Npower £70m giveaway - claim your share Monday 11/10/2010

hgm

I received a letter with a repayment of only £14.06.
After speaking on phone with them for over an hour including speaking to a manager, I was given the following information.
My account billing date is September. Calculation is from 6 September 2006 to 5 September 2009 ie 3 years.
They said that although I was over billed by 1790 units for the year May 07 to May 08 (a year for which I had a complete bill), I was undercharged in the following year. Just kept talking about how many winter quarters are included. They seem to have lost a letter of complaint that I sent at the time.
The difficulty in any calculations is that although they say the billing date is September, that month doesn't actually appear on most bills and most are only estimated anyway. They are supposed to be posting me the bills for the 3 years but I suspect it will still not be possible to determine the overcharge even by their rules.

retired_cricketer

ee52gk wrote: »

Does anyone know how the compensation is being calculated?

I have been back over my bills and reckon I'm due more than double what I've been offered even before interest.

Like you, I've checked my bills and also think they are only offering about half.

I've been offered £35 and called npower to ask them to explain the calculation.They told me that they will post it to me in a few weeks time.2 weeks gone so far.......

I joined npower in June. Can the calculation experts on here advise if £35 is about right or is my calculation correct ?

Thank you

DirectDebacle

hgm wrote: »

I received a letter with a repayment of only £14.06.
After speaking on phone with them for over an hour including speaking to a manager, I was given the following information.
My account billing date is September. Calculation is from 6 September 2006 to 5 September 2009 ie 3 years.
They said that although I was over billed by 1790 units for the year May 07 to May 08 (a year for which I had a complete bill), I was undercharged in the following year. Just kept talking about how many winter quarters are included. They seem to have lost a letter of complaint that I sent at the time.
The difficulty in any calculations is that although they say the billing date is September, that month doesn't actually appear on most bills and most are only estimated anyway. They are supposed to be posting me the bills for the 3 years but I suspect it will still not be possible to determine the overcharge even by their rules.

Thank you for posting this information.

The red highlightred text appears to be a misleading statement and requires clarification from npower.

npower are entitled to charge up to and no more than 4572kWh per annum at the Primary Block rate (the higher of your two prices). If in a year you were charged for only 3572 of these units you have not been undercharged by 1000kWh. It would simply mean that you were a low user of gas and had only used 3572kWh in that year. Therefore all that gas would be charged at the higher rate.

If in the following year you use say 10000kWh of gas npower can only charge a maximum of 4572 at the higher rate. They cannot carry the 1000kWh unused units from the previous year forward.

Not knowing your gas consumption for the specific periods you are being reimbursed it is difficult to know whether your refund is correct. It appears to be a bit light.

Assuming your gas consumption was sufficient to take you into the Follow-on rate (the lower priced units) then for the year 6/9/06 - 5/9/06 using npowers monthly charging rates you could have been charged for 5398KWh at the Primary block rate. 826kWh which should have been charged at the lower rate.

Similarly from 6/9/07 - 5/9/08 378KWh could have been wrongly charged.

Depending on your prices at the time (there was a price increase effective from 4/1/08) these two periods would be around £21.65 and £14.17 respectively. Add VAT and interest @6.66% to this.

I have also calculated May 07 - May 08. I made this to be 1785kWh over the 4572. Close enough to npowers calculation. Using a price differential of 3.75p (prices after 4/1/08) makes this period £66.93 + VAT + interest.

Bottom line is you need to query this further with npower. Ask them to explain their undercharge in particular.

The fact that npower are just refunding customers with no explanation as to how they have calculated the figure is highly suspicious to me, knowing npowers whole approach to dealing with this matter.

DirectDebacle

retired_cricketer wrote: »

Like you, I've checked my bills and also think they are only offering about half.

I've been offered £35 and called npower to ask them to explain the calculation.They told me that they will post it to me in a few weeks time.2 weeks gone so far.......

I joined npower in June. Can the calculation experts on here advise if £35 is about right or is my calculation correct ?

Thank you

Best guesstimate on the info you have given is;

1/6/06 - 31/5/07 £1.48

1/6/07 - 31/5/08 £54.38

Both figures + VAT & interest.

