How can I do a historical price comparison on my gas and electric bill

sadsmudge

Hello there, I have had massive problems with NPower since 2012 when I moved into my new house and they were the supplier. It took about 6 months of asking to get my first bill that was messed up and since then it has all gone from bad to worse, ranging from randomly changing my tariffs and direct debits, from day 1 because of their self admitted faults I have been in debt and unable to switch. There are so many issues that I could go into but won't. I am now trying to do a retrospective price comparison on my gas and electric so that I can work out how much I could have saved if I had been able to switch from the start but have not been able to find the info to allow me to do the maths. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

matelodave

You really have to save your bills and read your own meter to keep an historic record of your consumption, costs and tariffs. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve - are you trying to compare nPower tariffs or other suppliers tariffs

Have a look at one of the comparison sites and if you enter a supplier name there is a drop down box showing the vast quantity of tariff names that have been available - some are still current although not open to new users.

Trawl through all the tariffs that are on there and you should be able to see what the unit & standing charge costs were for each one.

I'm not sure how helpful that will be if you don't know what tariffs you were on and the sheer number of tariffs (fixed, capped, variable etc) that have been available over the past couple of years would probably make it a pointless exercise.

You could ask Npower - but I guess you know how helpful they'll be. .

Cardew

sadsmudge wrote: »

I am now trying to do a retrospective price comparison on my gas and electric so that I can work out how much I could have saved if I had been able to switch from the start

Simply impossible!

sadsmudge

Many thanks for your replies, I have made Npower send me a full history of my usage for the period including what tarrifs i was on, what dates and the costs, it took me quite a while to get the full history as they were unable to provide me with he breakdown of the first 6 months of usage despite my constant requests. What I am specifically after finding out is at what periods over the past 2 years what companies have had the best rates and what those rates were. Because Npower messed up from the start and kept changing my tariffs from direct debit to quarterly without my consent and the initial debt that built up from the first 6 months of incorrect billing prevented me from changing companies, I wish to be able to go to Npower and/or the ombudsman with evidence to say "if I had been able to change suppliers I could have saved this much money ...." if I can find those prices out I can do the math.

CashStrapped

Am I correct in assuming that you are looking for a figure/sum that you can claim from npower (due to their mistakes) that reflects the saving you would have made if you could have switched elsewhere?

If that is the case, rather than wasting your time and energy actually working out exactly what you could have saved. Why not just ask them to credit you with an amount that you feel is appropriate. All you have to do is make it clear that they made an error and ask for compensation. No harm in trying.

I remember EDF made a small mistake on my account once and I just rang to make them aware (not even make a formal complaint), and they credited me with £25 without me even asking for it!

Granted, this is npower, but worth a try!

P.S I composed this whilst you posted the above - hence the "assumption" at the beginning.

sadsmudge

Cash Strapped, your assumption is pretty much spot on. I completely get where you are coming from with regards to saving myself some time by approaching NPower with a figure that I think's fair. The only thing is I doubt NPower will play ball so I would like to have as much ammo with me if I'm going to go in guns blazing, particularly if it does go to the ombudsman.

CashStrapped

I can see your point however I do not think it would give you much more "ammo". They made a mistake, it seems that is clear, if they have admitted it, even better.

You should now ask them directly for compesation for all the trouble that they have caused. Pick a figure you feel is fair (or see what they offer, then ask for the amount you feel is fair) and see what they say. Do not take an initial "no" for an answer and try to escalate it as far as you can.

As I said, it may save you a lot of time and effort trying this first, as they can only accept or refuse.

If they refuse, they you can consider alternative action. But at least make it easy for yourself as possible in the first instance.

As I said, no not take initial refusals for an answer.

sadsmudge

Cheers for that good advice, I think I will throw a figure at them, but I would still like to be able to work it out if that fails. So if anyone reading this thread knows where I can get that information please let me know. Whatever happens I will post the outcome on here and hopefully it will be help someone else out in the future.

Bark01

Historic tariff data isn't commercially available from anywhere so your out of luck. It would also take hours if not days of work to figure this out accurately.