Npower overcharging

cheeseontoastwithham

One of my relatives recieved a bill from nPower last week (the first since February last year due to problems with a new computer system). However, the bill was £5000 whereas it has usually between £1000 and £1300. After phoning she managed to get it down to £4000 which she it still not happy with.

This rise is due to the new computer system being unable to calculate evergy usage in houses with storage heaters, which she has. It is clear that this is an error on nPower's behalf as she submitted regular meter readings and this rise in price is ridiculous.

What steps should I tell her to take and what should she say to nPower - would rather avoid OFGEM as they are useless. Any help is much appreciated - there is further urgency as she is moving house at the end of August so it must be cleared up by then.

Regards

matelodave

What was the bill last years. Was it an estimate or an actual read. If it was an estimate then they should have read the meters themselves and submitted the reading to get the bill corrected.

It's nigh on impossible to prove how much energy you've used if you've got no records of actual meter readings and previous bills were based on estimates and just left to drift without checking meters, bills and payments.

It's easy to blame nPower and their computer system but a bit of common sense should have alerted them to read their meters themselves just to make sure that they would have enough money put by to pay the bill when it eventually dropped through the door.

Probably not a lot they can do now, they want to move and they'll have a big bill to pay when they do unless they or nPower can find an actual previous reading to work from - hopefully whilst they are packing up they can find a bill and their bank statements to try and do some detective work.

[Deleted User]

I would nt be surprised if its a reversed day and night mess up.. I see them all the time from different suppliers. If they ve been getting the day and night wrong they attempt to recoup to begin with without admitting the mess ups hoping that you will pay up quietly.The customers I meet with 2 rate digital meters frequently have no idea about the meters themselves , and so do the call centres who deal with them

dogshome

First thing to do is establish which of the two meter readings is the Day, and which is the Night (Depending on the meter, it's likely to have 3 readings - One for Day, One for Night and one giveing a total of the other two )
Then also check the times that the meter switches over from Day to Night and back - Over time these can slip a long way out from the overnight 7 hours

Next check the Closeing Readings on that previous bill issued in Feb 2013 and compare them to what the meter reads now - How does this compare to those on the recent bill from n'power ?

Don't waste time phoneing n'power. Put your concerns in a letter headed Complaint, also asking why they have not made allowance for "12 month back-billing" limitation as they failed to issue a bill for over a year

chanz4

they manually calculate economy 7