Gas & Electricity Money Saving Discussion Area

lic

I use to have my Gas supplied by Amerada(now part of Powergen), but changed supplier to Seeboard on 15/4/04.
I later moved house on 16/6/04. On this date I informed my utility providers of my final metre readings.
Seeboard for some reason did not send me a bill for some considerable time. In September 04 they sent me a bill. They wanted me to pay for Gas until August 2004. I informed them that I had moved and that they should have sent me a final bill. They very nicely agreed to waive the bill as it was an error on their part.


Powergen contacted me in February 2005(as I had kept my old phone number) and informed me that I owed them £52 for Gas prior to moving to Seeboard.
I told them that as far as I was concerned, I had paid their bill, they were not my last gas supplier, and that I was not prepared to pay them, as they could not prove that their request for payment was a true and valid one, as the bill was generated on 29/1/05.
I was contacted by them again today and have told them that I am unwilling to pay for Gas which I should have been billed for in April 2004, and that I had no way of knowing if I had used this gas or if they were charging me fo rgas I had not used.
Has anyone else had a similar problem with them? If so how was it resolved?

Cheers
Lic

Ruth_Masters

Eventually hoped today to make a final decision regarding a fuel provider. However, following advice, I visited a few comparison sites, and the best so far is uSwitch giving the supplier as Powergen Staywarm with a calculated annual saving of £187.32. Then I rang Staywarm and was given a calculation of £111.72. Why the difference? Which one can I put my faith in at the moment?

Advice please,
Ruth Masters

NigeWick

Ruth_Masters wrote:

Which one can I put my faith in at the moment?

Yourself. If it were me, I would have a look at the cheapest few options and obtain their individual unit prices, as well as looking at any perks, or catches in terms & conditions. I would look at my own usage over the last year and work out the figures on each one so that*I*could compare them. That way, I would hopefully find the best deal for my particular circumstances.

And you thought it would be easy

Nigel.

David@jcb

lic wrote:

I use to have my Gas supplied by Amerada(now part of Powergen), but changed supplier to Seeboard on 15/4/04.
I later moved house on 16/6/04. On this date I informed my utility providers of my final metre readings.
Seeboard for some reason did not send me a bill for some considerable time. In September 04 they sent me a bill. They wanted me to pay for Gas until August 2004. I informed them that I had moved and that they should have sent me a final bill. They very nicely agreed to waive the bill as it was an error on their part.


Powergen contacted me in February 2005(as I had kept my old phone number) and informed me that I owed them £52 for Gas prior to moving to Seeboard.
I told them that as far as I was concerned, I had paid their bill, they were not my last gas supplier, and that I was not prepared to pay them, as they could not prove that their request for payment was a true and valid one, as the bill was generated on 29/1/05.
I was contacted by them again today and have told them that I am unwilling to pay for Gas which I should have been billed for in April 2004, and that I had no way of knowing if I had used this gas or if they were charging me fo rgas I had not used.
Has anyone else had a similar problem with them? If so how was it resolved?

Cheers
Lic

Lic,

I had a very similar thing happen which dated back 4 years from when I used them (Powergen) last. One day I received a court summons from them stating that I had not paid the final demand bill, this came as a bit of a shock as I had not been a customer with them for 4 years, and I know I had cleared up all of my bills. As it happened, I am very lucky to have a missus who gets rid of NO paperwork, and in this instance with very good reason. We managed to trawl through the last 5 years worth of accounts and found out that at the time the bill was for we were not even Powergen customers!! It was actually after this date we became a customer, anyway we phoned them up and sent off all of the relevant details and they just told us to forget it! No appology or anything! What would have happened if we had not found the relevant bills I do not know. Still it is all sorted now, and being as tight as a gnats chuff I am back with them again, because they do provide me in my current circumstances the cheapest options.
So you are not on your own with utility provider !!!!-ups they can get quite worrying too.

On a side note, it is interesting to note that, like banks with mortgages, the utility companies do not seem too worried about keeping existing customers as they very often will not allow you to apply for the most competitive rates. Very Frustrating!

Ta,

David.

Dennis_Major

Typical, just changed over to the above when a letter arrives today saying the gas price is going up and do I want to protect myself against other rises by paying £2.50 per month, bearing in mind they have not said if or when the electricity rate may go up.

Whats the feeling of other moneysavers, do I swop again or take up their offer in the current climate?

jimesh

I am new to this game and may have posted to the wrong site or in the wrong place. My question is this: I have confirmed with Powergen that if I want to take up their Staywarm offer, I will need to clear any outstanding accounts owing to the existing power companies. It would therefore seem wiser to wait till later in the year, when my consumption is at its lowest and my arrears will, hopefully, also be fairly small.

Does this situation also apply to ordinary switches between power companies, say via Energyline? or does the new company pick up the arrears on transfer?

