Gas & Electricity Money Saving Discussion Area

Kippsy

Down with Npower!!!

Have had my own problems with Npower since we moved into our house (previous occupiers used Npower)! We thought we had changed suppliers over no probs and life carried on.

Since then it has been a tale of woe! Took about a year to sort out how much we actually owed them for the final Gas bill, Npower used an estimate and not the actual reading for the final bill making it £30 over what it turned out to be in the end!

Contacted Npower, every time we got a letter, and updated them with details. They sent us letters telling us to pay within 7 days or they would pass the debt over to bailiffs etc! Got fed up of them not listneing and asked for the details of OFGEN (energy watchdog people).

Magic happened somewhere within Npower and it was all sorted out without us actually contacing OFGEN! So that was that.

Then in the last 6-10 months we had been getting letters from Npower about our electric, letters always addressed to "the occupier" despite them having our details and personally addressing letters when we were sorting out the gas! (Turned out we had not been paying anyone for our electric since we moved in, though we thought the supplier had been switched, anyway...)

Rang Npower (after letters recieved) gave them our details, twice, thought it was being sorted out. Man came round to read the meter, no problem.... send us the bill Npower (we braced ourselves obviously)...

No another letter addressed to "the occupier". Contacted Npower, got the details of OFGEN. Contacted OFGEN explained it all to them (over the phone, very nice, friendly and helpful!).

OFGEN contacted Npower and wrote to us with a copy of what had been sent to Npower.

Finally got a letter from Npower apolagising for their total lack of anything resembling customer service and as a gesture of Goodwill Npower are only charging us for the electric from a reading taken about a month ago! :T

So now I am shopping around getting a good deal and cashback! :rotfl:

Do not pay up and give in if you think they are wrong! Contact them ask for OFGENs details (then they know you are fed up, and also take down the full name of whoever you speak to and date time you rang etc). Contact OFGEN and get some fantastic help and advice!!

Good luck, hope it all gets sorted! Sorry for the length of the post but I do think this is really important.

jimbob_3

hi

i'm with powergen for both gas and electric and reasonably happy with them ... on some of the comparison sites they come out nearly the cheapest for my usage

however the other day a salesman for southern electricity came and claimed that because powergen were owned by a german company they did not have to follow the price controls imposed on all british owned firms. He then looked at my bill and wrote down what the unit cost per kwh should be and compared it to what i was paying.

They did look impressive but i was not convinced ... especially when he refused to leave any literature behind and wanted me to sign up on the spot!

so i suppose im just looking for reassurance that he was talking B*****k s and, if that is the case, what, if anything, can be done about these type of salesmen?

Ickle_Steve

A Southern Electric doorstep salesman told a friend of mine the same about the German owners. It must be part of their training. Don't know if it's good or bad though. I would have thought that Powergen would still have to follow the UK rules no matter who owns them.

I had a Southern Electricity salesman call the other day. After the usual salesman’s speak, I told him I always researched the prices on the Internet and that I was with Atlantic. He said Atlantic's owner Scottish Power was in the same group as Southern and agreed I was on the cheapest rates. I thanked him for his honesty.

Don't forget that although the unit cost rate may be cheaper you also have to compare standing charges if there are any. It may be that they offer an amazing unit rate but have a huge standing charge instead.

eilz

CHEAPEST & BEST OPTION! DUAL FUEL (T or F?)
Based on 19,050 kwh GAS per year
Based on 3,300 kwh Electric per year

Using ukpower.co.uk & energylinx.co.uk (inc T+ and EBIco) gives best comparisons.

NPOWER is cheapest in E-London area, even cheaper then Telecom Plus.

BUT>>>

If I switch using ENERGYHELPLINE.CO.UK, I Get

£10 Cashback PLUS (from their website)
£50 cashback (NPOWER Online cashback per year)

---

£60 saving + (just for switching)
+
£104 saving annually with NPOWER dual fuel (rating 4 stars out of 5)

---

£164 a Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SAVING!

I know NPOWER customer service sucks, but it does stat 4 out of 5 stars

DOES ANYONE DISAGREE ON THESE FIGURES? based on Postcode IGx xxx

jaydee_4

Having tried british gas, n-power and finally scottish power the latter wins hands down.

Better prices, I am actually in credit and guess what? When I pointed this out to them and asked for a refund they not only said yes, but agreed to lower my payments immediately and the promised refund of £150 came within 5 days. Is this customer service or what?

There service is easy to monitor online, enter new readings and it is adjusted immediately.

MiserlyMartin

This may have been raised before if so I apologise.

Npower may offer one of the lowest deals at the moment on the dual fuel online tariff, even if it is only fixed until Janurary 2006 but watch out....

This price includes the £50 dual fuel discount, which is only payable if you stay with them for a year. If you switch before the year is up, you'll lose the discount. I am sure they will hike prices in Jan and you'll be stuck with them for a year. I'm not going to get sucked in... I found this out last time I was with npower.

I am wanting to switch from Powergen after the recently announced price increases. Been looking around. EQUIPOWER & EQUIGAS seem to be among the cheapest, and despite announcing a price rise from August, if you look at the website they guarantee no further hikes for at least a year for existing customers and new customers who apply before the end of the month. This looks effectively a capped deal, it is not described on the energyhelpline as such. I am going to give them a go.

Weymouth_Man

lottieoflondon wrote:

I have done the comparison and the 2 best savings for me appear to be Utilita get180 £213.00 or Powergen £187.00.

My question is i have never heard of Utilita and would be grateful for any recommendations.

C Lewis

Hi I changed about three months ago to Utilita Get 80, from British Gas & Southern Electric, no problems, BUT they may be increasing shortly by about 10%. :mad:

They have also changed their name to ENERGY SAVER !

Found them with a link from Tesco, SORRY MARTIN , I did not know about your site at this time. :beer:

bardsandwarriors

Thanks Martin for this article. I am about to change to Ebico, and my bill will go down from £118pa to £75pa. Every pound saved is a big help here!

1645j

I have just done a comparison with the on-line energy saving websites and every one has returned a different result but one told me that British Gas could save me £17.00 and yet if you go to the British gas web site it has no calculator on it's home page :rolleyes: I wonder why.

I don't believe any of them surly there must be one that can be 100% reliable.

chommin

I am saving over £400 for the next 12 months for using gas and electricity by changing from staywarm PowerGen to Npower thanks to this website.
Staywarm is provided only to pensioners on one or more benefits.
In our case they wish to increase it from £63 a month to £74 a month.
Npower will be charging £40 for a similar quantity of fuel, this is caped for 12 months.
It would have been significantly cheaper to have used PowerGen's standard charges
An article appeared on this point in the Ilford recorder newspaper (ESSEX) last week mentioning the money-saving site.
Pensioners on one of more benefits are a vulnerable group, no longer possibly benefiting by staying on this staywarm facility.
Hopefully by spreading this point throughout the country they also could save some money by changing to a different supplier.
Many thanks