NPower gas 'sculpting'

emh_2

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Good for you and welcome to the thread. The bills you are likely to need will be from 1/4/2003, unless you really want 9 years of bills, ask for the bills from 1/1/2003 to date.quote]

thanks very much

I might need to go back the full 9 years as I believe I have never recieved any dual fuel discounts either. Is this a common mistake on their part too?
I tried ringing them once or twice about it and they said someone from a different dept would ring me back, they never did....

DirectDebacle

Sorry I can't answer D.D./Dual fuel discounts questions for you. If not on this thread there will be someone on MSE who can help. Have a browse or post this question on the Gas & Elec board.

Part of their justification for the overcharge of the high rate units May-August 07 was that they lowered the tier 1 price AND increased their D.D. discount. check that you got that too when you get your bills.

As for call backs, very hit and miss. That is why I recommend recorded delivery letters. You can always chase these by phone. If they deny knowledge of receiving the enquiry you can quote the delivery date (and usually) the time to them.

meggsy

emh wrote: »

[I might need to go back the full 9 years as I believe I have never recieved any dual fuel discounts either. Is this a common mistake on their part too?
I tried ringing them once or twice about it and they said someone from a different dept would ring me back, they never did....

This is something I am trying to find out as well emh, we received the discount last year but not this year. I've posted here ..... http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1569801

shoopshoop

Hi again,

Regarding not getting dual fuel discounts - I complained that I had only received half of mine (it always used to be credited to my electric account) - but my electric account only had half the amount. I phoned up to complain and they explained that now it was shared between my gas and electric account - so I had to wait for my gas bill to come out (a month or two) befor seeing the other half.

shoopshoop

Forgot to say....If they're not issuing bills so frequently now then you may have longer to wait to see it??

hvaghela

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Hi,

The point you raise about the 4572 Stage 2 requires some further explanation. Smart of you to spot it.

There is an argument you would be having 'two bites of the cherry'. In Stage 1 you are claiming the the cost of the low units which were incorrectly charged at the high rate.

Now in the Stage 2 recalc you wish to make the same adjustment, that is transfer these additional high rates from the high rate total to the low rate total and then do the sums. Wouldn't you be seeking to be compensated twice for these units? First at Stage 1 and then Stage 2.

In the 'how to' I excluded your last three bills from the re-calc example. I have part explained it above but the other reason is npowers' Terms and Conditions. I ceased to be a customer of theirs at the beginning of August 08. I am not up to date with the literature they have sent out since then.

DD - I fully understand your analogy to the two bites of the cherry you describe. Thus I shall go for the single bite route.

Again this weekend I've been going thru my old npower paperwork. I came across a letter dated 29th August 2008, in it it describes 'How we calculate your bill'

I quote from it..."Our credit prices are normally based on two rates: primary and secondary. The primary rate applies to a max. of 4572 kWh (units) of gas and 728 kWh (units) of electricity that you may use throughout any continuous period of 12 months. Above this voloume, we charge at the secondary rate which is cheaper.

Primary rate gas is charged across the 12 months on a seasonally adjusted basis, with more primary units being charged in the winter months as follows:

Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb.....................................882
March.....................................................272
Apr, Oct..................................................271
May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sept..............................46
Annual total.............................................4572"

This then appeared on the back of my first bill after this date ie Oct 2008, and ALL bills after this. It was not present on any bills before this date.

It can therfore be argued by Npower that they did informed me of changes to the T&Cs and the methodology of gas calculation on the 29th August 2008.
I am now going to recalculate from the date of joining until 28.8.8 for the stage 2 claim and re draw the letter apppropriately.

To ALL current npower customers PLEASE check the back of your bills to identify the date you were notified 'How we calculate your bill'.

DirectDebacle

hvaghela wrote: »

It can therfore be argued by Npower that they did informed me of changes to the T&Cs and the methodology of gas calculation on the 29th August 2008.
I am now going to recalculate from the date of joining until 28.8.8 for the stage 2 claim and re draw the letter apppropriately.

To ALL current npower customers PLEASE check the back of your bills to identify the date you were notified 'How we calculate your bill'.

