Npower help pls

salena

Hi i will start from the beginning, I moved my electric over to npower last october after having constant problems with southern electric. I gave an acurate meter reading upon joining and recieved a letter stating my DD would be £4 per month with i thought was rather cheap but after phoning them and quering they assured me this was quite accurate and that i would need to supply another reading in six months time (this month which a meter reading has again been supplied).
I have now recieved a bill stating i owe npower £889.18 :eek: and that they will be taking a direct debit of £246.00 on the 4th of may. Neither me nor my husband are working at the moment and can no way afford this amount so we have just been on the phone to them to be told nothing can be done about the 1st DD because npower dont have enough time to now cancel it (theres 6 days till the amount is due to be taken and they cant stop it???)and to phone again on 7th or 8th of may to then deal with the matter.

We asked if we could have a pre pay meter installed which would allow us to pay a certain amount back per week (which we currently do with gas)but the women continued to tell us nothing could be done till after the 1st DD was taken.

My main worrys are firstly how have they managed to come to this amount over a 6 month period? We live in a small 3 bedroom semi detached house and have 3 children living with us. We use the normal electric appliances including an electric cooker but we never use the central heating (it sets my sons asthma off).I just cant see how the total they are charging can be justified!

And secondly how the heck do they expect us to pay £264.00 DD when we havent got any money? Ive been onto my internet banking and clicked cancel the DD, will this stop the payment or will they still be able to take the money from my account? Cause if they do im going to end up with bank charges and all sorts because we simply dont have the money.
Im really am worried now and literally feel sick,Myself and my husband spent so long getting ourselves out of debt just for something like this to come and knock us back again and we really dont now what to do.

Any help is very,very much appreciated.

kjsmith7

I know that most large organisations request direct debit payments around 7-10 days before it's actually due (it doesn't leave your account until the date you've chosen/agreed), so their agents probably can't cancel it at their end now. If you've cancelled the direct debit, they can't take it from your account. They will send you a letter when their system updates telling you the direct debit has been cancelled (and automatically asking you to pay the balance in full) - this is when to phone them again and ask for the prepayment meter. You may need a current meter reading, so take that/those first.

The next part of my answer depends on what type of central heating system you use:

IF YOU USE ELECTRIC HEATING/UNDERFLOOR HEATING/STORAGE HEATERS/IMMERSION HEATERS/
One of the reasons it's so high is probably because of the 6 months it covers - autumn and the coldest winter in 30 years! Also, you may not have been on their cheapest tariff (e.g. an online tariff, for instance). Martin had an article on this site saying that the average quarterly fuel bill was over £500 this year. The bill does not seem unreasonable for a 3 bedroomed semi with electric heating. If you've been trying to cut down on your gas usage by plugging in panel radiators, etc. this could be why you've used so much for instance if you had a couple of 2kWh heaters on for a good 15 hours a day (2kWh x 13p (the rough cost of a kWh of elec) per hour = 26p x 15 hours = £3.90 x 90 days (quarter) = £350 on top of normal usage for one quarter).

IF YOU USE GAS CENTRAL HEATING/HAVE A GAS BOILER/DON'T USE ANY PANEL OR PLUG IN RADIATORS, etc.:
I'd check the opening meter reading. I know you provided one, but check they used it. I'd also consider getting an electricity monitor to see how much you're using and take daily readings for a week or so to work out how much you're actually using per day to ensure it's not a fault in your system/with an appliance/with the meter.

KimYeovil

You knew you were paying £4 per month. You must have known this was insufficient. You have had months and months to look at your meters and check how much you have been spending. You have had months and months to put aside the money for the debt you knew you were accumulating. If you did not want a massive increase in the debit why do you not have seven or eight hundred pounds put aside to pay for this bill?

brewerdave

£4 pm in the Winter??:rotfl::rotfl:

talulahbeige_2

I'm guessing you weren't paying your previous supplier £4 a month? Did you not compare your old supplier tariff with your new supplier tariff and think how can they only charge me £4 a month when the price is similar?

it alwasy amazes me that people believe what a supplier tells them when it comes to monthyl payments, how the hell do they know how much gas / power you will use? Your a new customer to them and they havent got a clue.

You pay for what you actually use not what a company GUESSTIMATES you will use!

Sorry to sound harsh but the excitment of thinking yor getting cheap utilitities at £4 a month is no excuse!

tbourner

I've got the same thing although not to that extreme.

We were with Southern Electric for 3 years ish, paying the same amount each month more or less (about £75-£80 IIRC), then last August we switched to NPower cos they said the amount we use they could do for £57 a month. I did it with the amount we spend each month AND the KWH and gas units we actually average each month. Our meter reading has just gone in and since we had cavity walls done we were hoping to pay even less - nope, going up to £108 a month!

Surely they don't just give you a random number for your first 6 months bills to get you on their books, and then whack it up when they know what you actually use? I told them how much I used each month so assumed that was what they were basing the DD on?


Also, I went through Greasypalm to get £20 cashback for single fuel and £40 for dual fuel changeover to NPower - supposed to be with them for 3 months before getting the CB - Greasypalm say it's been reversed (invalidated by retailer) and it was only for £20 even though I changed both!! NPower are just being gits basically and I don't know why.

lh_111

Hiya
I'm a avid reader but rare poster of this forum - mainly because I rarely have anything useful to add! However, I thought you may like to hear my very similar story with npower.

I moved properties, where both the old and the new were supplied by npower. Informed them of move etc, said I would like to pay electric at new house by dd. £14 per month I was quoted. This seemed very suspect, so I queried it, said I paid more at previous property etc. Was told that their prices were very good, included discount, I should be pleased etc. I rung 2-3 months later, queried again, asked for bill based on current readings etc, was told all up to date, nothing owed.

Couple of months later received bill for £400ish - was informed that my dd would be increasing from £14 a month to £141 per month. Rung npower, asked for breakdown of this (arrrears/usage) and was told they didn't know and didn't know where that figure had come from.

I cancelled my direct debit (maybe more out of principle), paid what I apparently owed (not all in one chunk) and swicthed. Now with eon, pay £35 a month each for gas and electric, and all runing very smoothly (plus I get clubcard points!). Will never deal with npower again - quite apart from the billing issues I found they were generally rude and unhelpful.

Oh, and once you have settled the debt, expect to get increasingly threatening letters from buchannan clarke and wells for months after......

Best of luck.

lh_111

Forgot to add, we too had no idea how we had racked up such a bill (this was for electric only - our central heating is gas). We are a couple. no kids, both work full time so only in evenings and weekends, and hardly run lots of high powered appliances. Meter readings were correct. The £35/month with eon is now covering us nicely. My advice? Switch. Asap.

tbourner

lh_111 wrote: »

My advice? Switch. Asap.

Unfortunately I don't have the £300 to pay off the debt we owe, so we're stuck. It should go down again in 6 months though as we're using less over summer?

lh_111

Will you use substantially less electric over the summer? Ours goes down a little, but certainly not to the extent as gas. I would expect your bill for the next 6 months to be of a similar amount. I would see how quickly you can settle the debt - depending on how useful the person you speak to is you may be able to reach an agreement on the timescale. I told npower I would be leaving them, asked for the final bill, and then paid what I owed over 2 installments.

tbourner

Mine's a dual fuel, so it should go down a lot over the summer! I'm on sign online 16 as well so shouldn't be affected by the news of NPower increasing their tariffs by 25%.