npower pricing structure !!!!!!!

tony221149

I wonder if anyone can shed any light on my recent experience with npower and their charges charges for electricity and gas. First the background.
I changed supplier to npower using energyhelpline, on 5/4/2006. This was the supply of both gas and electricity (Economy 7), with their "famous" £60 annual discount. In June I was notified of an increase of about 14.4% for electricity and 15-21% for gas.
In September I was notified of another increase from 1st October. This time the increase was 9.9% for electricity and 17.2% for gas. I thought that two increases so close together and with this magnitude was rather steep, even allowing for the rapid increase in the cost of power. But I thought no more about it until I sat down with my brother to move him from British Gas. On both the uswitch and energyhelpline sites the prices quoted for him were the pre- October 1st prices. Operators at both these sites confirmed that these figures were the up to date ones.
On quizzing npower they were very reluctant to shed any light on this. But they confirmed that if you switch to them you get energy at a cheaper rate than existing customers. Then it seems that after a short period of time the new customer's prices are increased to (almost) the existing customer's prices. Then I guess that, at the next increase, the new customer's prices come up to the same level as existing customers. Hope that's clear!!!
The reason for mentioning all this? Surely by doing this npower can get their prices to the best buy level on uswitch and energyhelpline, with the obvious benefits to recruiting new customers.
I must say it doesn't altogether surprise me other than it seems to be done underhand. Any savings account, etc is quite open aboutr differential charges between new and existing customers, but not here.
It also begs the question whether other power suppliers are doing the same thing. I suppose if they're all doing it then the advantage will be cancelled out.
I would welcome the thoughts, views and observations on all this.
Tony.

northender1

See this thread for a way round their pricing structure

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=283038

Gal

To the best of my knowledge and all new accounts that have been set up by me I have never seen this happen with powergen - If what your saying is correct then turnover of customers would be extremely high.

We don't have rates that are used for new signups - The tariffs that I am using at present are open to not only new customers but existing ones as well - and the majority are going onto products that customers are already on.

Hope that made sense

BWZN93

I hope this isnt the case as I switched this morning onto Npower because they are apparently the cheapest! Ill be seriously annoyed if I get rapid price increases as I am sick and tired of bloody utility providers in this country already!

Jo x

notbritishgas

tony, my experience of npower is the same as yours. I too changed to them from BG last april on the SoL 4 tariff. After the 2 price rises you mention I decided to look on the comparison sites and was shocked to find that one of them said if I switched to npower on their SoL 6 tariff I would save about £150 but it was only available to new customers.

I too think it is a con by npower to ensure that they always appear as the best buy to attract new customers, and then abandon them once hooked!

I am awaiting developments on the thread linked in one of the posts above to see if the change to SoL 6 goes ahead smoothly, otherwise I will be changing to Atlantic next April. I think they are a more straigtforward company.

gazhawkins

I currently use Southern Electric (electric only).

I've just done a uSwitch comparison which alleges I would save about 70 quid pa by switching to NPower. The tariff is as follows:-

Daytime Units 0-728 kwh pa = 17.43p
Daytime Units 728+ kwh pa = 8.18p

Night Units = 3.39p

Pros are no service charges.

Cons are that discounts are applied ANNUALLY, and that discounts are ZERO if you leave before 12 months - a.k.a. this is a 12 MONTH CONTRACT. NPower have poor customer service it seems.

Would be interested in any MSE's opinion on this???????


For what its worth, up until now Southern Electrics customer service has been excellent - but I think a price rise is due in January.

Anorak

FWIW - anyone currently with npower and moving house, a cautionary tale.
I have recently moved address, having been with npower at the previous address and staying in the same area I decided to take npower to the new address. I was on the sign online tariff, however when I rang them to notify change of address, they took the opportunity to switch me onto the more expensive standard tariff (without telling me of course). On realising what they had done I rang to query and was told that, as I had not specifically requested SOL during the call when notifying new address, I was no longer eligible for SOL! Is it me or is this beyond the pale ...? Despite many calls they refuse to budge so have ditched them in favour of a new supplier.....

Doblet

Hi, I was shocked in October to see the price hike on SOL4. SOL 6 was much cheaper so, having been fairly insistent with their customer services, I was advised that i could switch to SOL 6 via the web. All went smoothly until, one week ago, I received a letter advising me that I was already a customer and therefore my new account was cancelled. Several irate phone calls later, during which I had the complete support and understanding of their staff, I was told that I could not change tariff. Five monutes later I switched. Their loss - I am not going to move my £20,000 business account to npower now.

Very sharp practice on their part. My gas will be moving too as soon as the next tariff comes out.

mbailey

Doblet wrote:

Hi, I was shocked in October to see the price hike on SOL4. SOL 6 was much cheaper so, having been fairly insistent with their customer services, I was advised that i could switch to SOL 6 via the web. All went smoothly until, one week ago, I received a letter advising me that I was already a customer and therefore my new account was cancelled.

Same experience for me. I also received a letter last week saying they noticed I was already a customer so it was not possible to switch to SOL 6.

I think I will wait for the £60 annual reduction, then jump ship.