Npower's May 2016 fix beware the small print

Lillysanity

I am on Online Oct 2015 fixed rate deal with Npower with no penalty paying £78 pm I logged into my account & input actual annual consumption from Jan 2015- Jan2015. The online May 2016 quoted £66.80pm. I input meter readings intending to switch to the new fixed rate. Just as I was about to proceed I noticed a smaller line of text saying that my payment would remain at £78 until my next 6 month review in july 2015.ie in6months time. This certainly did not happen when I chose my Oct 2015 fix.
I then went onto Npower website without logging into my account &using the same annual consumption figures & was quoted £63 pm.
So be careful if switching to a different tariff with Npower.If you have just had your 6 month review as it will be 6months before your payment will be changed to that of the quote.

SnowMan

The issue to watch for if switching from one Npower fixed tarriff to another is the higher standing charge and lower unit charge on tariffs available at the end of winter, compared to the lower standing charge and higher unit charge on tariffs available just before the winter.

For example someone paying for duel fuel by direct debit on Online Price Fix Jan 2016 has a standing charge in the North West of £136pa, whereas the new Npower May 2016 fix has a standing charge of £66pa. The unit charge is higher on the May 2016 fix.

If someone does a comparison site compare based on annual usage the May 2016 appears to be cheaper, but based on lower late Spring and Summer usage the May 2016 tariff is in reality likely to be more expensive until autumn. That is certainly true based on my seasonal usage.

Npower are past masters at using seasonal usage to deceive customers. Those with long memories will remember this

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/showthread.php?12311-Overcharging-case-settled-by-npower

My view is that companies should not be allowed to widely vary the mix of charges recouped through the standing charge on a seasonal basis in this way. However weak regulation from the likes of OFGEM means that they can get away with these things.

MABLE

The issue i have is trying to change gas tariffs to May 2016. Have tried some many times and apparently there is a known fault and they are still trying to resolve issues. However they have given me a £25 goodwill payment for the problems so not doing too bad at the moment and once resolved they will back date for me to 2 Feb 2015.

Also only pay by var direct debit.

Lillysanity

Thanks for pointing out about comparing unit rates & standing charges. This all arose because I was awarded £120 by the ombudsman in Oct 2014 for a case about my Jan 2014 bill & he agreeing with my annual consumption figures & said £78 was the correct payment.
I then received an incorrect bill dated 02/01/ 2015 which only came to light when a refund was made to our bank account berfore we had even seen the bill of£46.73 ( erroneously they are now saying )
They finally produced a correct bill on 26/01/15 & have up to now suggested 3 different monthly payments. I am awaiting a final decision/deadlock letter fro Elisabeth Gibson Head of Customer services so I can if necessary complain to the Ombudsman yet again. I wont bore you with all the excuses I have been given )
To cap it all on this months dd they only took £40 & the explanation being they could not collect the Electricity portion
£38 on a sat ( 14th Feb) Although the actual payment they took was on the 16th.
Up to now I have been offered no compensation for all these errors.
I wish to change supplier but worry that I cant until this is all sorted out, hence checking their new tariffs.

afro_2

SnowMan wrote: »

The issue to watch for if switching from one Npower fixed tarriff to another is the higher standing charge and lower unit charge on tariffs available at the end of winter, compared to the lower standing charge and higher unit charge on tariffs available just before the winter.

For example someone paying for duel fuel by direct debit on Online Price Fix Jan 2016 has a standing charge in the North West of £136pa, whereas the new Npower May 2016 fix has a standing charge of £66pa. The unit charge is higher on the May 2016 fix.

If someone does a comparison site compare based on annual usage the May 2016 appears to be cheaper, but based on lower late Spring and Summer usage the May 2016 tariff is in reality likely to be more expensive until autumn. That is certainly true based on my seasonal usage.

Npower are past masters at using seasonal usage to deceive customers. Those with long memories will remember this

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/showthread.php?12311-Overcharging-case-settled-by-npower

My view is that companies should not be allowed to widely vary the mix of charges recouped through the standing charge on a seasonal basis in this way. However weak regulation from the likes of OFGEM means that they can get away with these things.

what a clever way of doing things! Never underestimate the ability of these companies to outsmart us.

