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NPower wildly over-estimating summer gas usage
I knew this would happen!
My gas meter broke sometime during last summer/autumn, and thus was stuck on the same reading.
It's taken NPower a month to issue my bill as it had to be sent to a 'special department' to manually calculate it, with an estimation of how much gas I used.
As a result, they're ballooning my DD from £32 a month to £89. Ok, £32 is a bit low but it shouldn't be £89.
The reason is clear, after ploughing through the 4 bills they issued today (it's split up into various periods, including a retrospective one for last year). They seem to think I've used 29kwh of gas per day from May to mid-Nov 12.
As my central heating was off until the end of Nov, I'll have been using my 'summer' amount of gas, which is relatively little (boiler pilot light, shower, gas hob).
I have no idea where they got this figure from, as it's easy to see from my 6 previous bills for this time period roughly what my summer usage is.
Why they didn't use the old November bills from the previous years to guesstimate how much gas I used is beyond me. In 2011 I used approx 7.5kwh per day from Jun to Nov. I even submitted 2 gas readings a week apart this summer, and that equates to 7.5kwh per day as well (it was one of the 4 bills they sent me today), so my 'summer' usage is pretty consistent.
Of course, maybe they think I had the heating on from Sept last year or something (my word against theirs), but as I've had no income for a year and I'm living off savings I'm really anal about my energy usage, and left the day when I switched the central heating on as late as possible last year, and beyond the endpoint of the bill in question.
When calling up, the advisor said that a letter was on its way and to wait for that, but that's pointless as the calculation is wrong.
Is there a way to challenge this bill?
I've often sung NPower's praises on here so a hiccup had to happen eventually I guess ;-)
My gas meter broke sometime during last summer/autumn, and thus was stuck on the same reading.
It's taken NPower a month to issue my bill as it had to be sent to a 'special department' to manually calculate it, with an estimation of how much gas I used.
As a result, they're ballooning my DD from £32 a month to £89. Ok, £32 is a bit low but it shouldn't be £89.
The reason is clear, after ploughing through the 4 bills they issued today (it's split up into various periods, including a retrospective one for last year). They seem to think I've used 29kwh of gas per day from May to mid-Nov 12.
As my central heating was off until the end of Nov, I'll have been using my 'summer' amount of gas, which is relatively little (boiler pilot light, shower, gas hob).
I have no idea where they got this figure from, as it's easy to see from my 6 previous bills for this time period roughly what my summer usage is.
Why they didn't use the old November bills from the previous years to guesstimate how much gas I used is beyond me. In 2011 I used approx 7.5kwh per day from Jun to Nov. I even submitted 2 gas readings a week apart this summer, and that equates to 7.5kwh per day as well (it was one of the 4 bills they sent me today), so my 'summer' usage is pretty consistent.
Of course, maybe they think I had the heating on from Sept last year or something (my word against theirs), but as I've had no income for a year and I'm living off savings I'm really anal about my energy usage, and left the day when I switched the central heating on as late as possible last year, and beyond the endpoint of the bill in question.
When calling up, the advisor said that a letter was on its way and to wait for that, but that's pointless as the calculation is wrong.
Is there a way to challenge this bill?
I've often sung NPower's praises on here so a hiccup had to happen eventually I guess ;-)
0
Comments
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I knew this would happen!
My gas meter broke sometime during last summer/autumn, and thus was stuck on the same reading.
It's taken NPower a month to issue my bill as it had to be sent to a 'special department' to manually calculate it, with an estimation of how much gas I used.
As a result, they're ballooning my DD from £32 a month to £89. Ok, £32 is a bit low but it shouldn't be £89.
The reason is clear, after ploughing through the 4 bills they issued today (it's split up into various periods, including a retrospective one for last year). They seem to think I've used 29kwh of gas per day from May to mid-Nov 12.
As my central heating was off until the end of Nov, I'll have been using my 'summer' amount of gas, which is relatively little (boiler pilot light, shower, gas hob).
I have no idea where they got this figure from, as it's easy to see from my 6 previous bills for this time period roughly what my summer usage is.
Why they didn't use the old November bills from the previous years to guesstimate how much gas I used is beyond me. In 2011 I used approx 7.5kwh per day from Jun to Nov. I even submitted 2 gas readings a week apart this summer, and that equates to 7.5kwh per day as well (it was one of the 4 bills they sent me today), so my 'summer' usage is pretty consistent.
Of course, maybe they think I had the heating on from Sept last year or something (my word against theirs), but as I've had no income for a year and I'm living off savings I'm really anal about my energy usage, and left the day when I switched the central heating on as late as possible last year, and beyond the endpoint of the bill in question.
When calling up, the advisor said that a letter was on its way and to wait for that, but that's pointless as the calculation is wrong.
Is there a way to challenge this bill?
I've often sung NPower's praises on here so a hiccup had to happen eventually I guess ;-)
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits0 -
What a waste of a reply - quoting the entire text and appending some useless and obvious info! Did you even read my post? It's nothing to do with a DD surplus/shortfall!
Anyway, I called NPower today and spoke to the person who actually generated my bill. They said they calculated it based on my average daily gas usage of 1 unit per day. That's fine and dandy, but the bill in question is mainly a summer bill so they can't just apply that to it!! Lazy to work it out that way - should have used the previous years as a template but she said they can't do it like that.
If it was 50% summer and 50% winter then the '1 unit per day' would be fine. However, it is 100% summer and 0% winter then applying the annualized 1 unit per day is just plain wrong.
They agreed to reduce the units per day, so I have a new bill arriving soon.
Hoping its more reasonable.0 -
What a waste of a reply - quoting the entire text and appending some useless and obvious info! Did you even read my post? It's nothing to do with a DD surplus/shortfall!
Anyway, I called NPower today and spoke to the person who actually generated my bill. They said they calculated it based on my average daily gas usage of 1 unit per day. That's fine and dandy, but the bill in question is mainly a summer bill so they can't just apply that to it!! Lazy to work it out that way - should have used the previous years as a template but she said they can't do it like that.
If it was 50% summer and 50% winter then the '1 unit per day' would be fine. However, it is 100% summer and 0% winter then applying the annualized 1 unit per day is just plain wrong.
They agreed to reduce the units per day, so I have a new bill arriving soon.
Hoping its more reasonable.
Yes I did read your post. In particulartechno12 wrote:As a result, they're ballooning my DD from £32 a month to £89. Ok, £32 is a bit low but it shouldn't be £89.
Did you read the article I linked to??? Whilst it doesn't specifically cover your situation of a faulty meter, many of the same principles hold.0 -
The pilot light alone uses approx 1 unit per day, which is why they've calculated it that way.0
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