£2000 plus bill from NPOWER

rebecca81

Hi I have just received a huge bill from NPOWER of over £2000. Apparently they have had me on the wrong tariff for over 2 years dispite them obtaining true meter readings. After several telephone conversation where I have had to do all of the chasing they have reduced the bill to £1500 but advised that I will have to pay £120 per month. Obviously I was unaware that we were on the wrong tariff and we were never informed of the debt that we were getting into. Are they able to drop this huge bill on us?? Any advice welcome.

Thanks in advance

HalloweenJack

have yo got your previous paper bills? your tarrif details will be printed there- and thats the tarrif your charged on .

eurmalian

What exactly do you mean by 'wrong tariff'? As if it's a mix up between standard and Economy 7 then you might be able to do something, but if it's more that you wanted to be on an online deal but it never got applied then I'm not too hopefull I'm afraid...

rebecca81

Sorry I havent explained myself very well, I pay by Direct Debit monthly for DUAL FUEL since 2009 and I was never informed that we running behind and in the statments I was always up to date until I received my bill last month for sucha large amount

elektra

so to recap -

you say NP have had accurate meter readings but have allowed you to run up a large debit balance ?

Did you not read your bills - either online or paper

rebecca81

Yes but they have never indicated that we were behind, our account was up to date.

eurmalian

Sorry, just to check. They had accurate meter readings, the last bill showed no debt, but the latest one shows £2000 owed?

If that's right then something has gone very wrong somewhere. Did the meter readings on the bills actually match the accurate ones that you provided?

macman

rebecca81 wrote: »

Yes but they have never indicated that we were behind, our account was up to date.

But your account was not up to date-your consumption was far more than your DD payments allowed for. Did you not check your meter readings against your bills and submit accurate readings in two years? Your bills would clearly have shown that they were based on estimated readings. They only have to read your meter once every two years, so how would they have known that you were behind?
If you did submit regular actual readings, then how did the error arise?
I don't understand your original comment that you were 'on the wrong tariff'?

vax2002

Firstly DO NOT PAY ANYTHING or you admit the debt.
Write telling them you dispute their findings and request an investigation be held
You say they obtained meter readings ?
Who read the Meter ? You or THEM ?
I trust you had the good sense to save your bills.
If so you can only be charged at the rate quoted.
They can not retrospective change the price and back charge you.
First Job, Change suppliers with IMMEDIATENESS .
Second Job dispute the Bill write and say that you hold the charges in "dispute" and as a result you will be passing the file on and contacting the regulator. You do so by going through these first. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Energy-yourconsumerrights/index.htm

eurmalian

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick there vax (read post number 4 where the OP explains further). From what I understand of this, the supplier isn't trying to retrospectively change the price at all, it's more that the DD they'd set up wasn't covering the usage and they didn't let the OP know until now, even though regular, accurate meter readings were being provided (please correct me if I've got that wrong rebecca).

In that case your post isn't going to work at all. Also, even if it was the situation you thought, the OP would not be able to change suppliers due to the debt. The supplier would have a right to stop them changing until this was all sorted out.
Plus it's not true at all that you can only be charged at the rate quoted. If a supplier makes an error with the rate printed on a bill they do not need to honor that, they're given scope to correct it and send out a replacement.
Lastly, telling someone to take it all the way to the regulator without actually finding out any details at all about what had gone wrong is massively over-reactive and kneejerk. The regulator should be an absolute last resort and will only take cases if you can prove that you have a good case and you have previously given the supplier good opportunity to sort it all out. Given your knowledge about this is 'have had me on the wrong tariff for over 2 years' you're a long, long way away from knowing that.

vax2002

A £2000 bill out of the Blue qualifies as a knee jerk reaction here and there is no debt without judgement, its an invoice up until that point.