Thank you for that important information. I will add it to the 'how to' thread.

With luck this could open up a new batch of claims, additional to the original 'sculpting'.

Anyone joining npower on a two tier ' seasonally adjusted' tariff before 4/1/08 (last relevant price change) could argue for a re-calc up to 28/8/08 on a non-notification basis.

I hope you obtain the outcome I did. Brace yourself!

Sterling

hvaghela – although your post is addressed to DD, perhaps I may give an opinion. I do not consider the wording you refer to as a valid notice. I say that, firstly because valid notices should be prominent – not tucked away round the back of a bill in the small print; secondly because it gives the impression that the customer will only be billed for 4572 high tier units, which is misleading in the light of npower’s changes in 2007 to the seasonal weighting.

Edit – I misread your post. I see you had a letter too. Nevertheless, unless it indicated that it was clearly a notice of a change to the terms etc, I still believe it poses as no more than an explanation of billing.

Sterling

I have received a reply from Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of Consumer Focus to my email to him of 23rd February, quoted below from #896. I have copied his reply underneath the quote.

As you will perhaps agree, his email indicates that he is quite keen to look into this matter, but that Ofgem don’t seem so keen to answer his questions. I also was impressed by the fact that he took the trouble to reply to me in person

“23rd February 2009

To – Mr Ed Mayo, Chief Executive Consumer Focus

Dear Mr Mayo

Subject - Ofgem’s announcement on Npower’s overcharging (gas).

I refer to an entry in your blog dated 13th February concerning the above subject. I too shared your initial joy at what seemed to be good news. However, upon closer examination my joy evaporated, when I realised that Ofgem had disappointingly failed to protect the interests of all but a small minority of an estimated 2.2 million affected Npower gas customers who were overcharged by too many high rate gas units.

As you know, the problem arose because in May 2007 Npower changed from what it then called “seasonal weighting” (a seasonal bias in the percentage of high rate units charged each month) in favour of a uniform percentage being charged each month. But in November of the same year Npower then reverted back to an even more extreme form of “seasonal weighting” renaming it “gas sculpting”.

The result of these two complicated changes was that Npower deliberately charged all affected gas customers up to 2,249 more than the contractual maximum of 4,572 high rate units in any period of 12 months. That figure would equate to around a hundred pounds overcharged per customer at that level, but the average will of course be less. Furthermore, Npower failed to adequately announce to its affected customers either of these changes and the adverse cost effect they would have on a couple of million people’s gas bills.

In your blog you refer to the original complaint to Ofgem by your organisation’s predecessor Energywatch, and I assume the said complaint would have been worded in similar terms to my previous two paragraphs (albeit more fully).

Many of these 2.2 million customers (whom Ofgem has failed to protect) are vulnerable in one way or another; and can ill afford to be overcharged, and I’m sure you agree deserve to have full consumer protection, including a proper refund (of their own money) from Npower.

Accordingly, would you please let me know if you are prepared look into this matter as soon as possible. In that regard I would ask for your replies to the following

1. Would you please let me know if Energywatch’s complaint to Ofgem definitely included a specific request for Ofgem to consider the said percentage changes by Npower and the resulting overcharging it caused to an estimated 2.2 million of its gas customers?

2. If Energywatch’s complaint did not include such a request, would you now be willing to formulate a complaint to Ofgem in lieu that does?

3. If the Energywatch complaint did in fact include such a request, would you be prepared to ask Ofgem why then did this recent announcement by Ofgem ignore this central matter completely, confining itself merely to a side issue affecting a mere ten percent of the affected customers?

I hope you understand that my sole purpose in writing to you is to see that the people who are least able to complain about this matter receive any overpayments that are due to them. The more able and savvy customers have discovered various internet forum websites and have then discovered that the flimsy excuses and denials thrown at them by Npower can be overridden by persistence and threats of court action, after which Npower pays out “goodwill payments” rather than risk losing in court. It cannot be right for such an uneven state of affairs to continue, as I hope you will agree; and that the vulnerable consumers should be given their dues as well.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully” (etc)

Email from – Ed Mayo Chief Executive of Consumer Focus

18th March 2009

Ofgem’s Announcement on Npower’s overcharging

Thank you for your correspondence using my blog, it goes to show me how useful a tool it can be to gain feedback.

