NPOWER SCAMS featured on WATCHDOG 10/03/08, Email watchdog with complaints

hagster

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

They are not "my" meters. The industry should read their meters on a regular basis and eliminate the problems.

Tesco weigh, measure and price anything I buy from them. Why should the energy industry be different?

see what i mean?

c0113tt3

hagster wrote: »

see what i mean?

see what i mean hagster?

NPOWER in the last 4 prices rises have only informed customers ONCE before the price rise, the rest they have informed customers late, 1 to 2 weeks after the price rise, hence TOO LATE for a meter read !!

daveyjp

Currently having a spat with Npower who haven't read a commercial meter for 5 years. We have supplied readings twice a year in that time, but Npower keep sending estimated bills. It's now in dispute to the tune of over £6,000. We sent a new reading last week and they don't believe us so now want to read it - the meter only serves a couple of external lights (which didn't work for a few months) so usage is very small.

A colleague receivied a bill last week for a property we had demolished over 12 months ago - bill is for Jan-March 2008!

I have just received a bill from Scottishpower for electricity charges for a property we sold 4 years go - bills are for 2006!

Bottom line is they are all useless.

Gavioli_UK

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gavioli UK
They are not "my" meters. The industry should read their meters on a regular basis and eliminate the problems.

Tesco weigh, measure and price anything I buy from them. Why should the energy industry be different?

c0113tt3 wrote: »

see what i mean hagster?

Seriously, the power companies who have a licence to print money with a very weak regularity requirement (quoted by foreign companies who have bought into the UK electricity and gas companies), have got to pay more attention to customer service. An important part of this is providing an accurate bill. The companies know they can use estimates to their advantage.

As far as the cost of meter reading, 5 different companies come down my street to read the meters of different companies. They should come at least ever 2 years. If there was only one organisation reading meters then they could come 24 months divided by 5, giving a visit every 6 months for only a slight increase in the costs at tyhe moment. The major cost in meter reading is getting the reader to and from the first and last call.

Remote reading has been available for 10 years, and if the power companies had teamed up with others who require frequent information from equipment in customers premises then the cost would have been negligible.

Cardew

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

Quote:


Remote reading has been available for 10 years, and if the power companies had teamed up with others who require frequent information from equipment in customers premises then the cost would have been negligible.

To fit new remote reading meters is an expensive exercise in terms of both equipment and labour.

None of the Utility companies are willing to have this expenditure for their customers, when those customers can move to another company the day after the remote meter is fitted.

This is one of the penalties of the deregulation of the industry

Gavioli_UK

Cardew wrote: »

To fit new remote reading meters is an expensive exercise in terms of both equipment and labour.

None of the Utility companies are willing to have this expenditure for their customers, when those customers can move to another company the day after the remote meter is fitted.

This is one of the penalties of the deregulation of the industry

There is a point that the meters, associated time swiches and cut outs belong to the distribution company for your area, so in effect they were not part of deregulation, but the regulated distributuion network.

catnap53

We have been with npower for a few years, however we have had about 3 previous other suppliers since our old Manweb and British Gas days!

It seems that each time we change we lose out. The best was when we had to pay British Gas an outstanding bill on our electricity as they had set the DD too low, then too high to recover, then too low again. Then they continued to take the DD for the gas supply for 12 months after we changed. We struggled to get it back as we weren't a customer, and even then got back much less than we should have.

I find that npower 'fixed rate' DD to be a misnomer, over 3 bills it went from 36 to 92 to 62.

We are currently almost 300 in credit for gas (before the price rise).

I really want to change quickly without losing out this time, so should I ask for the overpay to be refunded first and then change (saving nearly 500pa according to the comparison sites) which will take time, or change and then ask for the rebate, but worried about previous experience?

Thanks for any help

Zzzzz

SwanJon

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

Seriously, the power companies who have a licence to print money with a very weak regularity requirement (quoted by foreign companies who have bought into the UK electricity and gas companies), have got to pay more attention to customer service. An important part of this is providing an accurate bill. The companies know they can use estimates to their advantage.

