Backbilling question - do i qualify

Terrylw1

demystified wrote: »

Not sure if I should start a separate thread for this but...

I'm in the same situation. nPower have sent me a long letter freely admitting they have been reading my meter the wrong way around(!) for years and they say I owe them nearly £500!!!!:eek:

Basically they're quadrupling my monthly bill!!!! I'm on a low income so its basically a nightmare.

Do I have any recourse other than moaning on the phone and will they take any notice? Is there any point in switching suppliers and will nPower still chase me for the amount?!

There are things you may not have been advised of and you should raise a complaint aimed at finding out what has happened.

The supplier gets your meter details when the meter is fit or you switch to them. Did they set the registers up the right way round? If not, why and did they discount your provided switch reading or flip it to make it fit?

How many times have they been out to read your meter? What happened to these readings? Did they reject? In working the rejection were they discounted or flipped to make them fit? If they say they have never been out, have you been with them over 2 years in which case why have you not had a mandatory safety check which would produce a reading and not doing this is a breach in licence.

How many times has someone looked at your billing? Why haven't they spotted this? How has it been resolved now, with an engineer on site or by you stating which register is moving when they call (kettle test)? Why has it taken years? How long have they know? How long has the investigation taken?

All of these points weaken their case against you. I suspect you will find they have known for ages and by not resolving this, have put you in a debt situation.

Once you start highlighting the many errors that tend to be found in transposition cases, suppliers start back peddling.

After 8 weeks of a complaint, you can refer it to the ombudsman for a decision. If the ombudsman sees a constant failure in process which is often the case in transposition...its going to be a decision in your favour.

wildwissettwoman13

HappyMJ wrote: »

You could use the back billing code. Not that you would be credited with much as you will still be expected to pay for the last 12 months of corrected readings. Any payments made over the last year would have gone towards previous bills.

What sort of usage are you talking about? Should your bill have been double what it was and now they are doubling it again to recover arrears over the next 12 months? If you can try posting meter readings here.

Switching may work but you should try and clear down most of the arrears first.

The same thing has just happened to me, they said that the meters have been the wrong way round, which I had no knowledge of so have been happily paying them and am not in arears etc. I have been told today that because the meters have been recording the wrong way round i owe them £1684.91....for the last year! I can't believe it as it is not any fault of mine so why should I have to pay this back dated bill, I am trying desperatley to call CAB etc anyone who can help, why should I have to pay a massive bill which I haven't got the money for because of their mistake. I'm the same, I just have not got the money and have been skimping as it is so could not afford to pay this off within the energy bills I already pay. Help!

susanpirie

I am in same situation as previous where no bill issued by npower for 20 months due to their billing failures (we provided 4 readings over the period). It took 10 months from when we pointed out lack of billing til a bill was issued and the direct debits we had paid were used to pay for unbilled energy beyond the 12 month period. This doe not appear to be a cut and dried situation, as you pointed out there is conflicting advice. Having spoken with 2 ombudsman advisors for initial advice as to whether this wars worth pursuing they said absolutely and also gave me Ofgem telephone number who said same but npower are adamant they have agreement of the ombudsman advisor they spoke with. Can you please tell me what your outcome was. I am continuing to pursue as want definitive answers, have already had agreement they failed on half a dozen counts within backbilling code but that they have applied correctly but no explanation pointing to codes how. Should also point out because bill of 20 months over 2 winters we don't even know what our annual usage is to get new quotes from other companies.