Npower increase my monthly bill by over 40%

back_against_the_wall

Just received a new notice of my monthly bill from the money grabbers at npower. They are increasing my monthly bill for electricity from £67 a month to £95, an increase of over 40%, despite my last statement showing I was in credit by £25.56. I know prices have recently gone up but this was reported in the media to be in the region of 10% and yet my bill has gone up by over 40% with no increase in electricity consumption by me over the last 12 months. In fact I am terrified of turning on any heating for fear of increasing my daily useage and do not see how I can possibly use any less electricity. I am a pensioner on a poverty income of little more than £100 a week and to now have to find another £28 a month is devastating. I have had enough of npower and want to change supplier and would welcome any advice on the cheapest energy offers and suppliers available. Many thanks.

McKneff

If you are trying to live on basic state pension, you need to be applying for more benefits.

Council tax, help with rent, pension credit.

You should also shortly be getting your Winter Fuel Allowance which should help out a lot.

Does it say how much fuel you have used for the last year. As well as the forward projection for the next 12 months.

System

i was with n power for years and was never in credit , just over a year ago i switched to British gas and although my d/d is the same as it was at n power and my usage hasn't changed i find im always in credit.
op i would switch to another provider as soon as you can.

Fire_Fox

How large is your property? Are you all electric, no gas? Is your property well insulated - loft, cavity wall, double glazing, blackout linings on curtains? Are you reading your meters regularly? Haver you checked you are on the best tariff with the cheapest supplier?

If the increase is based on accurate meter readings £25 credit is not enough to see you through the winter so your direct debit does need increasing, most suppliers would do the same. Your big energy guzzlers are heating, hot water and the tumble dryer. To help keep warm for very little energy pop an electric underblanket on your bed and an electric overblanket on your sofa - these cost pennies to run. Air dry laundry outdoors or use an electric dehumidifier, have shorter showers/ turn the water on only to wet and rinse.

davenport151

We were with n power for several years and it was always a struggle to get them to put the payments down when we thought we had been treated unfairly.

Has the bill been estimated by any chance? As this can make a difference. Also do try giving them a ring to see if they will reduce the amount.

We are with eon now and don't have this hassle anymore.

nPower

Hi back_against_the_wall,

This does sound like quite a big jump.

It may be worth taking a look at your account to make sure that you are paying only for the energy you use - especially as you say you're in credit. We can also look to see if you're on the best tariff for you.

We also offer a range of energy efficiency measures and schemes, that you may be eligible for.

If you'd like me to take a look into this for you, please send your details (account number, address) to [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL]

Many thanks,

Adam

back_against_the_wall

Many thanks to all who replied. To Adam from npower my a/c no is 118753706. I should have said I am an occupational pensioner aged 58. My only income is a small pension from the Civil Service of just over £100 a week so the new bill of £95 monthly from npower is taking approx 1/4 of my monthly income before anything else like Council tax etc. I live alone in a ground floor flat consisting of 2 bedrooms, bathroom and combined living room/kitchen area. I take regular meter readings of my electricity consumption (the flat is all electric) and, despite whatever I switch off, I am not able to achieve a lower average daily useage of about 17 - 18 units per day. The figure of 18 units per day is what npower are using to increase my bill to £95 a month. I have no idea how I am clocking up such a daily useage. While taking my own meter readings I cannot help but look at the figures for my neighbours and these hardly seem to change at all at the same rate as mine (in fact one of the meters is completely blank with no figures at all in the window; this is for the flat just upstairs from me where I know someone is living and has been for many months); yet I know full well that my neighbours must be using more electricity than me because they have the TV on all day plus heating and much more (some are families with obvious more electricity needs than me). Whereas I have not had any heating on since last April (the Central heating is fully switched off with no heating at all in the living room and just a small fan heater in my bedroom, the other bedroom not used since my mother died over 2 years ago), only have the TV on for a couple of hours each day to hear the news, only use the washing machine once a week, use only a minimal amount of hot water, switch everything off at the mains at night, use energy saving light bulbs in my bedroom where I spend most of my time reading. What more can I possibly do? I have switched off every appliance I can think of. It is almost as if my meter has been tampered with and is clocking up the electricity useage of one or more of my neighbours to my meter giving an overstated reading but I have no evidence of this and do not even know if it is possible to do such things. I don't know how these power companies expect unemployed and retired people like me (and at 58, not having worked for health reasons for over 10 years, there is no prospect of me ever working again) to possibly afford their outrageous tariffs. The government keeps saying more regulation of the power companies is required with greater competition, forcing down prices, but nothing ever seems to happen. They just act as a monopolistic block and when one of them increases prices all the others follow suit as if they are all acting together to maximise their profits and to hell with the devastating effects the price hikes have on their customers.

dogshome

I guess from your post that your meter is in a service room that houses the meters for the all the flats.

