Npower Overcharging Rebate - A Guide

DirectDebacle

I started this thread in order to keep this issue separate from the 'sculpting' thread. This overcharging is not in dispute and provided you have the appropriate billing information it is fairly simple to check if you were a victim or not. 'Sculpting', unfortunately is not so cut and dried.

Many past and present npower users are wondering if they are in line for a rebate/credit as a result of the recent Ofgem ruling on an allegation of Npower breaching their licence conditions.

Briefly Ofgem have found that around 200,000 Npower customers were overcharged for their gas between May-October, 2007. It is estimated that this will total around £1.8 million. Npower have been ordered to pay this money back.

Npower are supposed to be notifying the affected customers of the refund. There is no need to make a claim. The fact is that virtually all the affected customers would not be aware of it in any event. Some customers have already received their notification of refund/credit.

If you want to check if you were overcharged then you will need the following information in order to make a check.



1. Your total gas usage between 1st May, 2007 and 31st October, 2007.

2. The price you paid for gas before the 1st May. This applies to those on a two tier tarrif. You will find the two rates on your bills.

3. Calculate how much the gas you used (shown on your bills) between 1st May and 31st October would have cost using the prices applicable in April.

You will need these figures to recalculate the high rate units.

May 325kWh,
June and September 192kWh,
July and August 110kWh,
October 334kWh.

These are the maximum high rate units you would have been charged for each of those months had npower not made the changes.

The changes were a lowering of the Tier 2 price and raising the amount of high rate units from those above to a flat rate of 381kWh per month.
See the end of the post for a worked example.


4. Compare this to the amount charged on your bills. If your calculation is less than that shown on the bill, then you will have been overcharged.

The overcharge occurred because on 1st May, 2007 Npower lowered the price of the Tier 2 (lower price of the two rates) units but they increased the number of units you would be charged for at the higher rate.

This meant that typically low users would have to use more of the expensive Tier 1 units to reach the lower Tier 2 rate. Therefore more of their gas would be charged at the higher Tier 1 rate.

If you find that you have been overcharged in this way and not received a refund then contact npower to find out if you have been identified as an overcharged customer. Take this opportunity to obtain as much information on your bills/ charges if you have not kept your bills or records.

If you are not identified as having been overcharged, then you will need to make a claim.

It is possible that some of these low users may have been additionally overcharged for a different reason but essentially the same method.

With the two tier pricing system the first 4572kWh per annum are charged at the higher (Tier 1) price and the remainder at the lower (Tier 2 price).

If you do receive a refund from npower than I strongly recommend you do the following:
Check your bills for any consecutive period of 12 months from 1/1/07 onwards. Total the number of Tier 1 units and if it comes to more than 4572kWh then there has been another overcharge. This is covered in great detail on this thread.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=822299

In either case if you do not have your billing details for the periods above, then you will need to obtain them from npower.

EXAMPLE

Bill Date.

1/5/07-9/9/07

Total kwh used 975

High Rate units 975 @ (your price in pence) say 4.412p Cost = £43.01

Low rate units 0 @ 1.915 Cost = £0.00

Total = £43.01 (plus Vat)

Recalculate using pre May prices and units per month as listed

Bill date 1/5/07-9/9/07

Total kWh used 975

High Rate units 795 @ 4.412 = £35.07

Low rate units 180@ 2.492 = £4.49
Total £39.56(plus VAT)

This is an example only. Overcharge could be from £0.19 to around £20.00 depending on your usage.

To calculate the number of high rate units use the figure for the whole months. For odd days divide the units for that month by the number of days in the month and multiply by the amount of days for the month shown on the bill. In the example the high units are calculated using the figures for the months May-August (325+192+110+110= 737) The units for the 9 days of September are 192/30*9 = 57.6. Round to nearest whole no. = 58.

Total high units for this bill is 737+58 = 795
Low units are of course total kWh for the bill minus the number of high units you have calculated.

Cardew

I suggest that the mods make this a 'Sticky'

1carminestocky

Only downside to making threads stickies is that they often get overlooked, human nature being what it is. It may an idea for the regulars here (I count myself as one) to keep bumping this thread. Martin including a link to this thread in his latest email wouldn't go amiss, either...IMO its' certainly more important than a half-priced pizza. Even though I am not personally involved in the sense that npower haven't cheated me out of any money, I think what you are doing, DD, is fantastic.

Sterling

Well done DD – absolutely brilliant!

While Stocky has a point concerning “stickies”, I rather feel that Cardew’s suggestion is the right way forward. But, if the mods don’t oblige, then as Stocky suggests, we can always bump this up to the front page at regular intervals, where it can be seen by those who need it.

DD – I hope you won’t mind if I mention what seems to be a slight error in your otherwise excellent calculations – more of a minor tweak really. The figure for the high tier units for July 2006 is given as 192, but I think this should be 110 (4572*2.4/100).