Firstly, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding. We have been pressing the regulator Ofgem for information relating to their investigation of npower and the basis of the decision and I had hoped to have this by now. Unfortunately this has not been the case and I don’t want to delay the response to your questions further.

Regarding the actions of Npower, I do so agree that re-setting the clock and charging people more units at the higher cost is an unacceptable practice and clearly in breach of the terms of the contract held with customers. What we are trying to establish is the extent to which consumers were over charged as a result. The defence put forward by npower suggests that the second tier of units was set at a lower price to compensate for the clock being re-set. We have yet to see evidence of this.

As regards your specific questions:

I can confirm that in the initial energywatch referral in April 2008 the issue of over charging based on the re-modelling of the tariff structure in April and November 2007 was raised. There was also specific reference to the 2.2 million consumers affected. Likewise it also complained more generally on implementing unadvertised changes in the following way:

“There is no transparency to consumers or to energywatch on how far the price cut compensated consumers for the increased allocation of higher price units and we would request Ofgem to review the methodology used by npower to verify if this detriment has been offset by the level of their price reduction.”

In response to your third question, Ofgem, in its decisions, has not ignored the price increases arising from tariff re-modelling for all gas customers on the tariff. What they say is that the price reduction in April was sufficient to make up the additional cost for the majority of Npower’s 2.2 million customers.

I think that Ofgem’s response is weak. It fails to explain its methodology of determining detriment and we have received nothing further to justify their approach. Instinctively, I share your view that £6 compensation for just 200,000 customers seems paltry, although what I do welcome is compensation to consumers, rather than the imposition of a fine (which was the other option open to Ofgem) which would go to Treasury.

When we get the evidence out of Ofgem, we will carry out a thorough assessment and if consumers have been overcharged we will argue for a fairer deal.

Thanks again for our input on this. If you do have further thoughts or contributions, then please send them to my colleague I]Edit - deleted[/I

Best wishes

Ed Mayo

---

Needles to say, I have sent an email to [Edit - deleted] as per Mr Mayo’s suggestion, consolidating a wide range of points, most of which have arisen in various places this thread since it was started plus a few of my own. I hope it will serve to reinforce DD’s own tremendous efforts and the efforts of everyone else who has written to wherever it might do some good.

As my email is around 4,400 words, I thought I would be doing this thread a disservice if I placed a copy of such a long document here, where I think it would get in the way. So I have put it on a new one-off thread if anyone is interested, with the catchy title “Npower, Ofgem and Consumer Focus”.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=20009921&posted=1#post20009921

In it, I have attempted to provide Consumer Focus with some serious bullets. I really hope they know how to fire the gun.

DirectDebacle

Sterling wrote: »

hvaghela – although your post is addressed to DD, perhaps I may give an opinion. I do not consider the wording you refer to as a valid notice. I say that, firstly because valid notices should be prominent – not tucked away round the back of a bill in the small print; secondly because it gives the impression that the customer will only be billed for 4572 high tier units, which is misleading in the light of npower’s changes in 2007 to the seasonal weighting.

I think it is valid notice or would be seen as such by a third party required to pass judgement.

The notice was originally given in a letter dated 29th August, 2008. I am assuming this is also the date of the price increase last summer. The terms and conditions require 65 working days notice be given of price increases and/or changes to the way they charge for gas. As long as this letter was received by customers within the 65 days I think it would be seen as valid notification. Reproducing some of this information on the back of bills is helpful, but as you say is not the correct form of notification that the regulations require.

If I were in the position of making my claim now I would treat the cut off point for the claim as up to and including 28/8/08. I said in an eariler post nothing is set in stone and until such time as a precedent is set we should all set out our claims as best we see them with the information available. With a bit of luck npower will test hvaghelas' claim in the County Court. Npower will lose. hvaghela will be crowing like a cockerel greeting an endless dawn, we will be happy chickens and npower running around like a headless one.