Should I get Energywatch involved? Npower

HeatherH

Right, I'll start from the beginning, as this thread has got confusing, and I'm actually awake at the moment lol.

I re-joined Npower back in July 2007. I then had a pre-payment meter, was paying that all fine, and all happy with it. I then decided I wanted to start paying by DD, thinking it would be easier and cheaper, but sadly thats where the problems started.

When the meter was switched over, the engineer didn't send on the information about the meter switch, it took til Npower til November to even register that I had switched to a credit meter. So in theory I wasn't sent any bills until I put in an official complaint in october.

In the end (only found out last month) it turns out the 2 rate meter has a faulty switch. It doesn't record night readings. It just records everything on the day reading.

Anyways, in November, when on my mission to get things sorted, I spoke to a lady in the complaints department who went through and re wrote all my meter readings to make sure all my bills were upto date. I was sent a bill for £60 for what I owed (I had already paid about £200 into my electric account, even though I wasn't being billed for it at the time, this was to make sure I didn't end up with a massive bill at the end of it.

So ok, as far as I knew, I only owed £60 from the period of June to Jan (including the £200 I'd already paid), and I thought after paying that amount that I'd cleared my bill up to the beginning of the year. I then sent another £60 to the account as I was told this was my monthly average use (even tho my pre-payment meter average was £26) and I thought this would cover me for the month til I changed to EDF on 1st Feb.

As far as I knew they were going to be refunding me the difference my wrongly rated units (day rate being more expensive than night rate as we all know). I was also supposed to be being refunded a £70 charge that npower couldn't account for from when I had a prepayment meter.

So going from a clear account to, minusing any refund that they were supposed to give me. How did they get to £239.45?

The woman in complaints that I spoke to today said she'd look into it, and would ring me back either tonight or tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath to be honest, they're not great at their call backs.

Anyways, hope that makes it a bit clearer

Magentasue

So ... you had your credit meter put in some time between July and November?

And since then, you have paid £60 + £200 + £60 = £320?

You have been using plug in heaters during the day this winter? £320 + £239.45 for electricity for all those months, using electric heating doesn't seem excessive.

The night units. Are you certain that your meter is faulty? As already explained, it could be (might not) that the night meter is only for storage heaters and that's why it doesn't move. In any case, if you're not using storage heaters, your night units aren't going to be that much - you would probably be better off without Econ 7 and having the whole lot charged on cheaper single rate units.

HeatherH

It was E7 when I moved in, and it's getting changed when I finally get over to EDF, thats not the issue here and it's been confirmed by the companies that its' a duff switch. This is also not the case, as I had a healthily working night reading when I had the pre-payment meter (see a few posts above) So please stop going on about my storage heaters lol

I'm more bothered that they said I owed £60 in Jan... had an average use of £60 a month "which i paid" they're also supposed to be refunding £70+ to my account for various things, but they've suddenly got a £200+ debt on the account. Thats what I'm trying to get at.

I'm not bothered about what the average amount is, I'm very electric consious because of how little money I have. I'm more bothered about the conflicting information that I seem to be getting from this company.

sweetstudent

Its Consumer Focus now,

Magentasue

HeatherH wrote: »

I'm more bothered that they said I owed £60 in Jan... had an average use of £60 a month "which i paid" they're also supposed to be refunding £70+ to my account for various things, but they've suddenly got a £200+ debt on the account. Thats what I'm trying to get at.

I'm not bothered about what the average amount is, I'm very electric consious because of how little money I have. I'm more bothered about the conflicting information that I seem to be getting from this company.

Well, couldn't it be that the 'average use of £60' was calculated over summer/autumn and a month or two of winter and that now you have the winter use to pay?

Do you read your meters regularly and know how many kwh of electricity you've been using on average? If not, could it not be the case that you've underestimated how many kwh you use in the winter?

I missed the bit where you said the night meter had been examined, I thought it was just not moving. In any case, if you aren't using storage heaters, the cheap night units aren't going to make a big difference, are they?

HeatherH

Thanks for the continuous advise, but to work out my night unit usage they used my usage from when I was on a prepayment meter. They worked out that over June to now I've used 3kw per night. so over 9-8 months, thats quite a few kw.

I have been writing down my average in Jan and for the daily reading it was about 16kw in 24h. At the moment and since I've changed supplier and I've stopped using the heaters it's about 10kw in 24h

The average usage was calculated in January. so this was when I was using the heaters and being in more because of bad weather and using my tumble dryer to clean clothes instead of putting on a washing line. With price rises I was completely ok with it being £60 a month. I just want to know where the £239.45 came from. Npower don't seem to know. it's just a bit odd and feels like it's come out of nowhere

Magentasue

June - Feb = 8 months x £60 = £480
Paid £320
£480 less £320 = £160

Your bill £239.45 - £160 = £79.45

That's about £10 a month difference, about 16% of £60 - perhaps less than price increases since you had your prepayment meter?

