Baffled and Confused

atomickarma

An ex-lurker writes:
I don't know if anyone can help but I have given up trying to work this out for myself.
In September my wife and I moved house, and as EDF gas and electricity customers we decided to stay with the company in our new home.
In December, we decided to move to British Gas, and they billed us for gas and electricity from 21st Dec and 1st Jan respectively.

In mid January we received a bill from nPower (addressed to "The Occupier"!) who were charging us £71.12 for electricity and £121.27 for gas. Further investigation unveiled that nPower had been suppliying us from October 23rd for gas and 19th October for electricity, without our knowledge or consent or any previous contact with the company.

This obviously came as something as a shock and we had been paying EDF for the full period. We have yet to recieve a final bill from EDF.

Our old house was large, and the bills were adjusted to reflect the high usage - yet EDF lowered the bills between July and December. Speaking to them on the phone today I have discovered that they will be sending a final bill of £102.


Above is an overview of the direct debits paid, final bills, who was billing us and where we live.

Since I started writing this, nPower say that the previous owners moved billing from EDF to nPower before leaving, however how should this affect us?

There are lots of unanswered questions, but I really want to know where I stand. It appears I have to pay two suppliers a lot of money.

Any help mucho appreciated

Cardew

If I understand this correctly the DD payments of £70/37/55 to EDF for Oct/Nov/Dec will simply be credited to your account and will be reflected in your final bill from EDF(which you state you have yet to receive.)

The main thing here is to correlate the meter readings with your bills.

The crucial point is to check that EDF have not billed you for any usage at all in Wilton Road. Or if they have, that the last meter reading on your EDF account is the same as the opening reading on your NPower account.

I doesn't sound to me as if you are paying for the same electricity twice, but that EDF have continued to to take and credit money to your account, which you should get back(provided you were not in debt from Redcar Lane.)

atomickarma

OK, I can sort of go with that, however I cannot understand the whole situation with nPower, who I did not invite to supply, with whom no contract exists, etc, and the very high amounts they are charging.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about the gas bill from nPower. A quick visit to Google Maps Satellite view reveals that I live next to a major chemical works and power station. In January we discovered a a gas leak in the house, at the meter. The gas meter is on an external wall, beside the front door, so is well ventilated. My point of course is could the high gas bill be due to this gas leak?

We never recieved such a high gas bill in our previous home which was a three bedroom early 20th century mid terrace with 10 ft ceilings and no loft insulation. How then can we be charged £120+ for two months?

tripled

When you move into a property, you automatically take on the existing provider. It is know as a standing contract. This allows for the fact people don't always register as soon as they move in, and also that transfers take 4-8 weeks. If that wasn't in place then you wouldn't have gas/ele when you moved into a new home and if you refused to agree to the contract with the current provider you wouldn't have gas/ele until the changeover went through.

If the changeover is due to the previous owners agreeing a change, most companies will send the account back as an erroneous transfer. To my knowledge they are not obliged to, as a valid contract was agreed, but will usually do it for customer service and to reduce the chance of a complaint to energywatch, as they are expensive to deal with. However, once you have signed a contract with another supplier (in this case British Gas) and the registration has gone through the erroneous transfer procedure can't be initiated so unfortunately you are liable to pay nPower.

So basically you need to pay EDF for power used in Redcar lane until the date the changeover to nPower went through, then nPower until the changeover to BG went through. Check your final bill from nPower to make sure it isn't overestimated - BG seem to love estimates when changing supplier even if you actually give them a reading.

With regards to the leak, if it was after the meter you have to pay as you are responsible for the pipework and appliances after the meter. If it was the meter itself, if this has caused it to clock up extra units then you should be able to claim them back.

atomickarma

My wife recalls that the previous owners told us they were with EDF, and EDF have said that this is the case.
It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that an admin error has placed the previous owners current address as our address for a few weeks, is it?
As for the the leak, it was a small valve on the meter, which a Transco engineer tightened up - apparently it hadn't been properly tightened following a meter service.
Would I be able to get a report on this from Transco?

tripled

It would be nigh on impossible that an admin error has placed the previous owners current address as your address. It is possible however that when the previous owners moved, they said to nPower 'we're moving from Wilton Ave to Blah Street, please supply power to our new address', the agent did it on the old address by mistake. However the only people able to make a complaint that this had happened would be the old owners.

