Rip off Npower Bill. Urgent help needed.

StressedOut35

Hi All,

I have just registered on here in the hope that someone can help me out of a very stressful situation.

I moved into a lovely farmhouse in April 2012. We have a large log burner which heats the house and water, plus electric showers. My first three gas bills came in very small (approx £12, £24, and £118 (obviously the winter bill was higher))

This seemed about right as the heating is rarely on from spring and is turned back on in late October but only fired up here and there for speed. During the winter months we used the log burner as much as possible to avoid unnecessary bills. Noone was home during the day so there was no need to have the heating on anyway.

Npower sent numerous estimated bills which I compared at the time with the meter. They were never more than a few units out so I never thought much more about it and just paid the amount on the bill.

Now for the shock! A few months ago a bill for £2,500 turned up on my doorstep from Npower claiming that my estimated bills were wrong and i'd been undercharged. How can that be when the meters were always reasonably correct????

The Npower representative on the phone actually said to me that my house was far too cheap to run so the bill must be incorrect, then contradicted herself by saying she'd compared our usage to the previous owner who's bill were lower. We turned the boiler down when we moved in and the previous owner didn't work and sat at home all day so surely her bills would have been higher.

I opened a dispute and have monitored my meter but fail to see how such a bill could ever have accumulated. All we have working continuously throughout the year is my gas hob which barely makes the meter move.

A lovely bailifff came round and we explained the situation to him and he agreed with us. He even got onto Npower to try and resolve it for us giving them meter readings and arguing our case, pointing out that during their recent 'system changes' our reference numbers have changed. Even him and the guy on the phone couldn't make head nor tail of anything nor calculate a correct bill.

We thought that might move things along and it did in a fashion ... just backwards not forwards! Npower wrote to us apologising for their billing errors and explained that there have been some issues recently as they updated the systems and they are working to resolve everything as quickly as possible. "At last!" I thought and looked at the new 'amended bill'. ... £3000!!!!

This is where you're all going to think i'm a bit backwards but the next plan of action I had was to actually rely purely on the boiler to heat the house instead of the log burner to see how much gas it would actually use. I have checked the meter today and I have used 685 units since 23/07/13. On that reckoning there would be no way, even using the boiler during the colder days and not the burner since we moved in, that I could have run such a bill up. My house has lovely thick walls and holds its heat well. I only ever have my thermostat set at 15 degrees.

Does anyone else have any advice as to where I go now? A big bailiff van pulled up outside my house yesterday and started to get out. I rang my partner to come home (I'll explain quickly in a minute), at which point the bailiff looked at me on the phone in the window and sped off pulling up further down the road.

Unfortunately this caused a minor blackout due to my increased heart rate which is why I wanted my partner home from work. I haven't been 'well' since last February when I started collapsing for no reason. I am in the middle of a run of MRI scans, blood tests and EEG tests to find out why this is happening and staying calm is quite important right now. I'm not sure in their eyes whether i'm unwell enough to be classed as vulnerable. Nor really do I feel that I need to use that as an excuse to keep the wolves from the door when this isn't a situation of our making.

I have started paying £25 a week to at least show willing while this is being sorted out but I have to admit the stress is taking it's toll.

Any advice ... Please?

Stressed.

Cate1976

First off, you're doing the right thing by paying what you can afford each week towards any debt that has built up, this maybe enough to stop any more bailliffs coming, glad the first one was sympathetic.

A few questions for you:

1) Did you give N Power the reading on the meter the day you moved in & do you have proof of this (printed from online account or photo with date & time on it are the best).

2) Have you checked the bill to make sure that the type of meter you have matches what it says on your bill? I can't remember which way round it is but your meter will have m3 or f3 on it, if your bill says the other then your bill will be triple what it should be.

3) I think N Power have broken a few rules in sending the bailliffs after you've disputed the bill, might be worth you putting a complaint in about this.

From various threads on here N Power are having big problems at the moment due to their 'new' computer systems not working properly.

Although your electric meter will have kwh on the meter, your gas is either m3 or f3, use http://energylinx.co.uk/gas_meter_conversion_meters.html to convert, it does have the option to switch to conversion from f3.

There are a few people who post on here that work in the field, there's also an N Power rep who posts on here, hopefully one of them will post & try to help you more than I can. My suggestions are based on what I've seen in threads on here from others who've had problems.

I have to say that it's possible although unlikely with the information you've given that the bill is correct in which case N Power should allow you to pay an amount you can afford. What I did with Scottish Power was to ask what my average monthly usage was over 12 months, I then told them how much I could afford towards paying off the debt.