Smiley_Mum

Thought this website may be of some use to people to figure out the electricity usage on certain items within the home. -

http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp

oldagetraveller

Looking and comparing to possibly change energy supplier. At present with Scottish Power (they've just increased prices) on dual fuel online package. Electricity 10.99p/kWh, gas 2.53kWh. Comparing this to Equigas & Equipower's 7.07p/kWh and 1.62p/kWh respectively there appears to be a potential saving. I know this could well be a "no brainer" on the surface but I'm always suspicious that there's something missing and I'm going to end up changing and paying more. Where's the catch? Doeas anyone know?

MoneyMinx_3

Hi Everyone

This is my first time on a forum so please bear with me. I have some major issues with NPower at the moment and I wonder if there is anyone out there who could give me some advice or suggestions.

Having been with NPower for the past 4 years, my latest 6 monthly dual fuel bill arrived 3 weeks ago. To my absolute horror, it claimed that I was £150 in arrears and that to cover this my monthly payments would need to increase to £153 per month. I know what you are thinking, how the heck does that work? My thoughts entirely. Anyway, NPower didn't seem to know either. I gave them a revised reading as the bill had been estimated and was told that the new bill would be in the post. 7 days later it arrived. It gets worse, I was told that I was now in arrears by £516 :eek: According to NPower my meter has never been read in the past 4 years. Guess what? It has! So therefore, all the direct debit payments I have made since moving to them have been insufficient, although they were not aware of this until now. As far as I can tell from looking at the bills from the past 4 years, this issue has only arisen since September 04. Prior to that, give or take a few pounds my bills were pretty much consistent. However, since September according to NPower, my gas consumption has doubled! Nothing has changed, I am at work 5 days a week, the boiler and fire are regularly serviced, and I still don't cook with Gas.

I asked for a meter test to be carried out and received a letter from them on Saturday stating that a meter assessment had been carried out and that all my bills were "consistent with seasonal usage". An idiot would only have to look at the bills to see that it is double! However, if I want my meter checked properly this will cost me £53. I have been told in no uncertain terms by a very helpful "customer services representative" that my bill is in no way incorrect and that I have obviously been trying to burn off the entire North Sea gas reserves. This was prior to the phone being put down on me for daring to state, in the politest way, that there might be something wrong with my meter.

Approximately 10 phone calls later I have now decided that I cannot put up with their incompetence any longer and have therefore decided to pay my bill and change my supplier. I am absolutely worn out from trying to sort this mess out and did think about moving my supplier to British Gas, however, from reading some of the messages on this forum I am now unsure about that! HELP!!!!!

Cardew

MoneyMinx wrote:

Hi Everyone

This is my first time on a forum so please bear with me. I have some major issues with NPower at the moment and I wonder if there is anyone out there who could give me some advice or suggestions.

Having been with NPower for the past 4 years, my latest 6 monthly dual fuel bill arrived 3 weeks ago. To my absolute horror, it claimed that I was £150 in arrears and that to cover this my monthly payments would need to increase to £153 per month. I know what you are thinking, how the heck does that work? My thoughts entirely. Anyway, NPower didn't seem to know either. I gave them a revised reading as the bill had been estimated and was told that the new bill would be in the post. 7 days later it arrived. It gets worse, I was told that I was now in arrears by £516 :eek: According to NPower my meter has never been read in the past 4 years. Guess what? It has! So therefore, all the direct debit payments I have made since moving to them have been insufficient, although they were not aware of this until now. As far as I can tell from looking at the bills from the past 4 years, this issue has only arisen since September 04. Prior to that, give or take a few pounds my bills were pretty much consistent. However, since September according to NPower, my gas consumption has doubled! Nothing has changed, I am at work 5 days a week, the boiler and fire are regularly serviced, and I still don't cook with Gas.

I asked for a meter test to be carried out and received a letter from them on Saturday stating that a meter assessment had been carried out and that all my bills were "consistent with seasonal usage". An idiot would only have to look at the bills to see that it is double! However, if I want my meter checked properly this will cost me £53. I have been told in no uncertain terms by a very helpful "customer services representative" that my bill is in no way incorrect and that I have obviously been trying to burn off the entire North Sea gas reserves. This was prior to the phone being put down on me for daring to state, in the politest way, that there might be something wrong with my meter.

Approximately 10 phone calls later I have now decided that I cannot put up with their incompetence any longer and have therefore decided to pay my bill and change my supplier. I am absolutely worn out from trying to sort this mess out and did think about moving my supplier to British Gas, however, from reading some of the messages on this forum I am now unsure about that! HELP!!!!!

I am not sure what help you are asking for. Are you disputing that you have used that amount of Gas/Electricity or just claiming that NPower have been incompetent in billing you incorrectly.


Do you owe money on both Gas and electricty?

Can you accurately work out when your consumption started to increase compared to the previous year?

How much have your direct debit payments increased in the last 4 years?

It is not uncommon for suppliers to take too little by way of Direct Debit and build up large debit balances.