This of course has a knock-on effect in your pre-May 07 calculations, changing the total (if I am right) from £41.13 to £39.54 (both plus VAT at 5%). This in turn increase the repayment due from £1.88 to £3.47 (both plus VAT).

DirectDebacle

Sterling wrote: »

Well done DD – absolutely brilliant!

While Stocky has a point concerning “stickies”, I rather feel that Cardew’s suggestion is the right way forward. But, if the mods don’t oblige, then as Stocky suggests, we can always bump this up to the front page at regular intervals, where it can be seen by those who need it.

DD – I hope you won’t mind if I mention what seems to be a slight error in your otherwise excellent calculations – more of a minor tweak really. The figure for the high tier units for July 2006 is given as 192, but I think this should be 110 (4572*2.4/100).

This of course has a knock-on effect in your pre-May 07 calculations, changing the total (if I am right) from £41.13 to £39.54 (both plus VAT at 5%). This in turn increase the repayment due from £1.88 to £3.47 (both plus VAT).

Well spotted Sterling and thank you for pointing it out.

I have amended the post accordingly and my apologies to anyone who has performed a mis-calc due to my error.

Agrajag

Ok new to all this

I was with Npower from 2nd Dec 2006 until 2nd April 2008
I have retained all my bills, and crucially I DON'T see a reduction in my tier 2 rate in May 2007 as noted above
My rates were 3.639p and 2.047p from dec 2006 until 4th Jan 2008, when they changed to 5.024 and 2.302

During the entire period I was charged 7927 kwh at the higher rate. Splitting it to look at one year, from 02/04/2007 to 02/04/2008 I was charged 5590 at the higher rate.

So it looks like I have been overcharged.
However I cannot for the life of me work out by how much.
I think I was on NPOWER's Sign On-Line6 tarrif, throughout this time. It isn't explicit on the bill until they cahnged the format in Dec2007)

All my Bills are: (underscores added to keep the tabulation correct)
From,To,Tier 1 units,Tier 2 units,Tier 1 rate,Tier 2 rate,days covered,tier 1 units per day
02/12/2006 28/02/2007 1780 8375 3.639 2.047 88 20
28/02/2007 21/04/2007 _878 1584 3.639 2.047 52 17
21/04/2007 11/06/2007 _536 _343 3.639 2.047 51 11
11/06/2007 23/08/2007 _315 _876 3.639 2.047 73 4
23/08/2007 30/09/2007 _220 _189 3.639 2.047 38 6
30/09/2007 23/11/2007 1010 _407 3.639 2.047 54 19
23/11/2007 04/01/2008 1202 5616 3.639 2.047 42 29
04/01/2008 22/02/2008 1483 3267 5.024 2.302 49 30
22/02/2008 02/04/2008 _503 5046 5.024 2.302 40 13

Can anyone else make sense of all this?

Cardew

DD and Sterling will doubtless go through the figures, but according to my arithmetic in the period fro 28/02/07 to 22/02/08 you were charged for 5,644 Tier 1 units.

For the period 22/02/08 to 27/02/08 for 5 days @ a pro rata daily rate of 30 units = 150Tier1 units.

So instead of 4,572Tier1 units in a 12 month period, you have been charged for 5,794 - an extra 1,222.

A couple of points I don't understand from your table is most(all?) people with NPower over the complete year were charged for over 2000 extra units.

Secondly - where is the reduction in rates Npower claim to have made to compensate?

Come in DD and Sterling!

DirectDebacle

Agrajag wrote: »

Ok new to all this

I think I was on NPOWER's Sign On-Line6 tarrif, throughout this time. It isn't explicit on the bill until they cahnged the format in Dec2007)

Can anyone else make sense of all this?

Agrajag I will reply to this on the sculpting thread (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=822299&page=48)

As this post is about a different issue to the thread and I don't wish the two to become intermingled,would you mind moving or copy/paste your post to the linked thread. They are confusing enough on their own. Before you do could you find out which tariff you were on. A quick calc of your bills using the weighting we have for the sculpting issue does not agree with what we would expect.

Certain tarriffs, though seasonally weighted, were not affected by the overcharging applied to the standard tariff. Here are the current tariffs that fall under this category: http://www.npower.com/web/At_home/customer_service/yourquestionsanswered/faq_understanding_my_prices

You will see that SOL v8 was charged at an even 381 high rate units per month. Until we know what tarriff you were on and how the weighting was applied anything else would be guesswork at the moment. See what you can find out. It may involve a call to npower unless someone else on here knows the answer.

Having said that it appears you were charged more than 4572kWh per annum but to know by how much we need to know how the weighting was applied to your tariff and if the 4572kWh Primary Block was applied to it..

Agrajag

DD I have posted on the other thread (as have you). Yes that 1483 was a typo. But the rest does not make sense.
Thanks for your attention

I have sent a similar message to Npower.. no idea if they will get back to me.