day & night readings wrong way round

kezza82

hi there,
I moved from powergen to Npower 4 1/2 years ago i pay monthly direct debit, get billed every 6 months and every year i end up claiming back credit.
back in may i rang up Npower & within 5 mins the lady realised my day and night electric meter readings appeared to be the wrong way round, resulting in us paying too little since we joined them (bearing in mind i have spoke to them at least 6 times over the phone since joining them them & i know i have had my meters read at least twice by their engineers)!
today i recieved a bill for £708 back dated over the last 4 years:( i am devasted and obviously cannot afford this.
i dont know what to do, i feel that it is their mistake and they should have noticed long before now, its not as if there was any drastic changes in my bill for me to realise as its always been like this!

PLEASE I NEED SOME ADVICE

macman

If the debt has built up over 4 years then they should be willing to accept a payback over a similar period, you'll need to negotiate that with them.
It may well be their fault (though did you not check your bills against the meter readings in 4 years?), but that does not mean that the billing is not valid, if that's what you have used.

kezza82

thanks
yes i did check my bills & i regularly gave them meter readings, the bills matched the meter readings, obviously i checked the bills, its just the night readings are written down as the day readings! im no expert but as i have said ive spoken to them numerous times and its never been picked up by either me or them

jalexa

kezza82 wrote: »

today i recieved a bill for £708 back dated over the last 4 years

Study this...

http://www.energy-retail.org.uk/documents/BackBillingSept-Version8.pdf

On the face of it, contrary to other advice, I believe it is possible the back-billing provisions of the Billing Code may apply. Having studied it, if you believe it does (and it hasn't been applied) raise a formal complaint in writing (or by email). I recommend you decline to discuss the complaint by phone (as you likely would have no permanent record of what is discussed).

You are still liable for unbilled energy in the most recent 12 months, but I would suggest you request/demand easy payment terms.

Premier_2

jalexa wrote: »

Study this...

http://www.energy-retail.org.uk/documents/BackBillingSept-Version8.pdf

On the face of it, contrary to other advice, I believe it is possible the back-billing provisions of the Billing Code may apply. Having studied it, if you believe it does (and it hasn't been applied) raise a formal complaint in writing (or by email). I recommend you decline to discuss the complaint by phone (as you likely would have no permanent record of what is discussed).

You are still liable for unbilled energy in the most recent 12 months, but I would suggest you request/demand easy payment terms.

No it does not apply unless the OP informed the supplier they were billing to the wrong registries, and the supplier failed to act. That does not appear to be the case here.

Premier_2

kezza82 wrote: »

hi there,
I moved from powergen to Npower 4 1/2 years ago i pay monthly direct debit, get billed every 6 months and every year i end up claiming back credit.
back in may i rang up Npower & within 5 mins the lady realised my day and night electric meter readings appeared to be the wrong way round, resulting in us paying too little since we joined them (bearing in mind i have spoke to them at least 6 times over the phone since joining them them & i know i have had my meters read at least twice by their engineers)!
today i recieved a bill for £708 back dated over the last 4 years:( i am devasted and obviously cannot afford this.
i dont know what to do, i feel that it is their mistake and they should have noticed long before now, its not as if there was any drastic changes in my bill for me to realise as its always been like this!

PLEASE I NEED SOME ADVICE

You say you read the meters yourself.
Surely you saw which registry was recording when you took those readings?
I don't understand why you believe the supplier is entirely to blame here. The meters are in your property and measuring your usage. You took meter readings and say you compared them to the bill.
You are equally responsible for ensuring the readings are correct on the bill (and that means correctly allocated to the correct registry)
You will have to pay for what you used (but may get a goodwill credit to help you a little if you approach the supplier nicely)

Post your SoA on the DFW board and someonewill take a look at how you can afford this.

HappyMJ

Premier wrote: »

You say you read the meters yourself.
Surely you saw which registry was recording when you took those readings?
I don't understand why you believe the supplier is entirely to blame here. The meters are in your property and measuring your usage. You took meter readings and say you compared them to the bill.
You are equally responsible for ensuring the readings are correct on the bill (and that means correctly allocated to the correct registry)
You will have to pay for what you used (but may get a goodwill credit to help you a little if you approach the supplier nicely)

Post your SoA on the DFW board and someonewill take a look at how you can afford this.

How does the normal person know which is which? My meter says N and L. The online meter reading reads are Day and Night. The meter reader always gets it wrong and have asked to do a load test on my property to find out which is which.

Richie-from-the-Boro

It does happen, [ actual real world ] meters have a series of LCD numbers cycled through - usually Rate 1 to 4 - if in the very first instance you confuse the two because you've just moved in / never done it before / never seen a meter like it / you don't know which (1) is day and which (2) is night - you can give the wrong number for years.

see:

Richie-from-the-Boro

- O00000000000000ps sorry MSE unintended big pic, forgot to re-size it !

jalexa

Premier wrote: »

No it does not apply unless the OP informed the supplier they were billing to the wrong registries, and the supplier failed to act.

That is complete nonsense.

Second bullet point from the Code...

"Meter readings or meter details are transposed on billing system, eg. night reads recorded as day readings and vice versa and the supplier had opportunity to recognise but did not investigate further".

It seems you haven't recently read the Code or you would have seen the above quote and also understood the "conditionality" of the Code e.g. "... may be eligible - this is not a full or final list...".

Even if your post wasn't "complete" nonsense perhaps you missed the "conditionality" of my post. As in any issue with a regulated utility, if a customer is dissatisfied then there is the option of recourse to the supplier's Complaint's procedure (and ultimately to the Energy Ombudsman). That was the real point of my post.

kezza82

thank you all for replys

when i set up my account and gave them my initiel readings i remember clearly giving them 2 readings but saying " i dont know what reading is what" and the advisor said on the phone oh dont worry we'll work out which one is which!!! im not denying that yes we used all the energy they are charging, my arguement is they should have realised that the readings were the wrong way round along time before they did, it only took one lady 2 mins in a phoncall realise they were wrong just by looking at my bills, as ive said previously they were set up like that so there was no drastic change of billing for me to realise i just accepted that they had readings 1&2 the right way round because at the end of the day they are the experts!! theyve had people reading the meters, and spoke to me numerous times over the phone and then in may when they did realise it, it took 6 months for them to do anything about