Billing Farce

mikewill34

Hi All,

I am currently getting my electric and gas via nPower.
I have had problems since April 2008 when I discovered that our economy 7 meter's time clock was not correct, thus we were being billed incorrectly.

I immediately gave nPower the latest readings and requested the meter be either fixed or changed. It took until july 2008 to get the meter changed.

When the October bill arrived it did not show the meter change, they had in fact carried on as if the old meter was still present using estimated readings.

I complained about this and they said all would be put right for our next bill (due March 2009).

March came and went I did not recieve an email telling me my bill was ready to download, I phoned to ask why and did not get a satisfactory answer. I got a story about the bill needing to be manually re-calculated. Tried again in April and May, still no joy.

Finally in June I got someone who could see a bill even though I still could not see any bills (since the merging of my two account numbers into a single combined dual fuel account). They agreed to send me a copy of this bill and when it arrived I found the following :-

1) The meter change was shown as September 2008.
2) The cost split did not match the units used.
3) The sum of the figures in the charges column did not add up to the total below.
4) They have managed to get the Night and Day units swapped.

As soon as I am able to post the images of my current and previous bills I will do so as they make interesting reading.

Regards
Mike

mikewill34

Hi All,

Don't know where to post this so I will drop it in here.

How long do I have to wait to post images as my previous (first) post requires them to make sense??

Regards
Mike

treese

when i moved to my present house in 1999, Seeboard was my gas/electric supplier. they were bought out by EDF sometime in 2000s. I have been looking to switch as EDF must have given the poorest reduction of any company (0% gas, c5%elec in south), but just as I was about to do so, I received an out-of-the-blue demand for £411 on my gas bill going back to the day I moved in (9+ yrs), no explanation, just the bill. Given that I was made redundant at Xmas and had only just paid the last quarter bill (and have never even had a red bill) I was very worried, no spare cash. Phoned EDF who apologised, said i should have had a letter to explain, or a personal phone call - had neither. Their explanation? Apparently, my gas meter is a CUBIC FEET meter, but I had been billed from day 1 in error as a Cubic METRE meter, which apparently means that I had paid about 2/3 less for my gas all this time. Now EDF has worked out the 'real' usuage for 9+yrs, taken off a certain amount as a 'goodwill gesture' (found out from energy consumer org that they can only claim back for the past 12months anyway, so not so much a 'goodwill gesture' as 'whatever we can get away with'). The 'bill' was not laid out in a way i could cross-ref with my quarterly bills, and anyway, who keeps all their bills for 9yrs?? But i did still have letters from 2006 confirming a 2yr fixed rate, and their '£411 demand' did NOT include that cheap tariff. When i told them, they said it 'must have been an oversight by the person who did the bill'. The upshot is that they 'redid' the bill using the fixed tariff for 2006-8, and it was £140 less! just because of the cheaper tariff. I still have not paid the now-new figure of £273 as i have told them that - as i had caught them out - I do not trust any of their workings-out. When I asked for a copy of all my bills going back to 1999, they said they could not produce them, no company could. BUT, they do seem to have all the readings, tariffs, dates, what I have paid/been refunded etc, so something smells here. On 20 May, I asked for the whole issue to be investigated with a written response. My account is now on hold for one month (only 10 days left) pending another 'fresh look' at the bill.
Has anyone else had this new kind of power-extortion from EDF, and can they actually get away with it????? Will I have to pay as it is not my fault?

Premier_2

treese wrote: »

... Their explanation? Apparently, my gas meter is a CUBIC FEET meter, but I had been billed from day 1 in error as a Cubic METRE meter, which apparently means that I had paid about 2/3 less for my gas all this time. Now EDF has worked out the 'real' usuage for 9+yrs, taken off a certain amount as a 'goodwill gesture' (found out from energy consumer org that they can only claim back for the past 12months anyway, so not so much a 'goodwill gesture' as 'whatever we can get away with'). ...

Sorry, you appear to have been misled.

Unless you informed the supplier that they were making a mistake but they continued to do so, then the 12 month back billing rule doesn't apply.

http://www.energy-retail.org.uk/documents/BillingCodeFAQs15Oct08.pdf

Legalised extortion? I think it's requiring you to pay for what you've consumed
Look on the bright side, you've had a 10 year interest free loan, and the supplier will probably allow you a bit longer if you agree a repayment plan with them.

Eydon

treese wrote: »

Apparently, my gas meter is a CUBIC FEET meter, but I had been billed from day 1 in error as a Cubic METRE meter, which apparently means that I had paid about 2/3 less for my gas all this time.

That's not right.

If you have a meter which measures in cubic feet, but they thought it measured in cubic metres, then you would have been paying three times as much as you should.

In order for their story to be accurate it would have to be the other way around. You would have to have a meter which measures in cubic metres but they thought it measured in cubic feet.

It's easy enough to check. Have a look at your meter - it will say on the meter whether it measures in cubic feet (ft3) or cubic metres (m3). Then check your bills to see what units they have recorded on there.

stewie_griffin

Eydon wrote: »

That's not right.

If you have a meter which measures in cubic feet, but they thought it measured in cubic metres, then you would have been paying three times as much as you should.

No that's not right. To convert from an imperial meter (HCF) to a metric one (cubic meters) you have to multiply by 2.83 therefore their calculations will have been missing this step out so will have been under billing by 2.83 times.

Eydon

stewie_griffin wrote: »

No that's not right. To convert from an imperial meter (HCF) to a metric one (cubic meters) you have to multiply by 2.83 therefore their calculations will have been missing this step out so will have been under billing by 2.83 times.

Are you sure about this. If we do an example:

let's say your imperial meter says you've used 100 units - so 100ft3 of gas. You give the meter reading to your supplier (who thinks you have a metric meter) and they will charge you for 100m3 of gas. So you would be being charged almost 3 times too much for you energy (since 100m3 of gas is almost three times the volume of 100ft3 of gas)

If it's the other way around (you have a metric meter but your supplier thinks that it's imperial) then you would be being undercharged by almost two thirds.

Premier_2

Eydon wrote: »

Are you sure about this. If we do an example:

let's say your imperial meter says you've used 100 units - so 100ft3 of gas. You give the meter reading to your supplier (who thinks you have a metric meter) and they will charge you for 100m3 of gas. So you would be being charged almost 3 times too much for you energy (since 100m3 of gas is almost three times the volume of 100ft3 of gas)

If it's the other way around (you have a metric meter but your supplier thinks that it's imperial) then you would be being undercharged by almost two thirds.

1 cubic meter = 35.3146667 cubic feet

But imperial meters measure in 100 cubic feet.

So 1 cubic meter is roughly 1/3 of 100 cubic feet

Therefore, if you have a meter which measures in 100s of cubic feet, but they thought it measured in cubic metres, then you would have been paying only one third as much as you should.

Eydon

Premier wrote: »

1 cubic meter = 35.3146667 cubic feet

But imperial meters measure in 100 cubic feet.

So 1 cubic meter is roughly 1/3 of 100 cubic feet

Therefore, if you have a meter which measures in 100s of cubic feet, but they thought it measured in cubic metres, then you would have been paying only one third as much as you should.

Ah! Thanks Premier. Now it makes sense. I didn't realise that imperial meters measured in 100 cubic feet.

Apologies Stewie.

Also, apologies to the OP because it seems your thread has been high-jacked.