N power rip off is this legal

furball

I received a letter from N Power yesterday saying that all my bills had been estimated for the last 3 years and after reviewing the bills i owe £533.89. I have nearly always been in when the meter man has been and have rung in with the reading on the occasions i have been out . NP are saying that even though the meter was read it was out of sequence or not near enough the bill send out date to use the reading so they have estimated it :mad: I have never refused entry to the meter man and assumed that having my meter read regularly meant that this is the bill i would get, surely it is wrong to suddenly go back over 3 years and expect me to pay this is their error not mine. Help please. P.S this is on top of a £254 bill and they are demanding both payments together or over £200 a month payment plan Thankyou.

olly300

By law your supplier has to check your meters every 2 years for safety as well as other reasons.

If they can't check then if they were a reasonable supplier they would send you a letter telling you that they need to check your meter then send you a letter normally 30 days letter threatening court action if you don't agree a time for access. Then send you more letters to this effect. (I lived in a rented house and got these letters. ) So N Powers reasonings are !!!!!!!!.

From the energywatch website-
"where suppliers were at fault for not billing a consumer, they will not backdate (or backbill) more than two years. This drops to a one year timeframe with effect from July 2007."

I suggest you write letter of complaint to N Power and send it to them by recorded delivery. In the letter state that:
1. You never prevented the meter man from reading your meter, and in fact he read the meter in the last 3 years. If you have your old bills go through them and you will see which bills are customer readings, estimates and meter man readings.* Then state which ones are meter man readings in your letter.
3. State that you will not be paying for more than one years under payment of electricity or gas as per the ERA code of practise, and that you do will not allow them to deduct £200 a month from your current account.
4. Ask for a new bill within 28 days for the one year you have under paid and a new figure for your monthly payments which is more reasonable as the payments suggested will put you in financial difficulties and they don't reflect the amount you use.
5. State you will refer them to energywatch if you don't hear from them within 28 days with a reasonable reply to your query.

After 28 days immediately contact energywatch on 08459 06 07 08

BTW N Power are unlikely to respond properly to your query but you need to give the utility company a reasonable timeframe to respond before complaining to the regulator. After you have sorted everything out switch suppliers to a company who is not known to screw up in this fashion.

*The codes used are explained on the back of the bills lots of suppliers use E for estimate, C for customer reading and no code for meter man readings.

Farway

To set your mind at rest, Ofgem policy [and law] is one year, supplier may well try it on to claim more.

I do not have a link or details but no doubt olly300 will post mor when available

furball

Thankyou so much, I knew i could rely on the forum users to make sense of this. Which energy supplier do you recommend. Thankyou again

stimpo

The OP said they had been billed to estimates. Late billing policy does not apply.

It is perfectly reasonable that the reads taken by the meter man may have failed as they do not fall in line. Give a meter reading, if you have previous readings to hand give those to npower and ask them to reasses their estimates.

If the debt is worked out to be correct I may be speaking to you sometime soon...

mum2one

I would suggest sending the letter by guarenteed delievery, it costs apr £4.30, but this means that the letter wil be delievered by 1pm next day, lot more secure than recorded delievery.

Basically recorded delievery only gets a signature on delievery, that could be coffee boy (makes a change from the tea lady), the recorded letter goes through the normal postal system, so as its very important and for piece of mind, Id pay the extra.

olly300

stimpo wrote: »

The OP said they had been billed to estimates. Late billing policy does not apply.

It is perfectly reasonable that the reads taken by the meter man may have failed as they do not fall in line. Give a meter reading, if you have previous readings to hand give those to npower and ask them to reasses their estimates.

If the debt is worked out to be correct I may be speaking to you sometime soon...

I suggest you read the original post.

Most importantly this sentence:
"I have nearly always been in when the meter man has been and have rung in with the reading on the occasions i have been out . "

olly300

mum2one wrote: »

Basically recorded delievery only gets a signature on delievery, that could be coffee boy (makes a change from the tea lady), the recorded letter goes through the normal postal system, so as its very important and for piece of mind, Id pay the extra.

Very true.

However I've found that no company argues with me when I state and can show a letter has been sent by recorded delivery particularly when I taken them to their regulator or threaten them with court action.

Sometimes the coffee boy, receptionist, Joe Bloggs employee walking pass the door may have signed for the letter while at other times the letter is not signed for at all accordign to Track and Trace, but as far as the regulator is concerned they have received the letter.

furball

When my husband spoke to them they tried to say I should have rung in with the correct reading if i didn't want the estimated bill and they have not had a meter reading since 2006, surely it is not upto the customer to have to check in each time. If thats the case what is the point of having a meter man? If i am mistaken here please tell me as they are trying to say the full bill stands as i didn't correct it.

furball

An actual NP electrician read the meter in Sept this year as for the 4th time since 1999 NP insist i have a token meter still. This was taken out when i moved in in 1999. The electrician took a reading. The meter was last read 23/08/07 by a meter man but the bill estimate date is 19/10/07

furball

The meter was read again for the next bill 2 weeks ago I am going to give them another meter reading and tell them not to estimate any more bills. If i pay the ordinary quarterly bill but keep the rest of the amount back till the dispute is settled can i still move suppliers. Thankyou for all your help