nPower - £500 out of the blue charge - where do I stand?

tjprescott

I rang nPower up the other week as my 'sign online21' tariff was due to end on 31/12/11. I asked them which would be the cheapest tariff that I could switch to, then after giving my meter readings I was told that there had been a mistake with my readings. After the 40 minute phone call he said I owed them £487!!!!

I live in a top flor two-bed flat (me and a friend), have economy7, no gas - everything gets switched off at the mains when not in use (literally everything - I am a hard core saver!)

Basically, nPower said that there had been a mix up with my meter readings over the past 18 months - in that when I had called them and they had asked for the 'night' read, they have entered it into their system as the 'day' read and 'day' read as 'night' read.

They have admitted that is it there mistake and have given me a resolution date being 2nd Feb - so I dont know anything until then. But im furious that they have been doing it wrong for 18 months and then inform my literally 48 hours before xmas day that I owe them all this money.

I told them that I am refusing to pay ANY money. After the guy at nPower had highlighted what had been going on, he informed me that my dirct debit will increase by £25 a month - (Which is what we should be paying) - I dont have any problem with this but it is just I am not paying the other £500.

Has this happened to anyone before - has anyone any suggestions?

I am also moving out of this property in June, which im sure will make things even messier.

Please help

HalloweenJack

do you have your previous bills? check the day and night E7 readings against your current reading - if indeed you have submitted the readings correctly and npower have incorrectly applied them , im sure back billing code applies here.

Cardew

As said above, if it is their fault then the billing code does apply, albeit it would appear that you haven't checked the meter readings on your bill against the actual meter readings.

That said, the provision of the billing code is that they can only back-bill for 12 months from when the mistake was discovered. It is perfectly possible that the £500 arrears are just for the last 12 months and that the underpayment for 6 months is being written off.

Just a point of clarification, if any company makes a mistake on a bill or invoice, that does not prevent them correcting their mistake and claiming the difference from you going back 6 years. In the same way you can reclaim any over-payment.

With Utility companies the billing code is a voluntary commitment to abide by a set of rules - not all companies have signed up to the code but Npower have:

http://www.npower.com/idc/groups/wcms_content/@wcms/@busi/documents/digitalassets/wcms_000970.pdf

So if they accept that you had submitted the correct readings(they probably have recorded telephone calls) you will no doubt only have to pay back for 12 months of the undercharge.

You might be 'furious' but had you checked your bills the situation would not have happened. You have used the electricity, the likelyhood is that you will have escaped payment for 6 months arrears, so have come out of the situation quite well.

IMO you have no grounds for refusing to pay 12 months arrears, if you do so the account will be passed to a Debt Collection Agency and possible/probable court action will follow for that sum plus expenses - and your credit record will be affected.

dogshome

Hmmm - Run useage checks during the day and the early hours of the morning to establish for certainty just which meter read is the Day and which is the Night

grahamc2003

tjprescott wrote: »

I rang nPower up the other week as my 'sign online21' tariff was due to end on 31/12/11. I asked them which would be the cheapest tariff that I could switch to, then after giving my meter readings I was told that there had been a mistake with my readings. After the 40 minute phone call he said I owed them £487!!!!

I live in a top flor two-bed flat (me and a friend), have economy7, no gas - everything gets switched off at the mains when not in use (literally everything - I am a hard core saver!)

Basically, nPower said that there had been a mix up with my meter readings over the past 18 months - in that when I had called them and they had asked for the 'night' read, they have entered it into their system as the 'day' read and 'day' read as 'night' read.

They have admitted that is it there mistake and have given me a resolution date being 2nd Feb - so I dont know anything until then. But im furious that they have been doing it wrong for 18 months and then inform my literally 48 hours before xmas day that I owe them all this money.

I told them that I am refusing to pay ANY money. After the guy at nPower had highlighted what had been going on, he informed me that my dirct debit will increase by £25 a month - (Which is what we should be paying) - I dont have any problem with this but it is just I am not paying the other £500.

Has this happened to anyone before - has anyone any suggestions?

I am also moving out of this property in June, which im sure will make things even messier.

Please help

If you are on e7, then your night usage should really exceed your day usage. If so, then if the day and night have been transposed somewhere, then you would have been overpaying and be due a refund, not underpaying and due a large bill.

You should easily be able to work out your total bills since you've been in the place and knock off what you have paid in total and therefore see how much you owe.

What were the day and night readings when you moved in, and what are they now, and how mucg have you paid in total, and what are your rates /kWh day and night? (should be easy to see which is your day unit register, by seeing which reading increments during the day - usually register 2. Register 1 will be night, and the undefined register will be last five digits of the total of them both, if your meter is the same as mine).