Confusing nPower letter

Wanton

Hi,

We received a letter from nPower today stating that our monthly direct debit will be increasing to £250 (previously its been £123 but we're always in credit), £155 for gas and £95 for electricity, this would first be debited on the 4th November. This seemed way over the top as our most recent statement showed £100 or so in credit. So we phoned nPower to find out why it had increased by so much and the customer service advisor said that it hadn't increased at all and that we're £150 in credit which is apparently good for the start of winter. She didn't know anything about the letter but said she would send out another letter confirming what we were paying.
I'm just wondering whether anyone else has received one of these letters and been told not to worry about it as its wrong, or whether anyone can offer any advice as to what to do as we're obviously still a bit worried that the customer service rep was mistaken and we do have to pay £250 a month.

Thanks in advance,
Rob

deshepherd

Wanton wrote: »

Hi,

We received a letter from nPower today stating that our monthly direct debit will be increasing to £250 (previously its been £123 but we're always in credit), £155 for gas and £95 for electricity, this would first be debited on the 4th November. This seemed way over the top as our most recent statement showed £100 or so in credit. So we phoned nPower to find out why it had increased by so much and the customer service advisor said that it hadn't increased at all and that we're £150 in credit which is apparently good for the start of winter. She didn't know anything about the letter but said she would send out another letter confirming what we were paying.
I'm just wondering whether anyone else has received one of these letters and been told not to worry about it as its wrong, or whether anyone can offer any advice as to what to do as we're obviously still a bit worried that the customer service rep was mistaken and we do have to pay £250 a month.

Thanks in advance,
Rob

I got something similar ... but not quite as an extreme a rise. Reason is that Npower are now "reviewing" payments evey 6 months and calculating DD based on existing balance and what they expect you'll use in the next 6 months. Also, they time the start of one of the 6 months to be now so that they can effectively bill you for the larger amount of gas/electricity you use over winter as you are using it rather than the old scheme of annual reviews where the different usage in winter/summer was smoothed over 12 equal payments. In theory they'll review again in april and you'll get much lower payments over the summer ... that's in theory - somehow I can't see that happening and I'm sure they'll some how engineeer some form of overpayment into the system. Anyway, I wont find out since the shock of a 40% DD increase caused be to go to a comparison site and I'm now off to another supplier and should be saving 20% over the next year!

DVardysShadow

deshepherd wrote: »

... Also, they time the start of one of the 6 months to be now so that they can effectively bill you for the larger amount of gas/electricity you use over winter as you are using it rather than the old scheme of annual reviews where the different usage in winter/summer was smoothed over 12 equal payments.

So much for DD. They were initially introduced on the premise that your payments were evened out through the year. Whatever next? Discounts for paying a quarterly bill in full?

deshepherd

DVardysShadow wrote: »

So much for DD. They were initially introduced on the premise that your payments were evened out through the year. Whatever next? Discounts for paying a quarterly bill in full?

Quite agree ... the whole point originally of the montly DD schemes (aka budget schemes IIRC) was that it smoothed payments over the year.

Of course, they are now portraying the 6 monthly reviews as another benefit for you to try to help you avoid having a negative balance on your account ... they also say that if you are in credit by more than £60 they'll refund that to you so I suspect they'll keep charging at the winter rate over the summer and give most of the excess back in June and September meanwhile they have a "nice little earner" from the interest on this.