I've just been looking at my nPower tariff and I'm wondering if this could be turned to my advantage. They seem to have a wide variation in standing charges, but no fees to switch mid contract. So I guess there could be a certain logic to switching to a low standing charge contract for electricity and gas for the summer months, and switching again in November for winter use...

nPower

Lillysanity wrote: »

I am on Online Oct 2015 fixed rate deal with Npower with no penalty paying £78 pm I logged into my account & input actual annual consumption from Jan 2015- Jan2015. The online May 2016 quoted £66.80pm. I input meter readings intending to switch to the new fixed rate. Just as I was about to proceed I noticed a smaller line of text saying that my payment would remain at £78 until my next 6 month review in july 2015.ie in6months time. This certainly did not happen when I chose my Oct 2015 fix.
I then went onto Npower website without logging into my account &using the same annual consumption figures & was quoted £63 pm.
So be careful if switching to a different tariff with Npower.If you have just had your 6 month review as it will be 6months before your payment will be changed to that of the quote.

Hi Lillysanity

Thanks for your post.

We calculate Direct Debits over a 12 month period and check it at the 6-month point to incorporate any credit or debit balance a customer may have. If you change tariffs throughout the year, you can contact us to request your payments be manually reassessed or changed. We always recommend providing up to date meter readings at that point to make sure any calculations are as accurate as possible.

If you want to change tariffs whilst there's an ongoing issue you should be able to request this straight away; however, depending on the issue the tariff may need to be backdated at a later date to prevent any further complications.

I trust this has helped answer your query.

Regards

Jess

teddysmum

MABLE wrote: »

The issue i have is trying to change gas tariffs to May 2016. Have tried some many times and apparently there is a known fault and they are still trying to resolve issues. However they have given me a £25 goodwill payment for the problems so not doing too bad at the moment and once resolved they will back date for me to 2 Feb 2015.

Also only pay by var direct debit.

I had the problem, in that 'the system' cancelled my direct debit for gas and I had a letter saying I would be on standard rate, followed by a second letter saying the direct debit was reinstated, but I noticed that this would miss my March 2nd payment.


I have contacted Executive Complaints, have had a response (within two working days) and am expecting the matter to be sorted soon (compensation was mentioned).

teddysmum

afro wrote: »

what a clever way of doing things! Never underestimate the ability of these companies to outsmart us.

I've just been looking at my nPower tariff and I'm wondering if this could be turned to my advantage. They seem to have a wide variation in standing charges, but no fees to switch mid contract. So I guess there could be a certain logic to switching to a low standing charge contract for electricity and gas for the summer months, and switching again in November for winter use...

I have changed gas, electricity and gas again, since November, after checking each new short term tariff fix.


In each case the tariff changed had an obvious saving, but my usage meant that changing the other was not to my advantage.


eg this time, the saving on unit rate for my average daily electricity units was less than the daily increase in standing charge, so I only changed the gas tariff.

tronator

SnowMan wrote: »

If someone does a comparison site compare based on annual usage the May 2016 appears to be cheaper, but based on lower late Spring and Summer usage the May 2016 tariff is in reality likely to be more expensive until autumn. That is certainly true based on my seasonal usage.

I consider myself very good in maths, but never thought of that Thank you for pointing it out.

We don't have gas and our electricity consumption could be twice as much in winter than it is in summer. In the future I will consider that when comparing tariffs. The problem is that you will never know what the prices are in a few months time. In November I switched to the "Online Price Fix Jan 2016" tariff. In February NPower introduced a new tariff "Fixed Energy Online April 2016" which has virtually the same unit price, but the daily standing charge is ~10p cheaper. So it doesn't seem to be always true that in spring they introduce a tariff with higher daily charge.

joncombe

afro wrote: »

what a clever way of doing things! Never underestimate the ability of these companies to outsmart us.

Which is why OFGEM should have forced either no standing charge and a single unit rate or a fixed standing charge (across suppliers) and a single unit rate. Their retail market review was stated to be designed to make things "simpler", but as you can see it is not, you have to compare the standing charge and unit rate which can (and do) vary widely over differing tariffs.