Shocked By Npower Letter

syledis

British Gas pulled a nasty trick on me just before they anounced price rises. Rather than read my meter after i had paid the last direct debit of the quarter, they read my meter just before it so rather than have paid £135 for the quarter with 3 dd,s i had only paid 2,(£90) and because of this they put my DD up from £45 per month to £65.
I am now in the process of switching suppliers

mbailey

syledis wrote:

British Gas pulled a nasty trick on me just before they anounced price rises. Rather than read my meter after i had paid the last direct debit of the quarter, they read my meter just before it so rather than have paid £135 for the quarter with 3 dd,s i had only paid 2,(£90) and because of this they put my DD up from £45 per month to £65.
I am now in the process of switching suppliers

I am not sure this is a nasty trick. Prices are rising so quickly and frequently none of the supplies can keep up with the DD amounts.

The whole system with gas/electricity supplies works best on static prices for energy, but now this is no longer the case everything is a mess.

I can't see how switching suppliers will change this.

MarkyMarkD

syledis wrote:

British Gas pulled a nasty trick on me just before they anounced price rises. Rather than read my meter after i had paid the last direct debit of the quarter, they read my meter just before it so rather than have paid £135 for the quarter with 3 dd,s i had only paid 2,(£90) and because of this they put my DD up from £45 per month to £65.
I am now in the process of switching suppliers

That doesn't make sense, I'm afraid. The £45 you hadn't paid would only amount to less than £4 a month, so accounts for a very small amount of the increase in payments.

natmark

i have been with npower since april (moved from manweb) just received a bill this morning saying that our direct debit is to increase from £35 pound per month to £233.50 and they say that we are in arrears to the tune of £3968.20.
phoned up the call centre because to be honest i thought that it was a joke or a simple mistake, but they seem to think that it is correct.
ok so it could be possible that in the 7 years we have lived here three other electric companies have been charging us incorrectly or that unknown to us our neighbours and the local shop have connected themselves in the dark of night to our supply!
i knew that they have upped their prices but by how much?
i suggested that there might be something wrong with the meter, but they said that this was very unlikely.
i can see this being a very long debate, just before xmas that all we need.

espresso

natmark wrote:

i have been with npower since april (moved from manweb) just received a bill this morning saying that our direct debit is to increase from £35 pound per month to £233.50 and they say that we are in arrears to the tune of £3968.20............. .

Surely you know what the meter readings were when you went with npower in April? Have you given them a meter reading now? If they had agreed to take on a previous debt, your monthly payments would have not been set so low.

natmark

i gave them the meter reading this morning and they confirmed that the bill was correct, also the opening meter readings for the account were correct, and no there was no outstanding balance bought forward, we have only ever been a couple of pounds in arrears for the last seven years.

espresso

natmark wrote:

i gave them the meter reading this morning and they confirmed that the bill was correct, also the opening meter readings for the account were correct, and no there was no outstanding balance bought forward, we have only ever been a couple of pounds in arrears for the last seven years.

So how many kWh have you actually used since April?

In the paper this week, it said that the average family pays £630 per year for gas and £383 for electricity!

:eek:

natmark

opening account 18169, current usage at 22899 (april to today)

small 3 bedroom house, two kids etc , we have a tumble dryer which i use a couple a times a week but no more than usual.
we have gas central heating and a gas cooker, so i can't see how we have all of a sudden used so much electric.

espresso

natmark wrote:

opening account 18169, current usage at 22899 (april to today)

small 3 bedroom house, two kids etc , we have a tumble dryer which i use a couple a times a week but no more than usual.
we have gas central heating and a gas cooker, so i can't see how we have all of a sudden used so much electric.

Well 4730kWh is a lot of electricity to use in approx six months! My consumption used to be a bit over 4000kWh per year but it was down to 3786 last year. How do you heat your hot water? Have you left an immersion heater on permanently? Do you have any other high wattage electrical appliances?

shammyjack

natmark wrote:

opening account 18169, current usage at 22899 (april to today)

small 3 bedroom house, two kids etc , we have a tumble dryer which i use a couple a times a week but no more than usual.
we have gas central heating and a gas cooker, so i can't see how we have all of a sudden used so much electric.

At an average price of say 10p per KWh thats £473 so where do they get arrears of £3968 from ?

A trip to energywatch is required I think !

shammy