check your powergen bill

quickstepqueen

In reply to Gal I was very polite and very patient with the gentleman I spoke to this morning. I did not as you say "shout the odds and kick up a fuss." Working with customers myself I know that if there is a problem, it's rarely the fault of the person you speak to. I was calm and collected as at that point they could not access my account to find out all the facts. Until I had all the facts I remained perfectly calm.

The reason I was shaking was because Powergen before have been adamant that I owed money and it made me physically sick worrying about it. They made me believe that the debt was my fault and I stressed so bad about how I was going to repay it. In the end, when someone else looked into it for me it had all been powergens fault and I owed nothing. Now everytime I get a letter from Powergen it makes me very nervous. They messed up so bad on my old account that even Powergen couldn't sort out their numerous mistakes.

Anyway, a gentleman rang me back this afternoon from Powergen and explained that there had been 2 price increases (as you kindly stated Gal). I acknowledged the one in September as I'd had a letter about it. He said there had been one in March and I had been sent a letter. I had received nothing (nor when I looked back in my records had I had the last 2 bills/statements either - another complaint to Royal Mail - another story!)

He went on to say that they had 5 million customers (and am sure he was about to say that they couldn' recalibrate everyones' meter) .......I said that that wasn't my problem. But the first increase was in March so why hadn't they sent anyone out to change the settings! Surely they shouldn't take 7 months to send someone?? My OH got on the phone and he did rant and rave and the debt was written off (and they will send us copies of our last 2 bills.) So perhaps shouting the odds and kicking up a fuss really does work!

stewie_griffin

shepwood wrote:

I had taken into account the number of days in the billing period but was able to demonstrate that they had overcharged. It was clearly wrong as Pgen owned up

How did you work out how many days the billing period covered? It is worked out from the date of the last bill to the date of the current bill and this wont necessarily be the same as the dates of the meter readings.

Gal

Not defending powergen - But the person you probably spoke to had no idea what you were talking about and you probably baffled them so much that they wrote off the 30p or something as it was easier then trying to explain how the bills are worked out.

I would like to hear how you worked it out though just incase there is an issue.

shepwood

It was just over two quid, they knew it was wrong and could not explain how it could happen, you take 91 days as the standard quarter take the threshold divide by 91 this gives you the daily threshold adjustment, so from the dates between bills add or subtract the value to the threshold and there you go, Mine was wrong on both gas & electric on the portion of the bill following the price rise. Why give them more than you have to?

Gal

You should be taking the annual threshold - Divide this by 365 and then times it by the amount of days in your qtr this should give you the correct value.

In your case I would say you have baffled the person you were speaking to and they have just given you £2 to prevent an argument.

I don't understand your add / subtract value to bill - What is that all about?

doogle2_2

Powergen Gas Elec Did the same with me, DD for £65 pm. All OK for two years, had baby and wow! Suddenly get a letter informing us that our DD was to be £120 month!
Fair enough if we need to start conserving a little, but to double what is already quite a lot of money every month, left us a litlle shocked. Spoke with PG, Who have reduced down to £90 after basically defending themselves and blaming high fuel costs, bla bla bla.
Also, it seems to have been caused by a string of Estimates, the last of which was on the 6th Sept for a three month period and was quite low. The actual then came 11th October, which conveniently was probably about 90% of of the period (1/4). Therefore charged at the new high rate! Make sense?
Just wish i had kept my eye on the ball, but with DD, work, family it was neglected a little. Think i'll be submitting monthly reads form now on...

shepwood

However you work out the arithmatic how can you be billed for 1252 primary gas units and 246 primary elec units in a 94 day billing period? on energy on line. Shame as well the on line accounts not as competitive as it used to be

Gal

What dates does it run between - On your primary units I would say it should be 100 Days (Roughly).

Seems unusal that they have calculated exactly the same for both Gas and Electric (Day Wise)

shepwood

no dispute, its a 94 day quarter only