HeatherH

ok, I've used my readings with a calculator on this site.

It said that as it stands with no night reading, they should be charging me £391 for the period since the meter went in til feburary 1st.

I then changed the readings by working out how many days there have been x3 for the amounts of units that should've been night units, and it said that 801 should've been night units. I put that into the calculator and it came out that I should've been charged £309.

I've gone through my statements and it shows that I've paid £290 odd for the period. Calculations are never 100% correct, but it still doesn't show where they've got their golden number from.

If I'm allowed to share this information on here, these are my readings
With faulty meter reading
Start reading: Day 21950 Night 16353
End Reading: Day 24098 Night 16353

Tier 1 (26.8100p per kwh) 561kwh £143.31
Tier 2 (15.4000p per kwh) 1,613kwh £248.47
Night rate (5.1100p per kwh) 0kwh £0.00
Total £391.78

Up to Feb 1st it was 267 days that the meter was put in place (npower has a wrong installation date, but thats just another mistake they didn't bother to rectify)

I was told that on average I used 3 kw a night when I had a pre-payment meter, so I multiplied the days by 3kw to get my number of 801kw that needed to be seen as night units. so i subtracted 801 from the day reading, added it onto the night reading.

And this is what came up

Start reading: Day 21950 Night 16353
End Reading: Day 23297 Night 17154

Tier 1 (26.8100p per kwh) 561kwh £143.31
Tier 2 (15.4000p per kwh) 812kwh £125.12
Night rate (5.1100p per kwh) 801kwh £40.93
Total £309.36

To me it just looks like npower is trying to pull a fast one. When I finally get the bill through the post, I'm going to appeal it. The fact that there's only about £20 difference between how much I've paid and how much I should've been charged. £200+ just seems like nonsense to me

HeatherH

anyone got any ideas?

Kazipoo

HeatherH wrote: »

ok, I've used my readings with a calculator on this site.

It said that as it stands with no night reading, they should be charging me £391 for the period since the meter went in til feburary 1st.

I then changed the readings by working out how many days there have been x3 for the amounts of units that should've been night units, and it said that 801 should've been night units. I put that into the calculator and it came out that I should've been charged £309.

I've gone through my statements and it shows that I've paid £290 odd for the period. Calculations are never 100% correct, but it still doesn't show where they've got their golden number from.

If I'm allowed to share this information on here, these are my readings
With faulty meter reading
Start reading: Day 21950 Night 16353
End Reading: Day 24098 Night 16353

Tier 1 (26.8100p per kwh) 561kwh £143.31
Tier 2 (15.4000p per kwh) 1,613kwh £248.47
Night rate (5.1100p per kwh) 0kwh £0.00
Total £391.78

Up to Feb 1st it was 267 days that the meter was put in place (npower has a wrong installation date, but thats just another mistake they didn't bother to rectify)

I was told that on average I used 3 kw a night when I had a pre-payment meter, so I multiplied the days by 3kw to get my number of 801kw that needed to be seen as night units. so i subtracted 801 from the day reading, added it onto the night reading.

And this is what came up

Start reading: Day 21950 Night 16353
End Reading: Day 23297 Night 17154

Tier 1 (26.8100p per kwh) 561kwh £143.31
Tier 2 (15.4000p per kwh) 812kwh £125.12
Night rate (5.1100p per kwh) 801kwh £40.93
Total £309.36

To me it just looks like npower is trying to pull a fast one. When I finally get the bill through the post, I'm going to appeal it. The fact that there's only about £20 difference between how much I've paid and how much I should've been charged. £200+ just seems like nonsense to me

Have you taken the standing charges and VAT into consideration, plus the price changes from what is was back last year and what it is now? When you just take the standing charge and VAT into consideration that will put an extra £60 - £80 on your bill. When I did a quick calculation I worked out that you should probably owe them a minimum of £160.... but definitely chase them up about your refunds!

The other thing you can do is ask them for a statement of your usage since last June.... just be careful, because a similar thing happened to me with British gas some years back, they claimed I owed them £140, which seemed high in relation to previous bills, so I queried it over the phone and they agreed that I only actually owed them £32 and would get a bill sent out immediately, when the bill came it was for £1700!!! They refused to admit that they had made a mistake, and eventually Energywatch intervened and it was all sorted, but it took months of grief to get there, and be prepared for a war!!