So you think npower is cheapest?

sofa-spud

As the title says, anyone thinking of changing to (or staying with...) npower may be interested in the following:
After my saga with the 'sculpting' over charge I find npower are still over charging...
When I phoned them the chap I spoke to initially said it was correct, but as I explained my calculations he suddenly agreed, and we agreed to a refund figure. While this has been settled with them already, I wonder how many other customers are suffering at such treatment.

For those who think the following is all to complicated, I agree, but this is what you need to do to fully understand an npower bill:(

Below are the actual figures from a recent bill.
This mainly concerns the month of March 2010 where they are allowed to charge a maximum of 272 KWh's at the primary (now called 'first') price
The KWh figures are correctly calculated from the meter readings given by me on the dates mentioned here, it is the way they aggregate the periods that leads to an overcharge.
Date___Reading
14/3___1199
25/3___1211
Total for this period of 11 days is 133KWh's, correctly (almost) billed as 96 'first' units & 37 'second' units
'first' units derived from 272/31*11 = 97
This period is 'correctly' assessed & charged on the bill.

Now for the next 2 periods on the bill they chose to aggregate these to derive a single longer period on which to apply their weighted 'first' units...
25/3___1211
30/3___1251
Total for this period (5 days) 443 KWh's (no problem...yet)

5/5___1254
total for this later 36 day period 33KWh's (no prob here, heating shut down & other reasons for the low usage)

Now, the problem...
In line with their own weighting tables as published on the reverse of statements/bills they can only charge for 272 'first' units for March:
In the period 25/3/to 30/3 there are only 5 billable days for March so pro-rated: 5/31 * 272KWh's(the March allocation) = 44KWh's MAX that they may bill at the primary rate for these 5 days, the remainder at the follow on rate.

For the period 1/4 to 5/5 I only used 33KWh's so they can bill all these at the primary rate

This totals 77KWh's, but by aggregating the 2 periods, they have charged me for 224 at the higher rate...
by my reckoning 147 units too much, for a sum of £7.90p (£7.52p +VAT).

Not a lot in relation to my recent dealings, but when you consider this bill should have come to £24.18 +vAT, and they have charged me £31.77 + VAT, this is approx 24% too much!

This should not affect very high volume users(unless you go away for a winter holiday:p), but will affect low volume users. the lower the usage, the greater the effect on your bills...