Help and advice really needed!!

catsy_2

Ok so here's the situation. My partner and I moved into our rented house (a tiny 1bed) on 9th January. We had signed things with the agents to use Southern Electric for gas and electric. I hadn't recieved anything for sometime and was a bit worried then recieved our first bills a few weeks ago. They were dated from 4th feb though and have set up direct debits. Gas was £97 ish from then until 11th May. Today I came home to a bill from npower. I rang them and tried to explain as it was large and dated from 9th jan until 11th may. They explained this was wrong and it was from 9th jan until 4th feb. I am more than happy to pay for this time as the previous tennants were obviously with npower and it takes time to change this. However the bill is £69 ish for one month!!! I understand that it was the coldest month and so may work out as more than the other months (approx £33 per month). However this is excessive!! He explained that npower charge their rates higher in the winter and lower in the summer whereas southern electric average it out to the same all year. Peronally I feel this is incredibly unfair as we didn't even realise it had happened. The agency made us sign up with southern electric, didnt say anything about the previous tennant being with someone else who we may have stuck with to make things easier and therefore it would all work out!

Is there anything I can do to resolve this situation? As I said I am quite prepared to pay for that one month but think £69 is very unfair. It's not my fault it was changed at all!! Obviously if it hadn;t been changed we would have paid a high bill for those months and a much lower one for the summer whereas now we've got the worst of both worlds!

Thank you so much for your help in advance

SwanJon

Sorry to say both bills will be payable.
What you can do is check if you can change your supplier - how long ar eyou planning to be in the property.
If you can change, look for the tariff that best suits you (taking into account and exit fees, and if they count if you move house)
If you can't change (but how would the agents know?), theynm look for Southern's best tariff.
Ulitmately you pay the bills so you should be able to decide, just let the agents know who is supplying you when you move out.

Cardew

As you say NPower have a system of 'seasonal Weighting' or 'sculpting' which means at a time when you are using most gas, you pay for a higher proportion of their expensive tier 1 units. - a double whammy.

Lots of people don't like this sculpting, but it is in their contract - and when you moved in you had no other choice.

You really have no option but to pay it, the extra is not that much - perhaps £10 or so.

KimYeovil

Cardew wrote: »

You really have no option but to pay it, the extra is not that much - perhaps £10 or so.

It's not £10 - more like £25 extra per winter month. (888 @ Tier 1 for nPower against 222 @ Tier 1 plus 666 @ Tier 2 - so the extra is 666 x (Tier 1 - Tier 2 price).)