Npower - Direct Debit Amount

cp33c

Morning All,

I'm hoping this is going to be an easy one, but I don't fancy wasting my time on hold to Npower to ask.

Last Feb I received a huge bill from Npower as we hadn't been updating our readings and was told that I would have to pay a lot more to get it back into the black. Obviously there's nothing I can do about that, so I agreed and they bumped us up from £35 to £98 per month. Anyway last August I received my bill and at first it made for good reading, I noticed we'd paid off our huge bill and was now in credit by a few hundred quid, happy days!......Expecting the monthly amount to go down I hurried to find that my monthly amount had been risen again to £128!! So I read the bill over and over and didn't make much sense to me, so just assumed they are right.

Anyway I'm not sure what made me check today, but I've just read at the bottom that based on Actual readings taken this year my estimated bill for 12 months will be £728.......but hold on £128 x 12 is £1536!! So how come I'm paying just over double for the next 6 months!

After making sense of the bill I've worked out that in the 18 months we've been with Npower and the 2 previous years with a different supplier our 12 months usage hasn't flunctuated much and I've worked out that the estimated bill they've sent is right - good!

Am I allowed to ask Npower to change my direct debit to what I think is right? or do I have to go with what they are charging me?

I've also checked my Electric bill, but thats fine. They've got (almost) the right amount monthly to the yearly.

exel1966

cp33c wrote: »

Am I allowed to ask Npower to change my direct debit to what I think is right? or do I have to go with what they are charging me?
.

Of course you are. Ask them for a refund of your overpayment too if you like. They are obliged to refund you though they'll try and hold onto it for future billing purposes. Remember by holding on to customers money like this they are raking in hundreds of thousands of pounds of interest, some of which you could have yourself if it was in your account and not theirs.

Agree a DD figure with them based upon your average consumption over 12 months or If you can't cancel the DD entirely and pay manually after each bill, though there may be additional cost implications with that.

jalexa

cp33c wrote: »

.. so just assumed they are right...

No don't do that, NPower have previously been found guilty of incorrect billing.

How you play this depends on how strongly you feel. You are entitled to reveive a "clear" explanantion of the basis if the calculation. Ask for an explanation "compliant with Standard Licence Condition 27.14"

To get really meaningful advice here you need to post different details, your annual gas and electric consumption in kWhrs and the *exact* tariff name.

You *may* be on a legacy tariff with "sculpting". I use that word so that you can search what it means.

https://customerservices.npower.com/app/answers/websearch_detail/a_id/95/kw/weighting

cp33c

jalexa wrote: »

To get really meaningful advice here you need to post different details, your annual gas and electric consumption in kWhrs and the *exact* tariff name.

According to my bills:

for my gas I'm on 'Standard Gas / Monthly Direct Debit' using 19737 kWh per 12 months

for my elec I'm on 'Economy 7 Electricity / Monthly Direct Debit' using 5992 kWh per 12 months

Does this help?

meggsy

The money is better in your pocket than npowers OP, you are not alone in this either, there is a recent thread here ..

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3519507

I regularly emailed them to reset DD's

notbritishgas

cp33c wrote: »

According to my bills:

for my gas I'm on 'Standard Gas / Monthly Direct Debit' using 19737 kWh per 12 months

for my elec I'm on 'Economy 7 Electricity / Monthly Direct Debit' using 5992 kWh per 12 months

Does this help?

Looking at those figures your annual cost will be a lot more than £728.
Firstly you are on standard tariff for gas, which is just about the most expensive. Also your usage is above the accepted norm of 16500.
Secondly you are on E7 and from your gas usage I guess you have gas CH, so it is likely you are not making E7 pay. Your electric usage is way above the norm of 3200.
If you post your kwh prices someone will work out your true cost. Also split the 5992 electric into day and night figures.

Edit; I have just worked out what your usage would cost in my area. I have made a couple of assumptions, that you are on standard E7 and that you use 25% at night (generous).
Wait for it!! £1797 less the £105 bonus you get for payoing 12 months DD, so £1692.

cp33c

notbritishgas wrote: »

Looking at those figures your annual cost will be a lot more than £728.
Firstly you are on standard tariff for gas, which is just about the most expensive. Also your usage is above the accepted norm of 16500.
Secondly you are on E7 and from your gas usage I guess you have gas CH, so it is likely you are not making E7 pay. Your electric usage is way above the norm of 3200.
If you post your kwh prices someone will work out your true cost. Also split the 5992 electric into day and night figures.

Ok, so now I am confused....the back of my bill states the following:

'We calculate you will use 19,737 kWh of gas over 12 months'

'Predicted Gas Cost
24 Hour 1st 4571 kWh 7.443 p/kWh(ex VAT) = £340.22
24 Hour Next 15166 kWh 2.664 p/kWh(ex VAT) = £404.02
Annual Discount -£50
Total Gas Charges £694.24
VAT at 5% £34.71
Total Predicted Gas charges £728.95'

The price per kWh is the same that we've paid in our last bill

'We calculate you will use 5,992 kWh of electricity over 12 months'

'Predicted Electicity Cost
Day 1st 728 kWh 21.6 p/kWh(ex VAT) = £157.25
Day Next 2848 kWh 15.75 p/kWh(ex VAT) = £448.56
Night 2416 kWh 5 p/kWh(ex VAT) = £120.80
Annual Discount - £40
Total Electricity Charges £686.61
VAT at 5% £34.33
Total Predicted Electricity Charges £720.94

Since our bill in August I decided to become a bit more savvy about how our boiler works and changed the dials down by quite a bit (they were all on full!) to hopefully reduce the amount of gas we use, so fingers cross this helps. Plus there was a period of time I was unemployed last year and used more elec during the day.

I'm not sure what you mean about the not making the E7 pay bit......

notbritishgas

Ok, so your total bill is £1450 not £728 which is £120 per month.
I thought you were talking about the total cost, but perhaps you were talking just about gas??
The point about not making E7 pay depended on how much you use at night, but from your figures you use about 40% so that should be OK for E7.

cp33c

notbritishgas wrote: »

Ok, so your total bill is £1450 not £728 which is £120 per month.
I thought you were talking about the total cost, but perhaps you were talking just about gas??

Thats right, I was only talking about Gas bill being £128 per month, total I'm paying £202.......

alexl_00

Npower's been less than straightforward with us as well. Can't stand how unhelpful they are!

notbritishgas

Now we know what we are talking about, yes ring npower and challenge them, quoting the figures from the bill, eg £728 divided by 12 = about £60 so how do they get £128.

One argument they might come up with is that they want you to have a zero balance by next spring, that is after the heavy winter period, so to achieve that your DD's would need to be much higher.

However if they do set it at £60 then almost certainly you will be quite a lot in debit after the winter.