N Power or British Gas? What do we do?

beachbeth

I'll try to be as brief as possible so bear with me!

Back in November we did a price comparison as per the advice on this site and it worked out that N Power were cheaper than British Gas, who we were with. So we arranged the switch and owed £40 for the gas and £73 for the electricity to British Gas. Our monthly payments went down from £55 to £39 for the electric per month and from £50 to £37 for the gas.

However, British gas took our final payment of £73 twice by mistake and my husband rang up to complain. They told us they would refund the second payment and then asked if he wanted to come back to British Gas as their prices were coming down and they quoted prices cheaper than N Power (ie one of the monthly payments would be £25). My husband said yes but I told him that he probably shouldn't have done because we need to wait until all the companies have brought their prices down, which they are doing at the moment.

Well we stupidly left it too late and are past the 14 day deadline that they give you to cancel and so it seems we have to now move to British Gas. We apparently owe N Power £150 for the gas if we leave and probably something similar for the electric which means we have got to pay £300 in order to have cheaper monthly bills! I can't believe we have used this amount of gas and electric since being with N Power in November. Plus, when my husband spoke to British Gas he said "but if I move back to British Gas I will have to pay a big bill to N Power wont I and its not worth it". The operator said "of course not, it will only be about £40"

N Power have told us to ring British Gas and say they have missold their gas and electric to us and to reverse the transfer so that we are back with N Power, which is what we want to do so that we don't have to pay the £300. We are expecting a call tomorrow from someone senior at British Gas to discuss this as the person we spoke to today said we couldn't reverse it.

Anyone got any advice as to what to say to British Gas tomorrow (assuming they do ring of course!) ?

tripled

The reason you are in debt to nPower is because they used the common tactic of offering you direct debit payments too low to get you to switch. The same thing will happen when you go back to BG - prices would need to have fallen by 50% since November to justify those payments, and that's not even taking into account the fact you were originally in arrears when you switched from BG.

Will you be better off with BG than nPower? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on your area, your circumstances and what tariff you are on.

Do you have a case for misselling? Probably not, as an agent's opinion of how much you might owe nPower isn't really part of the sales agreement. However, kick up enough fuss, threaten to take them to energywatch and BG may return you for customer service reasons and to avoid energywatch getting involved, who doubtless would be unimpressed with the BG agent's conduct.

In the mean time, set up a payment arrangement with nPower to pay off the £300 you owe them over the next three months. Whatever supplier you end up using, you could wait until your first quarterly bill comes in before setting a dd back up, so you won't be paying two comapnies at once. When you do set the dd back up, £25 just ain't gonna cut it, stick em back to what you were paying before you first switched last November.

MarkyMarkD

I doubt it's all as you make out, tripled. Surely the point is that, if you switch suppliers in November and then again in March, you WILL owe lots of money because you've been paying a DD based on annual consumption, but using the far greater amount of gas you use in the winter.

The £25 payment that BG mentioned was blatantly bogus.

There's definitely no point switching to BG whilst your existing account is in debt. Stay with npower and sort it out.

tripled

I'm not sure what you mean MarkyMarkD.

The OP was already in arrears to BG when they switched, and that was in the autumn, so they weren't paying enough. To add a further cut of 30% to the already too low amount they were paying to BG would never cover their usage, even allowing for the fact nPower's rates were cheaper.

I also pointed out BG have done the same think to get her to switch back to them - again undercutting an already too low payment. They have offered to let her pay 50% less than she was paying them last year when prices have at best fallen by 17%, and that's based on a payment that got her into arrears.

So what's not 'all as I make out'?

anniecave

Tripled and marymarkd - as far as I can see you are both right!

Yes if you switch supplier just before the winter then a couple of DD payments aren't going to cover the amount you owe as DD is based on annual consumption.

Yes it sounds like the suggested direct debit prices for the new supplier were too low.

Beachbeth- they "could" send you back to your old supplier for the entire supply period. They'd process it as an erroneous transfer. I don't think that will reduce the amount you owe in total by much though. Also unless you have looked at the tariffs closely for each supplier during this last winter period and what your meter readings were then you don't know which supplier will work out cheapest. I think both went up part way through the winter period.

Have you paid a monthly payment for each (gas and electric) in every month? The reason I ask is that often if you switch supplier a month gets missed so that could be part of why you owe so much money.

Up to you whether you request for the transfer back or keep with the new supplier. Don't take notice of monthly payments as the figure to compare by, the prices are the most important.

I would in future suggest that you take note of your meter readings and how much you are using and work out what that will be on the tarriff and check that the direct debit payment any company is suggesting is high enough. Or take the annual KWH figures from your bills and put it in on one of the comparison sites and find the correct supplier and tariff and divide the annual figure by twelve!

MarkyMarkD

tripled - as annie says.

beachbeth

I agree, MarkyMarkD. Because we have just switched and it is the winter then our consumption is higher and therefore we are bound to owe money. Also, anniecave, we did miss a month's payment which, of course, affects what we owe.

The lady at BG told my hubby that whatever bill we got from NPower it wouldn't be much so he agreed to swap back to them. Now we've got this big bill so she was talking rubbish.

We asked for an erroneous transfer but they wouldn't have it! What we have arranged is that we are going to be with BG with a month and then NPower are arranging for us to switch straight back. They aren't going to make us pay the bill and will carry on where we left off with the direct debit payments. We have taken her number, extension number and name so that we can speak to her again should things go wrong.