My Npower bill is going up 10%

bestyman

I received a letter from N power today. I am on the Energy online January 2014 tariff for gas and electricity.

From 1st July 2013 it is going up 9.8%.

I have used the checker on this site and I am better off with Spark or N Power Online Price Fix August 2014. The checker says that I have a £60 exit fee.

Can they still charge me the exit fee even though the prices have gone up so much?

If I change to the other NPower tariff, might that go up too?

Thanks

Pineapple88

If you sign up to a fixed price energy deal the unit price will remain the same and will not go up or down until the plan ends. Your payments may change depending on usage.

It may be worth asking if NPower will charge you if you change to another one of their products as some companies will allow you to move to another one without a charge.

Whats is going up? Is it your monthly payments or their prices per unit? If your monthly payments are increasing you cannot leave without paying the ETC because this is as a result of your usage. If their prices per unit are going up then I think you can leave if you notify them of your intention to leave as a result of the price increase and complete the switch within a set period of time (this was the case when I was with Scottish Power but I can't remember if it was company policy or if it came from OFGEM. I have been on a fixed deal since 2010 so can't remember if this applied to recent price rises but I'm sure someone more knowledgable will be able to advise you shortly).

dogshome

With this price rise n'power cannot charge you Exit fee's if you Switch, but you have to follow the correct procedure to prevent them from doing so.

WRITE or EMAIL n'power saying that you reject the price rise and are going to Switch, once this is done n'power have to continue chargeing you your present prices until the Switch is complete

Switch to Spark?
In your own interests, do a search on Spark to see what their customers have to say about them

Switch to n'power ?
The n'power tariff you are trying to get away from, was a Smoke & Mirrors illususion thet appeared to offer Fixed prices over a Fixed term, when it did not

Whatever Fixed tariff you sign up for next, carefully read the Terms & Conditions to understand what you are signing into

MillicentBystander

But what about npower's annual discount paid in arrears/an additional exit fee by another name??

dogshome

Quite right MillicentB - Bestyman will have to do some careful calculations regarding the total cost of Price Rise v The 12 month cash-back.

Perhaps the Smoke & Mirrors reference to the Online Jan 2014 tariff, should be changed to 'Smoke, Mirrors & Theft'

Wywth

bestyman wrote: »

I received a letter from N power today. I am on the Energy online January 2014 tariff for gas and electricity.

From 1st July 2013 it is going up 9.8%.

I have used the checker on this site and I am better off with Spark or N Power Online Price Fix August 2014. The checker says that I have a £60 exit fee.

Can they still charge me the exit fee even though the prices have gone up so much?

If I change to the other NPower tariff, might that go up too?

Thanks

The letter from nPower will explain if and how you may avoid any early exit fee

But as MillicentBystander says, you will lose the annual DD discount in full if you switch supplier (but you should keep it if you just switch tariff with nPower).

nPower

bestyman wrote: »

I received a letter from N power today. I am on the Energy online January 2014 tariff for gas and electricity.

From 1st July 2013 it is going up 9.8%.

I have used the checker on this site and I am better off with Spark or N Power Online Price Fix August 2014. The checker says that I have a £60 exit fee.

Can they still charge me the exit fee even though the prices have gone up so much?

If I change to the other NPower tariff, might that go up too?

Thanks

Hi bestyman,

If you'd like me to check the details over for you and have someone go through this with you, please send me your contact details to [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL] and I can arrange a call to you.

Best wishes,

Adam

bestyman

Thank you all for the good info in the replies, also thanks to the NPower rep for the offer, but I phoned Npower today as wanted to get this sorted straightaway.

So I phoned Npower and the phone was answered quickly by a very helpful lady.
I asked if I could leave without exit fees due to the price rises and she said that I could ( they must have forgot to put this on the letter).

I then asked about staying with Npower but on a different tariff and she explained that again no fees and I still get to receive the £100 on my anniversary.

I hade looked online already and the Online Price Fix August 2014 was best and the online calculator ( based on ££s per month spend) suggested a £24 a year saving. She said that this would be best (another option was to put the electric on variable that was slightly cheaper without a price fix guarantee). According to NPowers figures based on consumption I will only pay slightly less, but the prices will never rise until after August 2014.

Electric is standing charge of £139.73 and 11.36p a unit
Gas is standing charge of £141.98 and 3.78p a unit

I suppose all I have done is postponed the increase for 15 months, but I see that as a result.

Thanks again.

paidinchickens

Same happened here.

We changed over the phone and was never told that it would be 3% lower than the standard tariff (standard tariff could be put up to any amount)

We were told there would be NO price rises until Jan 14. !!!!!

I have asked for them to review our phone call to prove this but they are busy and will ring us back.

Liars

Forgot to add no terms were sent after the transfer either.

helper7777

Same letter received by me yesterday. I thought that I was on a fixed tariff as it was called Energy Online January 2014. But this appears to be a con trick (smoke and mirrors by Npower). What was 'January 2014' suppose to signify then if not fixed until? Also there was no offer of exit without penalty in the letter. I shall be leaving them as soon as I have had my 12 months £100 discount. Also disgusted that they don't appear to be paying their fair share of taxes in the UK as reported by newspapers recently.

Wywth

bestyman wrote: »

.So I phoned Npower and the phone was answered quickly by a very helpful lady.
I asked if I could leave without exit fees due to the price rises and she said that I could ( they must have forgot to put this on the letter)....

Or maybe you didn't look at the reverse of the letter

Second from last paragraph " Changing Supplier"