Npower cocked my bill up

carlos-notts

Hi all,

Bit narked about this and wondered if anyone knows where I stand:

3 years ago Npower noticed my meter readings on electricity were the wrong way round on my outdated economy 7 plan.Basically the cheaper night rate was the wrong way around so I was being undercharged.

They said that I shouldn't even be on eco 7 anyway as I had no storage heaters and because the fault was at there end and their mistake,I would not be backcharged for the error.

They told me that they were changing my rate to a standard plan and they were sending out an engineer to change the cycle on my meter.

Anyway,3 years later (and 3 years after the engineer visited to sort the meter),I have just been told that I have been undercharged for the last 3 years as the night and day rates are mixed up on the meter on my eco7 plan.

They are saying I owe well over £1000

I politely told them that there is no f***ing way I am paying for their mistake.They have all the notes still about this happening and "being rectified" in 2009.

I have had people come round regularly to read my meter as well as me sending in up to date readings.

I don't have paper bills and I thought the average cost of about £1300-1500 for gas and electric I have been paying over last 3 years seemed pretty average compared to others round my way so I never thought for one minute I was underpaying?

Anyway,they are passing this on to the complaints department as like I told them,this was "rectified" 3 years ago and included an engineer coming out to check my meter!!!!!!!!

I am prepared to fight tooth and nail over this one.Why should I pay now for their !!!! up/complete epic fail back in 2009???

Any advice would be appreciated and apologies for my ranting as I have spent the last 5 hours being stressed to the max

Cheers

Terrylw1

Did the engineer actually change the meter? If he did, he should have changed it to a single rate meter hence there can't be Day & Night readings anymore.

So, check your meter. If its only wired to the 24 circuit in your consumer's unit and only has one reading...they've made a massive error. Its possible that they have never actioned your meter change on your account, set it up as E7 in error, etc.

Its difficult to say what the error could be without knowing about your meter.

The engineer wouldn't remove an E7 and fit the same unless the supplier asked for a standard meter but the engineer spotted off peak load. At this point he would normally abort but if your meter was old, he might change it like-for-like to save coming back again. The supplier could make a mistake in thinking the job was done but the meter would still be E7.

I suspect a big mistake on their part here. Check your meter, check your bill...what do you see?

carlos-notts

Hi Terrylw1,

3 years ago an engineer came around and checked the cycle or something of my meter.All he did was press some buttons and tell me it was fine!

Last night the operator on the phone asked me to perform a "load test".

I had absolutely no idea what this test was but once he told me what to do,I happily obliged.

The operator confirmed after I did the load test that indeed,my meter was being billed the wrong way round (my day and night rate are mixed up at my meter end).

My meter has the R1,R2 and total units used display.

The operator told me that I could be facing a bill for the last 2 years etc for the wrongly billed electricity and that it could be a large ammount over £1000!!!!

He put me on to a manager who said that he would be passing this on to the complaints team as what happened in 2009 about this problem was all in the notes and he would send out a letter to me shortly.

Why on Earth they didn't ask me to perform this test back in 2009 and why did the "engineer" miss this?????

Thanks for the reply Terry

carlos-notts

One more thing,I am still on eco7 although this was supposed to have been changed to a standard tariff etc back in 2009?

I remember them saying that eco7 was not viable for me as I had no storage heaters etc.

Have I been mis sold tariffs since 2009.

All this occured from a phonecall to them because I thought I was a few hundred pounds in credit and due some cashback (I have had a few hundred cashback back a couple of times since I have been with Npower since 2004).

nPower

Hi carlos-notts,

This doesn't sound very good at all.

I'd really like to get this looked into ASAP for you and make sure we get this resolved. Please could you send me your account details to [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL] and I can get onto it right away!

Many thanks,

Adam

carlos-notts

Hi Adam,

I have just sent you an email from my Skratch-Alien account.

Cheers

jhigman

Hello

I've just had the same thing! £1000 bill from npower due to transposed meter readings between day and night.

