Newby in desperate need of help with n power!

24.princess

Hi all

I am new here, but am really hoping that someone is going to be able to offer me some words of wisdom.

I have just got off the phone with N-Power and found out that according to my meter readings I am over £2500 in debt to them with our gas account (although we have duel fuel with them).

I phoned them with meter readings because we have been paying £100 per month by dd- but that did seem cheap to me compared to others so I thought I 'd better check that we didn't need to up our monthly payments. They said that the electricity account side is fine because they (for some reason) prioritised our electricity so, for example, one month £83 went to pay the electricity and only £17 for the gas- he asked if we were very low users- and we're not we have gas central heating, which we use, gas cooker etc etc.

Anyway, they're sending someone out to read the meter in a few weeks BUT I know I've read the meter right, so in a couple of weeks they're going to have exactly the same figures on their system. Where do I stand with this? I can't pay it as I don't have anywhere near that kind of money and as I clearly need to spend more monthly on fuel that payment is going to go up and I don't see how I am going to have any money to clear the backlog!

Why on earth did they say £100 per month when it was so obviously not enough- I'm really panicing about this

Thanks in advance

KimYeovil

You can not accidentally use £2500 of fuel over a short period of time. Over how long have you been underpaying? Have you checked if there is a confusion over metric/imperial metering? You will be given time to pay the arrears (up to the same amount of time over which they accrued.)

Why on earth did you agree to £100 per month when you knew you were spending more? (It is not 'obviously' not enough to nPower - it is a perfectly reasonable starter for ninety percent of households.) How long has it been since you checked the meters and bills yourself to see what was happening?

Airmike23

at £83pm on elec you must be an exceptionally high user or be in credit with npower , on elec, I appreciate the credit (if any) on the elec acc wont be £2500, but if they can transfer from elec to gas will be a start, would unlikely be an issue with billing imperial/metric wrong way round, £176pm gas is stupidly low in this days market place

24.princess

TBH it's only now that I have realised that £100 is low because I have spoken to other people about their accounts, before that I had thought it sounded reasonable and as N power suggested it I just paid it and havn't given it much thought. Like I said I do realise NOW that that was clearly a stupid attitude.

It's been 20 months since anyone read the gas meter and yes the electricity side of the account is in credit by a couple of hundred that they can transfer over, but nowhere near the total owed.

Again, I know I've been stupid, but I always thought that the £100 odd quid was split 50/50 between gas and electric- not that only 20% was going towards gas or otherwise I would have been alerted to it.

t0rt0ise

What is most likely to happen is that Npower will want to put prepayment meters in so that you will pay what you use up front and pay a little bit of the debt each week. You will be able to argue with them about the amount they take for the debt each week so that it isn't too much. If when the bill comes, you ask for the meters to be changed to prepayment ones, it will stop them threatening you with court and take a lot of the worry out of the whole process.

Airmike23

If you do go prepay route only do the gas, as elec account ok don't lumber yourself with a ppm on elec when you don't need it. With Elec, to further help reduce the cost might be worth considering going to BG websaver 11 by far cheapest elec only tariff on the market right now. Npower will try and win you back, but they have no tariff cheaper than web saver 11. t0rt0ise's advise re gas, whilst a kick in the gut to get a ppm, as even spreading debt over 20m to try and clear debt they will be looking at approk £150 a month or more for dd, if you are determined not to get ppm for gas stay dual fuel with npower and go Go Fix 5 if you are not already on one of their Sign Online tariffs, still will be looking at a dd of approx £210 a month dd for next 2 years, but they may go for that

nPower

Hi 24.princess

I'm concerned to hear about the problems you're having at the moment.

Were you supplying us with regualr meter readings before this happened?

I can look into your account for you if you like? Just send in your details to [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL].

Best Wishes
Sally at npower

shelley_crow

please avoid npower on prepayment if you can, i was with them for two years on an electric pp meter already installed in my house and had nothing but trouble.

shelley_crow

shelley_crow wrote: »

please avoid npower on prepayment if you can, i was with them for two years on the pp meter already installed in my house and had nothing but trouble.

will pm you op.

mattcanary

I too had big problems with my prepayment meters that were in my flat when I moved in _ NPOwer were the suppluiers for me too. In particularl, they do not operate an emergency service for prepayment customers.

I would strongly advise not to get a gas prepayment meter fitted. You wouldn't be able to change supplier from NPower because you would be paying off the debt.

I doubt £2500 is a correct debt. Are you sure they are not billing you based upon an imperial (ft3) meter rather than a metric (m3) one when really you have a metric meter? I know £17.00 per month towards the gas is very low, but on the other hand £83.00pmk for electric is extremely high when you have gas heating. Yet you are only £250 odd in credit for your electric.

Your bills don't sound right to me - and NPower have a history of fobbing their customers off with a load of codswallop.
Also - do you know if your account with NPower was opened on the correct gas ane lectric readings or has one of the meters been changed since you opened your account with NPOwer?

spiro

24.princess wrote: »

It's been 20 months since anyone read the gas meter and yes the electricity side of the account is in credit by a couple of hundred that they can transfer over, but nowhere near the total owed.

In that 20 months you will have received about 6/7 bills. I am guessing most will have shown a E(stimated) reading for both start and end readings. Did you not think to check the readings and phone through if they are lower than the actual reading? :wall:

Suppliers only have to read the meter every 2 years in the intervening period its the customer responsibility to check the readings unless they want to end up with a huge catch up bill which it looks like you are about to get.

If this forum got £1 for every post like this it would fund its running costs for the next decades.