Would need to know the billing period they have based your payment on, the amount of gas used and your prices.

sammyw

I phoned Npower yesterday about my refund. They are going to send me their calculation - person on phone said it would take about 2 weeks - but the amount of units they said I'd been overcharged was about the same as my rough estimate (based on bills but the dates didn't quite match up). I think that they've used a different unit rate, which I'll check when I get the explanation. Hope it doesn't take too long to get sorted.

poshstock66

I've just realised that while I was with Npower we were on prepayment meter's - would that make any difference? I've been offered £81.91.

hgm

DirectDebacle wrote: »

The red highlightred text appears to be a misleading statement and requires clarification from npower.

npower are entitled to charge up to and no more than 4572kWh per annum at the Primary Block rate (the higher of your two prices). If in a year you were charged for only 3572 of these units you have not been undercharged by 1000kWh. It would simply mean that you were a low user of gas and had only used 3572kWh in that year. Therefore all that gas would be charged at the higher rate.

I am not a low user and would expect to be charged for all primary units. (I suppose there could be an odd month which is under but with readings only every 6 to 12 months I would never actually get this.)
I think the difficulty may arise for May to September 2009 when they will say I have only been charged for Summer months.
Please "Direct Debacle" can you do a calculation for the whole 3 years 6/9/06 -6/9/09) with the assumption that I would have used all the primary units. I think I might have hit the completely worst months for their calculaion. They did actually use the term "undercharged".

DirectDebacle

poshstock66 wrote: »

I've just realised that while I was with Npower we were on prepayment meter's - would that make any difference? I've been offered £81.91.

According to npower the following are not eligible for a refund:

The following customers will not be eligble: electricity customers, business customers, gas pre-payment meter customers, Gas Guardian tariff customers, 2009 Price Fix tariff customers, Tracker tariff customers, First Step customers, Sign Online v8 tariff customers, and those with a debt greater than the compensation due.

Full info here:

http://www.npower.com/web/PaymentstoGasCustomers/index.htm

DirectDebacle

hgm wrote: »

I am not a low user and would expect to be charged for all primary units. (I suppose there could be an odd month which is under but with readings only every 6 to 12 months I would never actually get this.)
I think the difficulty may arise for May to September 2009 when they will say I have only been charged for Summer months.
Please "Direct Debacle" can you do a calculation for the whole 3 years 6/9/06 -6/9/09) with the assumption that I would have used all the primary units. I think I might have hit the completely worst months for their calculaion. They did actually use the term "undercharged".

I suspect they are playing word games with you. To be absolutely clear they are not entitled to charge more than 4572kwh Primary Block units in a year.

npower have allocated you a start date (for the purposes of calculation of P.B. units) of 6/9/06.

6/9/06 -5/9/07 = 5398kWh i.e. 826 over their entitlement.

6/9/07 - 5/9/08 = 4950kWh i.e 378 over.

Calculate the cost using the prices applicable at the time. Remember to use the increased prices from 1/4/08 for the 07/08 year. I used an average 3.75p price differential for that year but your regional pricing could be higher or lower than this.

6/9/08 - 5/9/09 should be 4572.

Anyone joining npower on or after 1/11/07 will not have been overcharged. Therefore to calculate or quote you the year 6/9/08 - 6/9/09 is irrelevant and can only have been introduced to confuse or mis-lead you.

The 4572kWh per annum is a maximum amount not a mandatory amount. If you were not charged 4572 in the year 6/9/08 - 6/9/09 then either your gas usage was insufficient or npower have mis-calculated. Either way this is a separate issue to the previous two years when you were overcharged and you should be re-imbursed accordingly.

The only years for you where an overcharge could have occurred, as a result of these changes (according to npower), is the period 6/9/06 - 5/9/08.

If npower now wish to claim that you were undercharged in 08/09 then they need to show how this occurred and give you the opportunity to agree their reasons/figures or not.

k.stokes2

Ha just contacted N Power and found they did owe me money £37 not bad for one phone call!!!! Don't think I would have got it if I didn't ring though!!!!
:beer: