npower - dodgy charging methodology?

custardspy

Hi everyone!

Apologies in advance for the illustrative maths bit (and I am not very good at maths but I think I have these figures just about right!)

I received an estimated gas bill last month which estimated usage of 5,417 kWh during the period 28th December 2006 to 24th March 2007. The bill came to £176.82 and the charges were broken down as being 1740 kWh at 4.412p per kWh (£76.77) and 3677 kWh at 2.492p per kWh (£91.63).

I checked the meter and hadn't used that much, so phoned an estimate through. I received a revised bill shortly thereafter. My actual usage had been 4,634 kWh, and the revised bill came to £141.47. However, the charges on the new bill are broken down differently; this time I've been charged for 1869 kWh at 4.412p per kWh (£82.46) and 2765 kWh at 2.492p per kWh (£68.90).

This means that on their estimated bill, npower billed 32% of my gas usage at their higher rate of 4.412p. But on the revised bill, they have billed 40% of my gas usage at the higher rate.

Has anyone else encountered this strange charging methodology? Is it allowed?

I've sent a detailed letter of complaint to npower setting out the figures and demanding an explanation (and will update when I receive a response) but I wondered if anyone else has experienced this and also worried that it might be dodgy (it seems very dodgy to me) and might be occurring unnoticed all over the place because after all, gas bills are not very exciting things to sit down and go through with a fine tooth comb!

NB. I switched to npower last August because they promised to save me £100 per year as a dual fuel customer. What they didn't tell me was that their charges are enormous compared with my old supplier, Southern Electric. Compared with SE's current dual fuel charges, even with the daily standing charge, SE are 29% cheaper than npower. Am not at all impressed and am switching back following payday when I can afford to pay off the monster npower bill...:mad:

tripled

A quarter is counted as 91 days and how much you pay at the higher rate is calculated pro-rata. When you phoned them with the meter reading it would have been a week or two after the estimnate was issued, therefore the bill would be over a longer period and so more at the higher rate. It is basically a hidden standing charge, if you were on a tariff with a standing charge, you would have had two extra weeks standing charge on the bill instead