Powergen problem...

Tiger_greeneyes

I have posted this on another board but think it would be better here as it's more of a complaint...

I'm having a huge row with Powergen right now. We moved into our new house on 16 January, and asked Npower to take over the gas and electric. Powergen were the original suppliers and supplied us from 16 January to 20 March - nine weeks in total. I've always paid my electricity bill on a monthly basis, and I've never used more than £50 per month.

Npower have confirmed we use just under 14 units per day - there's only two of us and we're really careful about our consumption. British Gas supplied our electricity at our last house, and confirmed we used just under the normal amount of units per day. Normal usage is 15 - 30 units per day.

Powergen have billed us on the strength of our using 45 units per day for that nine week period, which works out at over £315 - which is what it would normally cost us for seven months.

Powergen are trying to tell us that it costs £27 per week to run a bog-standard fridge/freezer - that's £1,404 per year - more than double my whole electricity bill for a year with any other company (£600) :mad:

In addition, we never leave anything on standby. We use the washing machine twice a week, dishwasher 2-3 times a week, electric shower 15 minutes a day, tv 5 hours a day and pc 2 hours a day. We don't have anything else plugged in - not even a clock radio. We used two 1kw heaters for 6 hours a day (for four weeks during the nine week period) as our boiler broke down. Powergen told us that our entire consumption worked out at £93 per week for the four weeks we used the heaters, and £65 per week for the five remaining weeks. It looks like we're powering the national grid :rolleyes:

Anyway, any advice on what we can do to contest this? We can't find our meter readings now We've asked the estate agents we bought through to check their files for the readings and call us back. I'm hoping they have them. However, Powergen have told us that the meter readings from the previous occupier work out as per her normal consumption.

Could the previous owner have used copious amounts of units but given Powergen a low final reading? I can't think of anything else it could be

As an idea, Npower and British Gas would have charged us for 882 units for nine weeks, Powergen have charged us for 2835 units for the same amount of time - that's 1953 units over and above the other two companies.

I've been on the phone to Powergen most of the day and nobody seems to be able to help :mad:

Voyager2002

The Powergen charge depends on the current meter reading (which you obviously have) and on the meter reading when you accepted responsibility for consumption in your new home. You need to demonstrate that their bill is based on an incorrect starting reading, otherwise you don't have a leg to stand on. Certainly a telephone call to Powergen will not help.

Were I in your situation, I think I would now "find" the piece of paper on which I jotted down the meter readings when I moved in.

smudger1964

got to agree with previous poster they are not interested in how many times a week you put the dishwasher on and how big a fridge you have.All you need to do is find the starting meter readings and the final readings that will tell you how many units you have used.They will only be interested in hard facts so you are probably wasting your time phoning them to tell them all about your electrical appliances