Npower transposed our readings for 4 years! help!

starry_eyed359

Hello, I'm after some advice please.

We've been with npower for about 5-6 years. I swapped last year to an account you manage with them online to save some money. Received an email yesterday asking me to put meter readings in online, which I did no problem this morning. Then I went to look at last years bills to compare how much electric etc we had used against the current meter readings I had taken. This is where the fun began..... I thought I had put the day and night figures online wrong as they didn't follow on from our last bill so I contacted customer services to ask and within 2 minutes myself and the lady on the other end of the phone realised that I had put the figure in correctly but npower are billing us for our day and night rates the wrong way round (we used 1300kwh in the night and 216kwh in the day according to the bill last bill).

The electric company put a new meter in our little cupboard outside the house in 2008 and it appears the mistake has been made since that day. I am mortified and horrified by a potentially massive bill. I'm also bloody annoyed that this is the first time I had read the meter and I noticed something strange so queried it, up until now our meter has always been read by the companies people. I guess it's obvious now when you look back at the bills but to be honest, they are hard enough to follow any time and I just assumed they had it correct as our bills have steadily gone up over the last 5 years like everyone else's.

So that's the story, I just wonder if anyone has any advice on where we stand if a big bill comes our way? I've researched online about the 'code of conduct for billing and back billing' - what do you think our chances are of being asked to pay back for the last 12 months instead of the last 4 years (which will probably be over £2500 and we have an 18 months old too, if its last year then hopefully £400). In my eyes, they could see our bills and usage so why wasn't it spotted from these and why didn't one of the people who read the meter get the readings right in 4 years?!

The customer service lady was lovely I must say and is going to ring me back in 4 weeks with an update as apparently can take 8 weeks to be resolved, in the meantime we are meant to get a dual fuel bill in which will be calculated using corrected figures, in which case we owe them for 10,000 day units @ 26p each :S



thanks in advance.

DVardysShadow

Oh, complicated.

• Given your usage figures for the last quarter, you might be better off on a standard 24 hour tariff. I suggest you work out your latest bill both on the Economy tariff with the readings the right way around and on a 24 hour tariff. If a normal tariff is better, you should argue to be rebilled on that tariff
• Don't accept a simple demand for so many units at a given price, demand that each bill is reworked individually, because the tariffs will have changed a lot over the period.

dogshome

Your last para: .... get a Dual Fuel Bill .... ?
Does this mean you have Gas for Heating & Hotwater ? If so unless you can arrange to use 30% of your daily power on the 'Night' rate, you should be on a Standard meter and not an E7 one - Most suppliers will make the billing change by adding the 2 readings together and chargeing it all at standard rate, but you have to ask them!

starry_eyed359

hi, yes we currently have gas (central heating and cooking) and electric with them. The customer services lady did say about changing to a standard one tariff meter which I see the point in, but am more concerned about the current situation at the moment with the undercharging and will happily swap to something else when this issue get sorted.

macman

As above. Why on earth have you been on E7 for 5 or 6 years if you have gas CH? You should switch immediately unless you are using about 30% of your units on cheap rate (which I very much doubt).
There is no reason to delay the switch until the mis-billing is sorted out-you are just throwing away money which you may need to pay the arrears.
The supplier only has to read the meter every two years-all the other reads should be done by you, at least every 3 months.

HappyMJ

Switch to a standard 24/7 tariff. You need to use much more than you are currently using at night to be worth it. 14% at night is not enough.

You will not be charged thousands. The primary day rate may be 26p but the secondary day rate is around 14p. You will have already paid something towards the bill. If that is your normal quarterly usage then the bill won't be too large. You can check out the figures on UKPower http://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/smart_meter_calculator/ You can enter the meter readings on dates even many years apart. When you transpose the readings it will then tell you what it should have cost over the same time period then you can deduct what you have been charged and you can calculate the difference.

MK55

starry_eyed359 wrote: »

Hello, I'm after some advice please.

We've been with npower for about 5-6 years. I swapped last year to an account you manage with them online to save some money. Received an email yesterday asking me to put meter readings in online, which I did no problem this morning. Then I went to look at last years bills to compare how much electric etc we had used against the current meter readings I had taken. This is where the fun began..... I thought I had put the day and night figures online wrong as they didn't follow on from our last bill so I contacted customer services to ask and within 2 minutes myself and the lady on the other end of the phone realised that I had put the figure in correctly but npower are billing us for our day and night rates the wrong way round (we used 1300kwh in the night and 216kwh in the day according to the bill last bill).

The electric company put a new meter in our little cupboard outside the house in 2008 and it appears the mistake has been made since that day. I am mortified and horrified by a potentially massive bill. I'm also bloody annoyed that this is the first time I had read the meter and I noticed something strange so queried it, up until now our meter has always been read by the companies people. I guess it's obvious now when you look back at the bills but to be honest, they are hard enough to follow any time and I just assumed they had it correct as our bills have steadily gone up over the last 5 years like everyone else's.

So that's the story, I just wonder if anyone has any advice on where we stand if a big bill comes our way? I've researched online about the 'code of conduct for billing and back billing' - what do you think our chances are of being asked to pay back for the last 12 months instead of the last 4 years (which will probably be over £2500 and we have an 18 months old too, if its last year then hopefully £400). In my eyes, they could see our bills and usage so why wasn't it spotted from these and why didn't one of the people who read the meter get the readings right in 4 years?!

The customer service lady was lovely I must say and is going to ring me back in 4 weeks with an update as apparently can take 8 weeks to be resolved, in the meantime we are meant to get a dual fuel bill in which will be calculated using corrected figures, in which case we owe them for 10,000 day units @ 26p each :S



thanks in advance.

hi,

I would suggest asking the lady at npower to bill you at a single rate for the whole period. If not don't worry you are covered by the backbilling code,

I cannot post links as I am new, go to google type "energy backbilling" you want the first link

Read the top of page 6, this applies to you, they will only bill you for the last 12 months usage of energy.

Heather_Evans

Hi - no one else seems to have experienced this & replied to your problem. I have (NOv. & Feb.), & have just posted my own thread on nPower meter reading transpositions!
I took a screen shot of the last online readings, & they have made a mistake twice now with these - transposing high & low.
They just don't get it.
I don't think the problem is with your new meter, it's their computerised system, but I can't get them to understand that 'checking my meter' wont help! I know (& can prove) what I entered online, & yet they changed it around.

H

undaunted

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/10/npower-is-abominable-oppressive-unacceptable-233662/

[Deleted User]

Hi Heather Evans, is your meter an old mechanical meter with high and low, night read at top and day below, if it is you are 100% right its npower mess-up. these meters never get mis read by anyone ever, its only when they are changed to the digital meters with their rates 1 and 2 and total, when the trouble starts. these mess ups are always caused by us lot ( meter readers ) and you lot ( customers) and the auto billing systems used now where a human being with sense never looks at the bill

Terrylw1

It can also be the register mappings in the Meter Operators system sent o the supplier as transposed, hence they set them up that way. It can also just be the supplier getting the Meter Operators register mappings and setting them up wrong from change of supply.

You have to rule all this out at the supplier end before bothering looking at the meter and taking readers/sending engineers out but often supplier staff don't understand this stuff and lean on the good old kettle test proving nothing if its a data issue.