the previous bill.

Only other way is to negotiate to pay off over 12 months, that way it would be £800 owed, plus c.£950 for usage over next 12 months = £1750 /12 = £145 per month payment?

Is this making any sense, sorry?

Seamus

Powergen just tried to increase my direct debit from £55 a month to £120 even though I currently only owe them £6. I sent them an email and they have now changed it back to £55.

peachymummy

We were paying quarterly bills before the £890 but they were very low. As I said, I know this sudden huge bill was my fault because it seems that the meter readings I was enterring on the website weren't registerring.

The £132 per month was supposed to include the debt and the future usage ... the customer service advisor I spoke to at the time said it would probably be clear by July ish which seemed a very short amount of time to me which is why I carried on the direct debit. I've only just cancelled it because the £217 seems a bit steep so it should be 10 months at £132 that I've paid.

Thanks to both of you ... your responses have made things a bit clearer. I'll give Powergen a call to try and resolve it.

peachymummy

Seamus .. just seen your reply ... it fills me with hope!! I'll get onto them today.

Xbigman

Powergens computer has taken your payment where you were paying off a debt and added on expected winter usage and the latest price rise. Its way too high. If you have been taking readings and trying to give them on line then you might know how much you are using. If you don't then phone up and ask for your payments to be set at £75 and for the DD to be restarted. Tell them that is your approximate usage and don't take no for an answer.
Starting now keep a record of your weekly usage and then work out an accurate monthly figure after a few months.
Regards



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