nPower - Ridiculous direct debit increase advice please

diego_94

Short version, can give more details if needed.

Signed up for an nPower fixed tariff when we moved into our new house end of June. Direct Debits set at £73 per month. Some to the end of Dec they have issued us a refund of £118 for over payments during this period, and now wnat to put up our direct debit to £118 per month!

They are estimating we will use £1300 of energy in the next year despite only using £257 in total since the end of June to end of Dec. I feel that this estimation is way way too much, and would like to fight it.

Have spke to ucstomer services who are adiment that this is correct. What can I do to take it further?

lewisa

Too much use of the word 'estimate' in your post.

Estimates are matters of opinion. Readings, unit rates and standing charges are facts.

Arm yourself with the 3 facts you need for each utility service, calculate your position and then decide what to do, if anything needs doing at all.

Edit, for clarity. £257 for 6 months is not much for an average household. It also isn't clear whether that amount is an accurate picture of usage, or whether that is how much was billed during that period due to previous over-estimations of energy usage resulting in a lower amount needing to be billed during the period in question.

matelodave

As above.

Have you been reading your meter regularly and sending the readings into the supplier and have you been checking your bills to ensure that your bills have properly reflected your consumption (ie any estimated bills have been corrected).

It's not difficult to read your own meter, work out how much energy you are using and do your own calculations. Leaving it to the energy supplier to make random guesses will inevitably lead to over or underpayments that have to be corrected.

Your energy consumption and cost between December and April is likely to be between 2-3 times the amount that you used between June and November so getting a refund t this time of the year means that you'll probably be in arrears come April unless you increase your DD.

Ideally you should be in credit by about two DD payments in November to take you through the winter. If you'd not got a refund then your £73/mo DD might have balanced out by next June.

harz99

matelodave wrote: »

As above.

Ideally you should be in credit by about two DD payments in November to take you through the winter. If you'd not got a refund then your £73/mo DD might have balanced out by next June.

OP, to follow on from matelodave's advice above, did you ask for the refund or was this an automatic computer generated one from NPower?

diego_94

Thanks for your help so far. To answer questions:

- The £257 is based on actual usuage. Meter readings were taken at the end of June when we moved in, the end of September and the end of Dec. This total is the amount from the bills that have been during that period.

- We have read meters regularly when asked (moving in date, end of sept and the end of Dec)

- The refund was automatically generated by nPpwer. I’d happily keep this in my account!

It’s a bit of a joke to be honest.

Biscuit_Tin

diego_94 wrote: »

...

It’s a bit of a joke to be honest.

Quite! Just what I was thinking :cool:

amcg100

Hi
I have previously known this problem from npower. The problem might be the contract end date -

If you have only agreed a 12 month contract then they will estimate your 12 month consumption based on you being transferred onto a deemed tariff when your contract ends in June. Since deemed contracts are massively more expensive then this would account for the increase -

Is it a 12 month contract?
Alex

diego_94

It’s a fixed price contract until 2021, so longer than the 12 months

amcg100

Not that then
Could be based on a previous occupiers consumption - what size house? how many people ? is this gas and electric together? Do you have heating on?

diego_94

I think it’s true previous owners consumption that’s is screwing things here. It’s a 3 bedroom house, with only 2 of us living there. We both work full time so the heating isn’t on during the day, we put it in in the evenings if it’s cold.

We also had the old condensing boiler with a hot water tank replaced with a new combo boiler just after we moved in, so that should also add to the efficiency.

PennineAcute

They usually estimate from previous years' usage for that property. As your usage is lower than what has been used in previous years, you are arguing with their computer. As we all know, the only winner will be the computer.

Get winter out of the way and they may be more inclined to listen to you.