I'm afraid that it is not uncommon for individual meters in a block of flats to be allocated to the wrong flat - Look at the meter No. on your bills and check that it is the same as the number on your actual meter - If it is not, report this to n'power by an Email headed Complaint, so you have a record that you have informed them

Mrs_Skrimper

back_against_the_wall wrote: »

Just received a new notice of my monthly bill from the money grabbers at npower. They are increasing my monthly bill for electricity from £67 a month to £95, an increase of over 40%, despite my last statement showing I was in credit by £25.56. I know prices have recently gone up but this was reported in the media to be in the region of 10% and yet my bill has gone up by over 40% with no increase in electricity consumption by me over the last 12 months. In fact I am terrified of turning on any heating for fear of increasing my daily useage and do not see how I can possibly use any less electricity. I am a pensioner on a poverty income of little more than £100 a week and to now have to find another £28 a month is devastating. I have had enough of npower and want to change supplier and would welcome any advice on the cheapest energy offers and suppliers available. Many thanks.

Contact them and tell them you are not happy with the situation and you are seriously considering changing suppliers if they can't come up with a better offer. Suppliers are used to this and have contingency plans as they don't want to lose customers. Several of my friends have tried this and got really good deals.

(I wouldn't pay Npower in washers. I'm with British Gas and despite the publicity that they get when they increase their prices it always seems to come out in the wash as the other suppliers seem to wait for British Gas to do it before following on.)

shaftingham

back_against_the_wall wrote: »

Many thanks to all who replied. To Adam from npower my a/c no is 118753706. I should have said I am an occupational pensioner aged 58. My only income is a small pension from the Civil Service of just over £100 a week so the new bill of £95 monthly from npower is taking approx 1/4 of my monthly income before anything else like Council tax etc. I live alone in a ground floor flat consisting of 2 bedrooms, bathroom and combined living room/kitchen area. I take regular meter readings of my electricity consumption (the flat is all electric) and, despite whatever I switch off, I am not able to achieve a lower average daily useage of about 17 - 18 units per day. The figure of 18 units per day is what npower are using to increase my bill to £95 a month. I have no idea how I am clocking up such a daily useage. While taking my own meter readings I cannot help but look at the figures for my neighbours and these hardly seem to change at all at the same rate as mine (in fact one of the meters is completely blank with no figures at all in the window; this is for the flat just upstairs from me where I know someone is living and has been for many months); yet I know full well that my neighbours must be using more electricity than me because they have the TV on all day plus heating and much more (some are families with obvious more electricity needs than me). Whereas I have not had any heating on since last April (the Central heating is fully switched off with no heating at all in the living room and just a small fan heater in my bedroom, the other bedroom not used since my mother died over 2 years ago), only have the TV on for a couple of hours each day to hear the news, only use the washing machine once a week, use only a minimal amount of hot water, switch everything off at the mains at night, use energy saving light bulbs in my bedroom where I spend most of my time reading. What more can I possibly do? I have switched off every appliance I can think of. It is almost as if my meter has been tampered with and is clocking up the electricity useage of one or more of my neighbours to my meter giving an overstated reading but I have no evidence of this and do not even know if it is possible to do such things. I don't know how these power companies expect unemployed and retired people like me (and at 58, not having worked for health reasons for over 10 years, there is no prospect of me ever working again) to possibly afford their outrageous tariffs. The government keeps saying more regulation of the power companies is required with greater competition, forcing down prices, but nothing ever seems to happen. They just act as a monopolistic block and when one of them increases prices all the others follow suit as if they are all acting together to maximise their profits and to hell with the devastating effects the price hikes have on their customers.

MY God you must be paying a horrendous kwh price. I'm with Npower and pay about 10.5p per kwh of electricity, in a 3-bed house we only use 13-15 kwh per day and we have immersion water tank. Electricity DD is 69 per month. Our gas is only used for heating a few months per year. It has to be said the standing charge is horrific though.
You must ask them for a better tariff if you have reason to stay with them, if not switch ASAP, and do it through a cashback site like Quidco or TopCashback. As you're electricity only you should simply attack the lowest kwh price on a comparison site. Take the top 3 lowest kwh prices and CHECK the standing charges. You may find you pay say 0.4p say per kwh more on one supplier and their standing charge is 10p cheaper a day making it slightly less per annum than the lower kwh supplier with a higher standing charge.

PS Sorry I missed the retired bit - of course if you spend more time at home your usage will be higher. Obviously me and partner and kids are out most days at work/school so aside from evening meal in electric cooker and tv etc. our usage is little between 0700 and 17.00.

PS You haven't been getting a funny herbal smell from a flat above or near yours soon after a Vietnamese couple moved in? Check your meter visually. It could explain a lot.

macman

In the middle of winter you should have much more credit than £25! Unless your DD is increased somewhat then you are likely to emerge from the winter quarter with a large debit.
Since we don't know your annual kWh usage, it's not possible to say by how much an increase is justified. Give us some proper kWh figures and then advice can be given.
Please also clarify how the property is heated-the cheapest way to heat an all electric property is storage heaters on E7, yet you refer to 'central heating', which is usually from a gas or oil boiler. What sort of 'CH' do you have -is it an electric boiler? And how do you heat your hot water?
Are you on E7 or a single rate tariff? Your usage (if single rate) should cost around £70pm, if you are using 6,500kWh pa (which is nearly twice what would be expected if you are hardly using any heating).