Npower massive bill

lizy_dee

So on the 10th of May I received my quarterly bill from npower for electric - £874.25. I live in a 1 bedroom flat with economy7 heating so everything is electric but surely this is a crazy amount?

To make it worse my partner has recently lost his job and therefore its just my wages coming in. They want us to pay £155 a month which is just not affordable and they said the cant reduce it anymore.

I'm at my witts end with them, what can I do? :mad:

moonrakerz

Did you actually use that amount of electricity ? Just giving a monetary value means nothing.
How long have you lived in those premises ?
Do you owe money from previous periods ?
What is your daily/weekly consumption ?
Has your bill got the correct meter readings on it ?

lizy_dee

8-9months we used to pay monthly but no longer do as we received a letter saying that we were in credit so we would be billed quarterly from now onwards.
The bill is for the meter readings we gave them, and the bill is from the 7th of Jan to the 9th of May.
I asked if there was a chance there was something wrong with the meter and was told that 1/1000 people are actually right so they wouldn't look into it.
There is no money owed from previous periods.
I also researched cheaper tariffs and npower have a number of tariffs cheaper than the one I am using. When asked why I wasn't offered a cheaper tariff they said it wasn't their policy to put consumers on them unless they ask, surely that isn't good customer service?

macman

So what is your actual kwH consumption on each tariff (peak and cheap rate) for that period? Post your figures. Without that info no-one can help you.
Also why are you now being billed on a more-than 4 month cycle?
if your partner is now at home in the daytime, then your peak rate consumption is bound to have increased. Remember that all your daytime consumption is billed at a premium rate on E7.
The choice of tariff is entirely up to you, they won't automatically switch you, nor will any utility company. Doing it yourself using a comp site take just a few minutes.

undaunted

lizy_dee wrote: »

8-9months we used to pay monthly but no longer do as we received a letter saying that we were in credit so we would be billed quarterly from now onwards.
The bill is for the meter readings we gave them, and the bill is from the 7th of Jan to the 9th of May.
I asked if there was a chance there was something wrong with the meter and was told that 1/1000 people are actually right so they wouldn't look into it.
There is no money owed from previous periods.
I also researched cheaper tariffs and npower have a number of tariffs cheaper than the one I am using. When asked why I wasn't offered a cheaper tariff they said it wasn't their policy to put consumers on them unless they ask, surely that isn't good customer service?

Npower generally do greed not good cutomer service I'm afraid. Dreadful company who only do what they have to!

Energy companies are supposed to consider affordability so if you are in genuine difficulty you may wish to contact your local CAB, Legal advice centre or alternatively contact Consumer Direct / Consumer Focus by phone & obviously look at the best tarrif you can get now even if you can't get it backdated.

If you wish you could try applying to the Energy Trust for help with the debt. Good luck

tigga_1961

hi, have worked for npower so hope i can offer some help or advice, do u actually have a need for e7 tarriff,
ie do you have night storage heaters?
check the serial number on your meter to the one on your bill you be surprised how often these are wrong and people get the incorrect bills.
also do a simple test to check it is billing correctly ie switiching on at the right time, night rate should start at 12pm till 7am hence if its incorrect you will pay more daily rate, its easy to do.
.first take a reading during the day anytime after 7am then again after 2-3 hours use a bit of electric ie boil few kettles put heating on for a little while, if its correct the meter reading will of moved on, if not its incorrect.
finally npower in their wisdom after the worst winter in history changed the billing periods so most customers are getting billed for 4 months instead of 3 to bring gas and electric reads inline. add t that the price increase in january . hope that helps .

grahamc2003

Have you got the meter readings you submitted? Also take another today and post - there's always a possibility you transposed a couple of digits in one of your meter reads.

My e7 starts at 01:30 and ends at 08:30 at the moment, so for me, 00:00 is 'day' rate.

Do you use any heating during daytime? That's about the only thing which could drum up such expensive bills.

JasX

Indeed, nobody can help you without meter readings.

also VERY odd you've stopped paying by monthly direct debit and switched to quarterly billing? are you aware this means you'll miss out on alot of discounts by paying by regular direct debit(something npower are big on offering)? were you aware of this at the time you asked npower to switch you to quarterly billing? this will be respinsible for (a small) part of the higher bill.

*smurfy*

Not sure if this helps but I'm also on E7 and with NPower and last year I was sent bill for £1200! we pay by direct debit,and been with them since 2007,anyway to cut long story it was figured out they didnt relise we had the two meter reading and thought we were reading meters wrong when we sent them in and their staff were reading meter wrong when they cameout and read them.We also got told we were in credit during this time,but we kept ringing and arguing with them and still paid an amount on direct debit as we said we was using electric and we can't be that much in credit.And the the big bill arrived last March,first off we were told by October it would all be sorted and we wouldn't owe them anything as their fault,it wasn't sorted and we had letter last week they admit their fault but they will be giving us a 50% discount on what we owe so we now owe £560! So now looks like another lot of trying to sort it out,but I'm lost for ideas....But away from my problem,I'm guessing they have done the same with your billing and not relised you have a two meter reading,so trying ringing and asking what sort of meter they think you have.