Hope this helps & that you get the situation sorted soon.

scaredofdebt

Ask for copies of bills to show how the charge has occurred.

That's the first stage, then work out from that where the errors are. Do you have any idea of the historic meter reads so you can double check?

Just for info 685 "units" would equate to around 21,500 Kwh if you've got an Imperial meter which is around £860 assuming 4p per Kwh.

I_have_spoken

A lovely bailifff came round

Bailiffs only get involved once the High Court has issued a writ, there's quite a bit of your "story" missing about being taken to Court over the debt, losing and getting a CCJ

StressedOut35

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Bailiffs only get involved once the High Court has issued a writ, there's quite a bit of your "story" missing about being taken to Court over the debt, losing and getting a CCJ

There is nothing missing about my 'story'. I have received nothing from any court regarding CCJ's etc. Just visits from Meterplus and threatening letters from Npower.

The bottom line is I have many means to run my house 'gas' free and did so the majority of the first year of being in here. I have copies of all my bills (estimated) from them and always checked them against my meters when I got them to check that they weren't too far out from the stated amounts. They were rarely more than 10 or 20 units out.

If I doubted for one second that I could have run this bill up i'd shrug it off, accept it and pay it but we moved in in the april, turned the boiler down for a couple of weeks then off completely until late october time when the weather started to get colder. Even then it spent most of the time off as we used the log burner instead heating the house and water. It's a very big burner plumbed through to our heating pipes etc so is very effective, very quickly.

I'm thinking of telling Npower to just cut it off and paying them what I can afford until it's paid off and switching companies. I wouldn't mind the bill if I used the product!!!!

StressedOut35

scaredofdebt wrote: »

Ask for copies of bills to show how the charge has occurred.

That's the first stage, then work out from that where the errors are. Do you have any idea of the historic meter reads so you can double check?

Just for info 685 "units" would equate to around 21,500 Kwh if you've got an Imperial meter which is around £860 assuming 4p per Kwh.

Hi, £860 I would be happy to pay for the last 6 months as I have used it to see how much it would actually cost me to compare to their figures. We have worked back through the bills and they were always pretty close to the estimates as we are very light users. There seems to have been a huge surge somewhere between my last bill and this all starting.

Time to switch the gas back off I think. Back to the log burner to heat my house for free.

StressedOut35

Thanks Cate. I'll look in the morning. Someone else has suggested checking the type of meter too as that's how they were stung in the same way. Either way, I've still run up a big bill without using much gas. Pity anyone who doesn't have alternative sources of heating like we do.

Even the bailiff/Meterplus guy sided with us. That's saying something.

StressedOut35

Cate: The meter says ft3 on it. What does this mean? Is it a metric meter then?

molerat

That is an imperial meter, 1 meter unit = app 32kWh. You need to pull out all your old bills and go through them to see if they are correct. You need to do the legwork as the supplier can not be trusted to do it correctly. If you want to post up dates and meter readings, including the current one, we can have a look and advise.

Cate1976

Molerat has posted what I was going to say about your meter being imperial (easy way to remember what you have is metric & metre both start with m).

The next thing to do is check your most recent bill to make sure you're being billed for an imperial meter.

I would also suggest that you use this link: http://energylinx.co.uk/gas_meter_conversion_feet.html to calculate how much gas you've used since you moved in (I'm assuming that you have the read from the day you moved in).

Once you know how much gas you've used since you moved in, you can then work out an estimate of what it's cost you (the price you get will be based on current prices so won't allow for pre rise prices). Subtract what you've already paid including the £25 week you've been paying recently for the 'debt'. This will give you an estimate of how much you owe or don't owe.

I can't remember which way round it is that if N power are billing you for wrong type of meter, you'll get a bigger bill than you should. There are a couple of meter readers who post on this forum, hopefully one of them will be able to say which way round it is.

I'd also consider giving meter readings online each month, also keep paying £25 a week until the situation is sorted which could take time. I'm wondering if the problems have started since N Power changed their computer system/s?

I've just used the link putting 685 units and my postcode in & it gave 22,027 kwh with a cost of £798 per annum. Looks like N power have made a huge mistake somewhere. Please keep us posted on what happens, looking forward to the situation sorted post.

molerat

If you have an imperial meter and are billed as metric then you will only be paying 1/3 of what is due.

The problem here is that NPower's billing system is in total meltdown and seems incapable of working out anything correctly.