Economy 7 the wrong way due to supplier reading

Dallybally

Hi. We had our meters read by the supplier recently (Npower), and they advised us to switch to economy 7 as we were using so much more at night, so we switched.


I recently started reading it myself and monitoring usage and we were using loads more at night but could not understand how it was so much more.


I watched the meter and it turns out the readings are the wrong way round.


Looking back it has been wrong for at least 3 years, Npower have done several of those readings.


We've only been on economy 7 for a few months, I'm wondering where I stand, they have got it wrong so many times should I just keep quiet and enjoy cheap daytime, or if they ever discover this would I be liable for the extra charges?


Thanks for any help.

lstar337

How would they know you were using more at night if you weren't on E7 before?

Dallybally

We've always had E7 meter, think previous owners were on it.


Presume they just charge the same day and night if you're not on E7, take 2 readings and add them together effectively.


They read the meter, saw the "night" number had moved loads more and told us to switch.

footyguy

Dallybally wrote: »

Hi. We had our meters read by the supplier recently (Npower), and they advised us to switch to economy 7 as we were using so much more at night, so we switched.


I recently started reading it myself and monitoring usage and we were using loads more at night but could not understand how it was so much more.


I watched the meter and it turns out the readings are the wrong way round.


Looking back it has been wrong for at least 3 years, Npower have done several of those readings.


We've only been on economy 7 for a few months, I'm wondering where I stand, they have got it wrong so many times should I just keep quiet and enjoy cheap daytime, or if they ever discover this would I be liable for the extra charges?


Thanks for any help.

Allow me to answer this one quickly.

Going by a few other threads on here, that might get the juices of the usual culptits flowing

How did nPower know the day/night split if you were not on E7???
:huh:

(Only way I can envisage is that you had an E7 meter but worked out yourself that a single rate taiff would be better for you and specifically requested this from the supplier who presumably agreed to supply on such single rate tariff despite you having an E7 meter.

If so, how did you come to that decision, and what made you think it was wrong just because the supplier said so. Surely they would have advised when you originally requested the single rate tariff on the dual rate meter)

Over to you, guys 'n' galls... :cool:

footyguy

Dallybally wrote: »

We've always had E7 meter, think previous owners were on it.


Presume they just charge the same day and night if you're not on E7, take 2 readings and add them together effectively.


They read the meter, saw the "night" number had moved loads more and told us to switch.

You know there is a time in most threads to put the shovel down ... and you've already reached it (imho)

:rotfl:

Bark01

footyguy wrote: »

Allow me to answer this one quickly.

Going by a few other threads on here, that might get the juices of the usual culptits flowing

How did nPower know the day/night split if you were not on E7???
:huh:

(Only way I can envisage is that you had an E7 meter but worked out yourself that a single rate taiff would be better for you and specifically requested this from the supplier who presumably agreed to supply on such single rate tariff despite you having an E7 meter.

If so, how did you come to that decision, and what made you think it was wrong just because the supplier said so. Surely they would have advised when you originally requested the single rate tariff on the dual rate meter)

Over to you, guys 'n' galls... :cool:

The OP’s already answered that. It has always been billed as standard since they moved in, a previous occupant must have requested the metering change.

The OP is on a totaliser set up it’s a pseudo meter exchange where a multi rate meter is charged as if it’s a single rate meter all register billed the same rate. It save on the cost and time needed to do a meter swap.

The recent regulation changes mean that suppliers now have an obligation to tell multi register customers if they would be better off on a single rate tariff, so we should see a lot more people on these set ups in the future (or at least until SMART roll out is complete)

lstar337

Dallybally, my guess is that NPower in their infinite incompetence have messed up. They assumed the registers were a certain way around, spotted that what they thought was the night register was advancing faster than the day, and advised that an E7 tariff might save you some dosh. (they were actually trying to help)

They were wrong, however I think maybe you should have questioned what they were telling you. It is usually obvious whether you use a lot at night or not.

Since they messed up, you may have some luck convincing them their advice was baloney, and getting them to re-bill you as though you never left the single rate tariff. After all, you only did it based on their phoney advice in the first place.

Good luck!

Cardew

lstar337 wrote: »

Since they messed up, you may have some luck convincing them their advice was baloney, and getting them to re-bill you as though you never left the single rate tariff. After all, you only did it based on their phoney advice in the first place.

Good luck!

His dilemma however is that he better off(having followed Npower's bad advice) in that he is paying night(off-peak) rate for 17 hours daytime use. Hence this in his first post:

I'm wondering where I stand, they have got it wrong so many times should I just keep quiet and enjoy cheap daytime, or if they ever discover this would I be liable for the extra charges?

Dallybally

Hi. Yes, I have always had an E7 meter since the day I moved in 8 years ago and there have always been 2 readings even though we were on a normal tariff. We have readings going back at least 3 years split night and day even though we have only been on E7 a few months.

Never thought anything about it until one day they tell me we'll be better off on E7, agree they were trying to help.

It was only after I saw our usage broken down by night and day that I realised it looked so wrong and looked into it. No idea if they ever showed us this info before but never looked at it before if they did.

It is their mistake, and they have been really bad in the past, loads of mistakes so not feeling overly compelled to help them out.

Just wondering where the liability will lie if the mistake is spotted.

[Deleted User]

What the OP is hoping to find out on here is whether he/she can continue getting a "free lunch " as it were and get away with half price electric with no come backs.Npower will definitely try and recoup the mistake if and when they discover the transposed readings. I have seen Npower just force fit a prepay meter to collect the debt if you dont comply and repay. A battle and a possible Ombudsman decision would prob go in your favour. All suppliers do these transposed reads, Npower are one of the more enlightened ones. BG are awful at spotting it. Our meter readers at G4S have nt a clue, if they see any digital meter with a 1 on it, thats going as a night read and a 2 as the day. BG are that bad they have even stopped indicating which read field is day or night on our data collectors, we just now have 1 and 2 ...hopeless

Dallybally

Another way of looking at it, to limit our liability, if they find out and kick off, at that point can we state that they were wrong to put us on E7, lets work out what's owing but based on us being on a normal tariff all this time?

In other words we don't pay what we've used on E7 the right way round, we pay what it would have been on the correct tariff?

That would be fair in my eyes, making us pay E7 the right way round retrospectively would unfairly penalise us for their mistake.

If that's the worst case scenario then all good, happy to chance it. What I don't want to do is build up a massive liability based on using E7 more in the day.