Npower direct debit - massive increase

sofa-spud

AliceBanned wrote: »

I set the account up in April so this must be their six monthly review. Yes it will need increasing but not to £58. I don't have to do accurate calculations to work that out. You are right, they have had my credit over the summer, and now they want me to overpay in winter as well - they are misusing direct debit. it should be ok to go a bit in debit in winter.

A similar issue to one I had recently as well..
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2691591
They tried 'falsely' elevating my annual consumption (more than double what I actually used), when that didnt wash they tried using 18 months usage to capture 2 winters in the calculations. Finally they couldnt argue with my maths and we agreed a much lower DD amount.
I would add that I do have accurate consumption figures for my property spanning a number of years now:o

When I looked back on my dealing over the last 11 :eek:years with them I now realise there have been far too many problems/issues I've had to chase them on.
Thankfully I am (should be) free of them as of this month:p

AliceBanned

Hi

Just to let you know, they agreed to £41 per month with no fuss. Thanks for your advice.

Joyful

If your 12 month is up in April and we are just about to go through winter your DD should definitely have a higher credit by now. If not you have been underpaying.

deshepherd

This happened to me last year ... had been with Npower for a few years and checking bills could see that over the year the DDs had been pretty much spot on for my usage. However NPower put by DD up by 30%. When I phone to question this the response I got was that they were now estimating usage and thus adjusting DDs on a 6 monthly basis thus they needed DD to increase to cover winter usage and it would be "reassessed" in the spring (somehow I doubted it would be reduced to match actual summer usage) - pretty much nullifies the point of regular payment schemes. Anyway, the result was I got round to looking at a comparison website and discovered the tarriff I'd been on was ~25% higher than the Eon one I'm now on so I switched ... other result is I'm unlikely to ever return to Npower (as my wife firmly told one of their reps who knocked on our door recently)

davidgmmafan

I'm glad you got this sorted, any suppliers reassessment amount is just thier best guess. It is not set in stone.

pootle30

Hi

We were with NPower until July - I swapped to Scottish Hydro Electric. Interestingly just before NPower found out we were leaving them they tried to put our £72 per month for gas and electricity up to £160!!! Apparently half of the problem with them is that they dont review account's often enough (ie a bill every 6 months!)

Who can afford to just more than double their payments? However we were in debit of £300 and I dont think it should have got to that since I often submitted readings and this was the first time they had reviewed our usage after being with them a year.

AliceBanned

davidgmmafan wrote: »

I'm glad you got this sorted, any suppliers reassessment amount is just thier best guess. It is not set in stone.

Thanks, they were very reasonable about it.

AliceBanned

Chris1708 wrote: »

Is it possible they could have made a mistake with the amount? I just checked my online banking and my payment has gone up from £30 last month to £130 this month. I live on my own in a one bed flat and work full time so I'm a little suspicious.

That is definitely way too much! I think it is automated at first so you need to phone them to explain.