Beware N Power via uswitch

rosegirl36

What a fool i have been, being persuaded by this forum to switch providers from British Gas to N Power, i was paying last November £100 a month for gas and electric with British Gas, but via uswitch i changed to N Power who would save me £26 a month, my new payments being £74 a month. Fantastic i thought, how clever i am, what a wonderful site etc.
Now N Power have sent me a bill for the 7 months from last November for a combined bill of £900 less the payments of £74 and lo and behold the new payments will be £170 a month. How can this be, we are careful with our usage, that is a whopping rise.I feel we have been conned and don't know what to do to get the bill down.The figures seem correct, but i have'nt got the final bill from Bitish Gas to compare figures. Has anyone faced a similar problem?

Viper_7

Did you check the rates per KW/h Therms? and not just be enticed by the "possible saving"

Vestra

Are the change over readings correct, are your up to date readings correct?

1carminestocky

If it's an online npower tariff the only light at the end of the tunnel is you should get £105 credited to your account after you've been on the tariff for 12 months. This annual discount paid 12 months in arreras is of course included in the 'savings' figure on all switching sites, which I do find a fairly dodgy way of going about things. Loads of people 'fall' for it (it's shown in the small print)

KimYeovil

Compounding your misreading of Uswitch's advice, your estimate last year would have been with last year's very mild winter. With this past winter, bills have gone up.

The good news is that prices for nPower's and British Gas' best tariffs are close to identical for many users, so in the end I doubt you are any worse off - provided you stay with nPower for a year at a time - there's a £105 annual discount (and an additional £75 over summer if you are on a seasonally weighted tariff) to claw back over the next five or six months.)

rosegirl36

Thanks for the replies
I was seduced by the " savings" claim, no i did'nt check the kw/h therms, all the readings seem correct at start and finish, I have the online tarriff bonus of £100 to come after 12 months, all in all i was paying British Gas £100 a month and now only 7 months later i will be paying N Power £170, that seems a huge rise. 2 questions
1 Have fuel bills gone up that much?
2 Is that a fair amount for 3 people living in a semi with below average usage?

Finally this provider switching is not all it's cracked up to be is it.

KimYeovil

1 Kind of. But they will go down again. Direct debits are irritating. Average monthly amounts have gone up to, say, £110. You paid only £74 for seven months. So that leaves £802 to pay for the next five months. That's £160.20. So, yes, £170 per month is very fair (provided you have an annual review in five/six months when things should revert to £110.)

2 If you used £900 over 7 months (and if you were paying £100 per month to British Gas) then you are not a below average usage. nPower's prices are very average, so it is not the prices you have to play with. It is your consumption you have to take another look at.

Do you have a note of your annual usage in kWhs?

rosegirl36

That makes sense, we have been paying a ridiculous £74 for 7 months, but that was the price we were enticed with.
We will be paying a much closer eye on usage from now on