Huge Npower bill HELP!

H4rriet

Hey all

I have just recieved a bill today of £488 which my husband called Npower to challenge as it was for electricity and gas from December to February (Basically, 2 months) When he challenged this the guy came back to him and said that they had indeed made a mistake. We owed £1536!!!!! This is for two months worth of electricity and gas. Shocked is an understatement to say the least...

I called the energy efficiency department and they did some calculations. I was told that our electricity was the main of the costs. We had a new meter fitted in December 2011 and since that we have, during some of that period been using 66 units per day! We gave a reading on 21.02.12 and from the reading we gave today we have been told we are using 14 units a day (Which is apparently about right for the property and appliances we use) What we have been told is that we were paying a rate that would reflect using approx 14 units per day but this then went up to 60 units per day and this has now gone back to 14 again?!! We have used absolutely nothing different and there is no explanation as to why we would be using in a two month period what we have been told and average family use in a whole year!!!

We have been told to cancel our direct debit for the £488 amount and should now await the new bill to be generated and sent out. Npower have kindly said we can pay in installments!!! My question is why/how did this sudden increase in electricity usage come about when we have not changed the appliances we use etc and what is to stop this happening again?! Our bills from July 2011 when we moved in till December 2011 were 'normal'...

Rant over, any advice would be welcomed!!

Thanks in advance

lithopsian

Do you have a strange sickly-sweet smell from your new neighbours? And a thick wire running from your meter into their blacked-out pot farm? Seriously, that is a huge amount of electricity to use, about equivalent to running an electric oven flat out 24 hours a day. My suspicion would be that the initial reading on the new meter was wrong.

H4rriet

This is the only thing I can think has happened - I feel like we have had a bill for the whole street!!! It seems like we have not got a leg to stand on though... GRRRRRR

lithopsian

I don't think you'll end up having to pay this. Even if you can't prove where the mistake lies, the level of consumption is beyond believable. That combined with the coincidence of a new meter should be enough to get you off the hook, but it might be a struggle if you can't find more hard evidence.

molerat

Is there a card or sticker on the meter with the changeover readings on it. Does the meter serial number on the bill correspond with the one on the meter.

dogshome

As molerat has asked, when the meter was changed the fitter should have left a card showing the reading on the old meter that he had just removed. If you did not get a card, this is a cause of complaint in itself.

The 'New' meter that was fitted may well not have been 'Brand New' but a re-conditioned model, in which case it would still be showing the previous use numbers - Did you look at this meter's reading yourself when it was installed ? - The sudden jump in consumption over the first Billing period, has all the hallmarks of the supplier considering you had a 'new' meter that read almost zero, when in fact it was a recon. with a high reading.

The history of this meter and it's reading on re-issue can be back-tracked by the repair company, but it's up to n'power to do this - By writing a letter headed Complaint you can force the issue for these checks to be made

Terrylw1

Npower as supplier can investigate the opening reading in the meter as they are sent them by the meter operator at change over, however if the engineer loses them the data collector who transmits the reads will see them at zero as they won't know what it should be and will assume it is a new meter.

This is very very common and has been a source if complaints in this industry for years. However, the supplier should be looking for problems like this. Its not do much energy efficiency fob offs that you need, you need to ask someone to investigate a billing dispute over your opening reads. If your meter didn't go in on zero but your bill shows it, its the industry Deeming process which is an industry agreed standard however as i said, when the first read comes in it causes a massive jump and they should monitor that, there are even industry monitirin reports that watch for very high levels but suppliers are encouraged to go to lower levels as it affects the industry and the suppliers payment if elec to the grid end.

In terms of no card on the meter, that's the engineers fault and you can complain but it's all third party companies so your supplier can only apologise/compensate.