The only thing I could suggest is maybe to work out how much more expensive your bill is with nPower than it would have been with EDF and try to convince nPower to cancel the difference. If you are have problems doing that, put the details from the bill on here and I or someone else will assist.

Regarding the meter, I would recommend getting back in touch with Transco, they will have the job details on file and should be give you the information you need.

atomickarma

Some stuff I forgot about the case (was rather stressed out last night)
If I owed EDF £102, why then did they lower my bill? And if they were no longer supplying me, why no final bill? After all, it has been nearly 4 months now.
Also, with regard to nPower, how am I seriously expected to accept the situation when the only contact i have had from them is a large bill which isn't addressed to me? I have no welcome pack, quarterly statement, DD request or anything, simply a final bill. Is there not an issue of trust here?

Finally, Tripled said:

However, once you have signed a contract with another supplier (in this case British Gas) and the registration has gone through the erroneous transfer procedure can't be initiated so unfortunately you are liable to pay nPower.

This follows on from above - why can this procedure not be initiated? I was complete unaware of any supply with nPower. As far as I was aware I hadn't agreed a contract with another a supplier I had agreed a contract with a new supplier of my choice. If I was unaware of nPower's involvement, do I still have a case to request this procedure?

Cardew

I really feel that you are on the wrong track in 'having a go' at NPower here.(much as I think they are a very poor company)

Surely it is standard practice that new occupants 'take on' the existing supplier?

If that were not the case, and the new occupants could escape paying for the gas/electricity they had used on the grounds they had not signed a contract, all gas and electricity would be disconnected when the old occupants moved out. The new occupants would have to sign a contract before supplies could be reconnected; and that could take several days/weeks.

I appreciate your situation in that you did not know you were being supplied by NPower. However that is not the fault of NPower if the previous occupant had changed to them.

One thought: There have been lots of anecdotal tales of unscrupulous NPower ‘door to door’ salesmen forging signatures on agreements in order to obtain their commission. Could that have happened to the previous occupants?

Clearly you have issues with EDF which you need to take up re continuing to take DD payments when they were not supplying you, and no final bill.

atomickarma

Cardew: I see where you are coming from, but you must appreciate I had no knowledge of NPower being involved. As I have imparted already, the previous occupants were with EDF, and NPower's involvement seems to caused us no end of problem.

Should a door to door salesman be responsible, how can this be proved?

tripled

It's going to be a lot more trouble trying to get nPower to return the account to EDF than it's worth. The best thing for you to do now is first check that EDF had the correct date and meter reading from when you moved in. Check what date nPower took over and and make sure the meter reading they opened the account to is the same as the final meter reading with EDF. Finally make sure the meter reading and date nPower closed your account to is correct and the same as BG opened your account with.

If you really are determined to chase up the possibility of misselling, the only thing you could do is call them up and ask when the contract was signed/agreed. If it was before you moved in and it is in the previous owner's name, only they could make a complaint. If it is after you moved in, you would have a valid complaint.

Cardew

atomickarma wrote:

Cardew: I see where you are coming from, but you must appreciate I had no knowledge of NPower being involved. As I have imparted already, the previous occupants were with EDF, and NPower's involvement seems to caused us no end of problem.

Should a door to door salesman be responsible, how can this be proved?

I did say in my last post that "I appreciate your situation in that you did not know you were being supplied by NPower"

For one reason or the other the previous occupants were not with EDF, they were with NPower. They were either mistaken, or conned into changing and that would be their problem to sort out. They must have had a closing account from NPower.

You, admittedly unwittingly, were with NPower. I really cannot see that being the major problem - you might have paid a bit more than EDF would have charged you.

To repeat, your problem is with EDF who continued to take money after you had left your previous address and have yet to send you a final bill.