Newby in desperate need of help with n power!

JasX

24.princess wrote: »

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

It all depends on your useage which you are in the best position to monitor and judge (only if you look at your meters from time to time). I'm just switching back to npower after a year away (cashback purposes), when I was with them I was paying £32* a month which comfortably covered both.

That is for a 2 bedroom modern well insulated apartment with gas central heating and thermostat turned to a low setting.

If you live in a large draughty house and turn the thermostat up to 20-25 DegC you'll have a very large gas bill.

Odd to have such a high electric bill if you have gas central heating -do you still have alot of old style incandescent bulbs? are they left on for extended periods? do you have any electric heating devices you use (tumble dryer, towel rail, immersion water heater, electric blanket/fire) they will all markedly bump up your electric bill.

Good luck tackling the bill -avoid pre payment meters if you can as you'll start paying an even higher rate for you gas / electricity than you currently do.


*tho will probably be closer to £40 now with price increases

undaunted

spiro wrote: »

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.

It's about time this nonsensical rule was addressed. Customers have no legal obligation to read the meter at any point suppliers do have an obligation to do so and to correctly bill the account - all be it the rule does currently say only every two years. Clearly that needs to be altered to a more realistic time frame or perhaps suppliers could stop dragging their feet over smart meters & that would resolve the problem. Some of you seem to think customers exists for the convenience of suppliers - they dont!

Suppliers relying on 6 / 7 estimates isn't even in their own interests - you can't get blood out of a stone, especially if the customer moves on to a house with someone else already supplying.

24.princess wrote: »

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

Whilst Npower are likely to object to your switching supplier even if you wanted to in the meantime there's no real need to panic. You can offer to pay what you can realistically afford / to pay it over the same period it accrued in. Npower do have some responsibility here too - much as they probably won't want to admit it.

chanz4

Did they attempt to get in? I apreshiate what the above is saying, but if the op knew they were underpaying this was going to happen one day. They should ask however for say 2-3 years to repay cant see why a supplier would put a pre-pay in if a payment plan was set in place going forward.

spiro

undaunted wrote: »

Clearly that needs to be altered to a more realistic time frame or perhaps suppliers could stop dragging their feet over smart meters & that would resolve the problem.

Correction - it is the government (DECC) that is taking its time deciding how the whole smart meter thing will operate.

Here is an extract from a DECC press release on 30th March, note the last sentence which I have put in bold:

The rollout of smart meters will take place in two phases. During the foundation stage, beginning now, the Government will work with industry, consumer groups and other stakeholders to ensure all the necessary groundwork is done for the second stage, the mass rollout.
The foundation stage will enable the industry to build and test all the systems required to start the mass rollout, ensuring positive consumer engagement and delivering energy saving benefits. A key part of this will be learning from early installations. It will also enable the companies to test and learn what works best for consumers, and how to help people get the best from their meters. During this stage the Government will also establish the Data and Communications Company, which will provide data and communications services for the smart metering system nationwide.
The Government expects the mass rollout to start in early 2014 and to be completed in 2019.

In terms of the existing 2 year rule it is a safety check mandated because of HSE during which they will also read the meter. Picking BG I have looked at their elec T&Cs and it states:

"5.2 To help make sure your bills are accurate, you must give us meter readings at least twice a year."

I suspect something similar will exist in other suppliers contracts, so contractually there is an obligation on customers to provide readings. Not being a lawyer but I would say that makes it a 'legal obligation'.

mattcanary

Over £200 a quarter electric usage is extremely high - and does not sound correct to me when the OP has gas central heating.

undaunted

Whilst I don't believe that any of them - Government, Ofgem, suppliers etc ever move particularly quickly unless it's to their personal advantage the fact that the current Government expects something to happen in 2014 doesn't mean they have prevented it from happening before.

There have of course also been the usual consulatations with suppliers - this isn't a matter of DECC just imposing something at will / without supplier involvement.

The last Government had a much earlier timescale / expectation didn't they? Which supplier(s) have been clamouring for smart meters to happen as a matter of urgency since that time?

There is surely no reason remote metering cannot be done now - my water company has recently fitted a device allowing them to read their meter remotely rather than send someone out so presumably it can be done - if the will is there to do so.

KimYeovil

Yet again we have the rather strange concept whereby a consumer champion advocates piling on costs (completely unnecessarily) to an industry (costs that are paid for by that industry's consumers.)

Knowing you have a gas meter and an electricity meter is not an outlandish burden. Being expected to read your own meters now and again to keep an eye on what you are spending is not an egregious breach of your human rights.

spiro

undaunted wrote: »

There is surely no reason remote metering cannot be done now - my water company has recently fitted a device allowing them to read their meter remotely rather than send someone out so presumably it can be done - if the will is there to do so.

That works because only one company has to access the meter because there is no competition. The complexity in gas/elec is every company will need to access the meters or there will need to be a new central body to undertake the access for all others. Some suppliers are already fitting trial meters in large (0000s) volume but this can only happen when the meter is due to be changed. With a governemnt led rollout the replacement program can be accelerated.

undaunted

KimYeovil wrote: »

Yet again we have the rather strange concept whereby a consumer champion advocates piling on costs (completely unnecessarily) to an industry (costs that are paid for by that industry's consumers.)

Knowing you have a gas meter and an electricity meter is not an outlandish burden. Being expected to read your own meters now and again to keep an eye on what you are spending is not an egregious breach of your human rights.

I'm not sure at what point I was elevated to Consumer champion & I didn't mention human rights. I don't believe I've advocated piling on any costs either. Meter readers have been in operation for years & such costs are already built into the market. It is only supplier greed that causes them to try & short cut this process, boost profits & pass their responsibilities onto the consumer.

Relying on consumers to read your meters is an open invitation to the real fraudsters, ie those seeking to deliberately avoid or reduce bills & then flit!

Asking customers whether they will assist is also a matter of goodwill alone. Create some & they may, rob them blind & / or attempt to bully them & why the hell should they offer suppliers goodwill?

undaunted

spiro wrote: »

That works because only one company has to access the meter because there is no competition. The complexity in gas/elec is every company will need to access the meters or there will need to be a new central body to undertake the access for all others.


Some suppliers are already fitting trial meters in large (0000s) volume but this can only happen when the meter is due to be changed. With a governemnt led rollout the replacement program can be accelerated.

The first paragraph seems a fair / interesting point.

I'm not so sure that I agree with / understand your point on the second. Why should Government involvement mean it can happen faster or lack of mean it can only happen when the meter is due to be changed?