Shocked By Npower Letter

anniecave

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.

So the massive amount isn't an arrears figure, they're doing an estimated settlement based on your consumption over the next 18 months.

I would read your meter every other day for a week and see what you are using per day. Then you need to look at how much it will go up by in the winter (not much probably if your heating is all gas).

It sounds to me like your opening reading was underestimated but those figures still look silly to me.

deanos

mbailey wrote:

I had one of them also.

It said my elec DD will change from £20 to £91!

The original £20 was wrong, but by my calculations on my usage it should be around £45 per month.

I have tried to get through to npower on the phone but no luck yet so I emailed them tonight - not sure how long it will take for a reply!

So paying £20 means you have been underpaying im guessing you are in debit and owe them money thats probably the reason they are claiming more to pay off what you owe

Chrysalis

This is why I dont use direct debits whenever possible.

I would cancel the direct debit, and pay bills as they come.
Havent you been checking your bills to see how much is left over after the direct debit payment?
I always check my bills and my recent one which came last month showed £146 for 3 months, very suspicous as its just me a in a single bedroom flat and this was for a summer period so no central heating used, went out to the meter checked and they had used my neighbours meter reading which was higher then mine, told them on phone what they did and they refused to believe it so told them they getting nothing and if they send another meter reader down I will charge for my time to show him how to do his job, this woke them up and they accepted the proper reading and new bill was just under £100 still expensive but reasonable for todays age. My gas bill in the summer was around £15 and considering I had barely used any gas that was also crazy, when ringing them up its because I was on a package with service charges designed to lower the unit price, as I dont use much gas (electric cooker, no gas fire) I soon got rid of that. It pays to examine your bills and stick to manual payments, be in the dirving seat. Also compare your unit prices to freinds because my sister on pwoergen is paying about 17p per unit for her electric and I am only paying 7p per unit with southern electric.

Cardew

Chrysalis wrote:

This is why I dont use direct debits whenever possible.

I would cancel the direct debit, and pay bills as they come.

It makes no difference at all to the accuracy of your bill, or ability to thoroughly check and dispute it if necessary, if you are on Direct Debit or not.

Also in some cases, particularly utilities, you can get a cheaper tariff paying by DD.

You have the Bank’s Direct Debit guarantee so you can cancel the DD if it is incorrect.

I have loads of DDs for all sorts of accounts and the time and trouble it saves is enormous. That still doesn’t absolve me from checking that the bills are correct; and most of the time they are.

The vast majority of problems with paying by DD is that large debit balances are run up without being noticed, or simply ignored.

Chrysalis

1 - The company is in control not yourself since direct debits are automated, you cant decide what you can afford to pay they take what they see fit.

2 - The savings offered for paying by direct debit are often wiped out if one bounces with bank charges,

3 - As you have noticed, people paying with direct debit can fall into the trap of not checking their bills, the OP sounds like he/she wasnt checking their bills because if they were they would know they were drawing up a deficit and wouldnt actually be shocked their direct debit increased.

If you want to automate payments standing order is a better option.