Npower back charge-wrong meter readings

CLAUDIA_2

Hello everyone,
I've got a problem with my electricity bills.I moved in to 1 bed flat in Dec 2009 and my agency sent all our details to Npower and set up our account,they also gave them last meter reading(we have only electricity in our flat)...and the problem starts here.There are 2 meters in our flat(i mean not exactly in the flat,cos we live in the 12 flats block so all the meters are in one place)1 digital is off peak,2 very old is for the rest.We have been told by the landlord to read the first one only cos thats the right one,so all the time we have been sending readings from the digital meter.Npower was sending us bills and they were very high(we have underfloor heating),we paid everything.In march 2011 we sent our last reading and we got a bill for £200(that was from 31/12/10 to 27/03/11)and we paid that.since that time the meter hasn't move and we got a bill in june for £0.00 so I called Npower and said that I think the meter is broken.Npower sent engineer on Monday and he replaced that meter and he told us that this meter is for off peaks so we should read the bottom one-and he took the readings.I went mad cos we have been told to read the digital one only!I called Npower and tryed to explain everything and I found out that they dont have any previous history for that bottom meter so it means that all the people who lived here before us they were getting bills for the 1st meter only and nobody noticed anything.Now Npower opened investigation and I put a complain cos that's not our fault and they want to back charge us.It's not only us who have been taking meter readings,cos people from Npower did that as well and they never said anything.If i didn't phoned them they wouldn't notice that ever.What can I do now?Could you please advice?

gerry_mc

We had a problem of a simialr nature with Npower. They came and changed our gas meter but didnt tell us or anyone else. They also didnt get a note of the old meters reading before they uninstalled it. They worked everything out pretty fast though by looking at what the new meter reading was since install and then trying to recalculate it from there. good Luck

spiro

Some backgound information about how industry data is passed around and therefore the possible points at which the details of the 2nd meter could have been 'lost'.

When a Change of Supplier occurs the old supplier's Meter Operator (MOP) - guy who installs and maintains the meter - send details of the meter(s) associated with the meter point to the new supplier's MOP.
The new MOP records this information and sends it to the new supplier and the Data Collector (DC) - guy who reads and validates meter readings.
When the meter needs reading the DC provides details of the meter point (address) and meter to the meter reader who walks down the street reading meters. In a house he may report that he has found a meter that is not on his list but in a block of flats that is highly unlikely to happen.

The question is - have all your bills since 2009 only shown one meter? If so the 2nd one was 'lost' which may not be the fault of your supplier and therefore they can legally backbill you for all the consumption. If their MOP has known about the meter all along but it has failed to get onto the suppliers billing sysyem then you could argue that the back bill rule applies (one 1 year).

Hope this helps.