Many meters are inside houses, and as such the meter readers can't get to the meter - how can they then provide an accurate bill? They need to estimate, and if you don't tell them it isn't accurate, they will belive it is, and continue to estimate in the same way

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

As far as the cost of meter reading, 5 different companies come down my street to read the meters of different companies. They should come at least ever 2 years. If there was only one organisation reading meters then they could come 24 months divided by 5, giving a visit every 6 months for only a slight increase in the costs at tyhe moment. The major cost in meter reading is getting the reader to and from the first and last call.

So back to a monopoly then? These companies in some cases are owned by the same parent companies as the suppliers, but not all, so they are open to coompetition. If they don't give a good service the supplier can change meter reading company.

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

Remote reading has been available for 10 years, and if the power companies had teamed up with others who require frequent information from equipment in customers premises then the cost would have been negligible.

What other companies? The electricity meter can only give you information about the electricity meter, so the water company isn't going to be interested.
As Cardew says, would you want to outlay the millions required to upgrade your customers knowing that Supplier Y who has saved money by not doing this can then undercut you?
There are over 25 million domestic electricity meters in Britain and over 21 million gas ones - you'd need 18,500 engineers working 24/7 for a year to swap them all.

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

There is a point that the meters, associated time swiches and cut outs belong to the distribution company for your area, so in effect they were not part of deregulation, but the regulated distributuion network.

The meters & associated bits were seperated out to companies variously known as Meter Operators or Meter Asset Managers (e.g. National Grid Metering as opposed to National Grid Gas). Some suppliers still use the MOP that belongs to the network owner, others have created new contracts. This is what NG was fined £41 million for.

Cardew

Gavioli_UK wrote: »

There is a point that the meters, associated time swiches and cut outs belong to the distribution company for your area, so in effect they were not part of deregulation, but the regulated distributuion network.

What is your point?

It doesn't matter who used to own them or currently(pun) owns the electrical equipment; it will still cost a huge amount of money to change the meters for ones capable of being read remotely.

Who pays?

Gavioli_UK

SwanJon wrote: »

Many meters are inside houses, and as such the meter readers can't get to the meter - how can they then provide an accurate bill? They need to estimate, and if you don't tell them it isn't accurate, they will belive it is, and continue to estimate in the same way

So back to a monopoly then? These companies in some cases are owned by the same parent companies as the suppliers, but not all, so they are open to coompetition. If they don't give a good service the supplier can change meter reading company.

What other companies? The electricity meter can only give you information about the electricity meter, so the water company isn't going to be interested.
As Cardew says, would you want to outlay the millions required to upgrade your customers knowing that Supplier Y who has saved money by not doing this can then undercut you?
There are over 25 million domestic electricity meters in Britain and over 21 million gas ones - you'd need 18,500 engineers working 24/7 for a year to swap them all.

The meters & associated bits were seperated out to companies variously known as Meter Operators or Meter Asset Managers (e.g. National Grid Metering as opposed to National Grid Gas). Some suppliers still use the MOP that belongs to the network owner, others have created new contracts. This is what NG was fined £41 million for.

I am talking about the electricity industry, and please correct me if I am wrong with the following.

1 You make more effort to read meters when customers are in.

2 One meter reading organisation would be much more efficient, and have the advantage of picking up the people not paying for electricity as they have "fallen off" or never been on the records by having to record every premise on a street. A major problem in the industry no-one will address because we all pay in "system losses".

3 Without going into detail there is equipment available that can feed all kinds of data (not just electricity consumption) back to a central point that is required from domestic and commercial premises using the distribution network. Small radio devices attached to any kind of measuring device. There are business cases which idicate the distributors may make a profit for the use of their system from others

4 The meters, time switches and cut-outs are assets of, and owned by the distribution company. Most, if not all have outsourced the provision of these to meter operators. Distribution companies have sole control of these assets, so could easily start a programme of remote reading, and lay down the rules to suppliers in connection with this accurate information.