New Elec Meter- did they record the readings wrong?

josh-j_3

Hi,

I've got a bit of a weird (potentially very costly) problem with nPower and my electricity bill at the moment.

Basically, I'm on an Economy 7 tariff. My old meter had a faulty timeswitch so it was replaced back in January. The engineer left a card in the meter box with the final readings of the old meter.
Then in July I had a bill through saying I'm over £800(!) in debit. I'm a single person in a one-bedroom flat.
So then it got a bit more intriguing: since the meter started from 00000, the usage and readings must be right. But I've now found that the meter is switching between day and night rates at the wrong times, as if I'm on a Super Tariff (which I'm not) so nPower are sending someone round to check the meter and might recalculate the bill.

The problem is, nPower never seems to have recorded the final readings from the old meter, and I never gave them any meter readings at all since I moved into this flat. But I've got the meter replacement card in front of me with the Actual readings when they changed the meter- which are a LOT higher than their estimated figures: in the region of about £500 extra! ... making a grand total of about £1400 if I dont get anything refunded for the meter timing/tariff issue. Needless to say, that is a LOT of money _pale_

Somehow nPower have recorded their own ESTIMATE reading as an ACTUAL reading so currently I dont owe anything from before January as my direct-debit covered it exactly (as it would, being just from an estimate).

So I'm wondering- would they have done this deliberately because the old meter had a faulty timeswitch so wouldn't have been recording usage at the right rates, or did they just make a mistake?
And what happens if they ask for the proper readings from the card in the meter box at some point in the future?

They already did ask for those readings, when I initially rang and said "how can this bill be right?". But at the moment I've not given them, and now they've finally understood the Super/Standard tariff mix-up and are going to sort it out- and no-one has said anything about the old meter readings since.

Should I just not put the card back in the meterbox and hope it all "goes away" as they dont have a record of it? Or would they not charge me the extra £500 anyway on the basis of the old meter having a faulty timeswitch? (it was losing time each day so the day/night times were constantly slipping)
I don't like the idea of essentially not paying for electricity I might've used, I like to think I'm an honest person. But as you can imagine, £500 is a large amount of money to get added onto an already insane and painful bill!

Thanks a lot for your advice, this forum is the best thing I've ever seen for utilities, etc. advice

craigieboy1

what your energy supplier should be doing is looking at the history of your electricity usage. if your timeswitch was faulty for a short time then they should have a record of readings before the fault occured.

they should then be re-billing your account to an estimated reading based on your average consumption prior to the meter fault.


Craig

SwanJon

If hoesty gets the better of you, don't tell them until you've had achance to save up the money.
If the meter wasn't recording properly, their estimate would probably be good enough for them- - you won't really be able to tell until you've got enough consumption on your new meter.

josh-j_3

Unfortunately they don't have anything to base their estimates on from my previous usage, because I haven't given them any actual reading until recently since I moved here. So it was estimates all the way to July of this year. Lived here for about a year and a half. I know I should've really given readings to avoid a jump in the bill, but it still seems odd that its out by so much on the old meter's final readings. I'm moving to a new flat in a month anyway.

Regarding the timeswitch and the actual readings- well both the night and day rates are significantly higher on the card than their estimate, so assuming they had the right starting values that's my usage, just not allocated properly between night and day. Problem is, I didn't even give them a reading when i movied in (newbie mistake I know!)