I've always supplied meter readings when requested, and they've read the meter several times themselves. I carried out their load test requests back in Nov 2011, which should have let them spot their mistakes - but now they're trying to backdate the bills to March 2011!

Anyone had any success with fighting these huge retrospective bills?

Atidi

jhigman wrote: »

Hello

I've just had the same thing! £1000 bill from npower due to transposed meter readings between day and night.

I've always supplied meter readings when requested, and they've read the meter several times themselves. I carried out their load test requests back in Nov 2011, which should have let them spot their mistakes - but now they're trying to backdate the bills to March 2011!

Anyone had any success with fighting these huge retrospective bills?

Presumably you've sent Adam @ nPower an email?

Terrylw1

jhigman wrote: »

Hello

I've just had the same thing! £1000 bill from npower due to transposed meter readings between day and night.

I've always supplied meter readings when requested, and they've read the meter several times themselves. I carried out their load test requests back in Nov 2011, which should have let them spot their mistakes - but now they're trying to backdate the bills to March 2011!

Anyone had any success with fighting these huge retrospective bills?

I think they use the billing code against customers here by blaming you for what they will also be a party to.

You need to dispute every visit they made as this gave them the opportunity of correction. Then ask what they did, did it reject out and why didn't they resolve it.

I think with these cases, suppliers should correct it going forward and not penalise customers...with these cases you often see a long audit trail of supplier failures or just the fact they don't understand the metering.

Raise a complaint to escalate it beyond the "profit chasing" management and its on the path for escalation to the ombudsman at the sooner of deadlock or 8 weeks.

Wolf3

with these cases you often see a long audit trail of supplier failures or just the fact they don't understand the metering.

this is definitely the case, generally down to a lack of training and missing knowledge gaps.

as far as i'm aware all suppliers are subject to a billing code so the "retrospective" bill cannot go farther back than 12 months. Any self-respecting energy supplier should acknowledge their error, write off the bill and advise how much difference this is going to make to their bills going forward. Unfortunately this is not done as a matter of course and will only offer a small goodwill gesture which is all they are obliged to do

If you have not already done so, i would raise a complaint and take this further, if not resolved satisfactorily you can always ask to be referred to the ombudsman

Terrylw1

carlos-notts wrote: »

Hi Terrylw1,

3 years ago an engineer came around and checked the cycle or something of my meter.All he did was press some buttons and tell me it was fine!

Last night the operator on the phone asked me to perform a "load test".

I had absolutely no idea what this test was but once he told me what to do,I happily obliged.

The operator confirmed after I did the load test that indeed,my meter was being billed the wrong way round (my day and night rate are mixed up at my meter end).

My meter has the R1,R2 and total units used display.

The operator told me that I could be facing a bill for the last 2 years etc for the wrongly billed electricity and that it could be a large ammount over £1000!!!!

He put me on to a manager who said that he would be passing this on to the complaints team as what happened in 2009 about this problem was all in the notes and he would send out a letter to me shortly.

Why on Earth they didn't ask me to perform this test back in 2009 and why did the "engineer" miss this?????

Thanks for the reply Terry

There is something wrong here. That engineer would have been given instructions to change it but it sounds like he just checked the details.

Its likely he was checking which way round the registers should be.

The load test is not really a load test, just a quick test to check which register is moving in the day to understand which is which. Out of the 2 checks, the engineers is the more formal as he is fully trained.

So, they can't push all the blame your way when they have failed to resolve the issue. They like to "try it on" by ignoring the billing code they are signed onto until you make them aware you know about the 12 month back billing policy via a complaint...then watch them quickly back peddle!

You have the added issue of the incorrect tariff. You need to complain about this and uncover the notes in their system that you called and they agreed to apply it.

In terms of the back billing for the transposition...ask how many times someone went out, how many billing rejections they had and why they didn't resolve them, etc. These are uncomfortable questions for a supplier as it highlights their failures.