npower Direct Debit puzzle

nsdlil

Dear Forum ,
I signed for npower's standing on line 14 (SOL14) paperless tariff on 24/11/08 and have just received my second bill dated 30/10/09 , the first was dated 21/04/09 and both , based on my own readings as supplied , are computed correctly . The first after five winter months shows electricity at around £30 per month and gas at £110 , the second after six summer months is electricity at £30 and gas at £30 and my monthly direct debit has been £88 a month throughout . The annual account 11 month's YTD in the second bill shows overall a £133 debit , but given the annual promised £105 discount and the mild weather this Autumn to date , I suspect that the 12 month's account by 23/11/09 next month maybe a mere £24 or so in debit . On the second bill npower state :
We check your payment amount every six months as we aim to ensure you'll have paid just the right amount by your annual review. We've now adjusted your payment to £143.00, taking your current balance into account in the calculation. We'll take this from your bank account with effect from 23/11/09 or just after.
It seems to me that setting my monthly debit to £140 or so for the winter months (and presumably if they use the same logic reducing it to £60 per month in the summer months) would entirely negate the purpose of annual fixed rate monthly D Ds . Does anyone else have experience of this and when and how do they apply the annual discount , obviously my straight recourse on receipt of the discount will be to transfer to another supplier who are currently offering cheaper rates anyhow . Any comments ?

joel10873

yes and beware even when you ring to adjust payments back to the sensible limit you had before they will still take the higher amount from your bank account despite saying they wont!! they have done this to both me and my mum

dogshome

Hi nsdlil - I'm afraid n'power have a reputation for devious behaviour with their charges.
The large annual D/Debit you were expecting is earned by paying 12 consecutive monthly D/Debits, and as they only bill every 6 months you were expecting it to appear on your second bill - Right? WRONG ! If you work out your bill dates they only cover 341 days, not a full 12 months, and you won't see the D/D discount for your first year appear until you get your third bill sometime next April, by which time you will be 6 months into the qualifying period for the next discount - Added to this, is that n'power now pursue a policy of pushing up customers Direct Debits at this time of year to pay for their winter consumption - it's yet to be proven that they will lower them in the summer.
N'powers high placing on the Switch sites is achieved by the big annual D/Debit discount - Look at it this way, the money they are going to hand you back is what you have given them in the first place, but you are not going to see it for eighteen months and in the meantime you will have handed them another chunk of money you won't see for another eighteen months, and by the way, when leave them you won't see anything of the part discount you have earned up to that point.
If it were me I'd get away from n'power a.s.a.p., but you make up your own mind
Good luck with it

aelitaman

After nPower send you a bill I think they state that if you send in a meter reading within 14 days they will recalculate your bill and send you a new one with your readings. When I was an npower customer and they used to send the bill 4 to 5 days before I was due my annual discount I used to wait until one day past the day I was due the discount and submit my readings online to them. Then i got new bills with the discounts applied and they used to redo the monthly DD payments which were always considerably lower.

Also if you switch nPower have to send you a final bill and if you have not received your annual discount and it is due then this will be on the final bill.

nsdlil

[FONT=Courier, monospace]Thank you all for your comments and please see a copy of my e-mail to npower Customer Services after a discussion today , all still to play for I'm afraid . I'll post further after 23/11/09 . Thank you all once again , [/FONT]


[FONT=Courier, monospace]NPOWER CUSTOMER SERVICES[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]ACCOUNT NUMBER : xxx xxxx xxxx[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]Mr X XXXX[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]X XXXXXXXX Avenue[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]XXXXX XXX XXX[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]30/10/2009[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]TEL : XXXX XXX XXXX[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]Dear Customer Services ,[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace]Upon receipt of my second bill dated 28/10/09 I rang 'Andrew' of your help desk and discussed the proposed adjustment of my monthly direct debit to £143 per month . He explained my entitlement to the £100 dual fuel annual discount on payment of the 23/11/09 direct debit and that I could elect to have the monthly direct debits computed on a twelve (12) month rather than a six (6) month basis . Using this method he proposed a change to the monthly direct debit to £104 , that is £70 pm gas and £34 pm electric , and I accepted this and asked him to go ahead . He confirmed that I would be receiving in writing the new figures within the next six working days , subject as he said to the postal service , but of course that should only apply to the receipt of the paperwork not to the resetting of the direct debit . I am sending this e-mail just to confirm our agreement . Thank you , [/FONT]



[FONT=Courier, monospace]Yours sincerely ,[/FONT]



[FONT=Courier, monospace]XXXXXX XXXX [/FONT]

nsdlil

Dear Forum ,
The day after the final 12 monthly DD on 23/11/09 I applied to Scottish Power for their online energy saver 7 tariff via Topcashback and Scottish Power took over the dual fuel accounts on 08/01/10 . After the second DD has been made to Scottish Power they appear to have released the £110.00 switching bonus payable to through the Topcashback site and today I have applied for it to be paid . Npower required payment of the FINAL outstanding £29.18 gas bill debit , but it required negotiation via several e-mails to get them repay some of the outstanding £26+ electricity credit , and they have never actually provided a FINAL electric bill , preferring one with their own estimated usage rather than one based on the actual reading supplied to Scottish Power as part of the switching process . At that point npower were quite happy for me to enter a 'disputed readings' procedure , which I declined and simply paid their inflated estimate , thus effectively prepaying for some of our electricity . The Scottish Power on line system is significantly superior to npower's and allows you much more control over the monitoring of your usage . I'll add a note when the cashback is actually made to help anyone else with an estimate of the total time scale to effect a cashbacked switch , but my current estimate is four months from 23/11/09 to 23/03/10 .

notbritishgas

Hi nsdlil, Did your annual bonus show on your final bill?

nsdlil

Dear notbritishgas ,
Oh yes , npower did give the annual discount as per original contract of £50 per fuel . According to that contract it is to be given on your first (and in my case FINAL bills) following payment of your twelfth DD ,

oldsam

Had problems with Npower , over the same issue which led to my exit as a customer , They cannot even get it right when you leave them , After one final bill gave me £ 285 cheque back as excess but on another account they said I owed them £117 and sent a final demand for it - I told them that until Their cheque cleared only then payment would be enacted !!. Now with Southern on-line for dual fuel accounts - thank goodness less stress ,Plus possible savings at less £300+ .
Need I say more about Npower that they unable to operate in the best interests of its customers.

nsdlil

Dear Forum ,
The Topcashback promised Scottish Power bonus of £110 pounds was paid (with a £1.10 further top up by the cash back site!) and I've paid that off the Scottish Power bill with the expectation is should cover the extra energy charges this cold winter . Oldsam , I agree with your comments about Npower , the Scottish Power on line system is greatly superior to the npower one and certainly gives you the means to keep an eye on your bills .
So that's begin switching 23/11/09 and completed with cash back on 08/03/10 for a total of 105 days , proper employment for a pensioner I think ,

williham

I couldn't believe npower only billed every 6 months.. that's a lot of scope for error. Switched to scottish and their online system is amazing in comparison. I can submit a reading whenever I want and it generates a bill in seconds.

Npower took 5 months to send my final gas bill, and even then it was wrong and they said "because its only a few units wrong we won't adjust it" saying it would be only a few pence, but that's a few pence of my money! They went off to calculate and gave me a £5 credit - that's not a few pence!