NPower gas 'sculpting'

Sterling

I’ll tell you a tale of dreadful deceit
By a company they call npower
Which billed excess units at its high tier rate;
A unit is a kilowatt hour

Those who complained were told porky-pies
Of “tariff years” and reductions in prices.
Ofgem had the wool pulled over its eyes
By npower’s cunning devices

But some of us knew that all this was bull
And refused to accept this baloney.
And we told npower to settle in full
And that all its excuses were phoney.

We threatened to sue and go to the court
And npower caved in and paid us.
So as you will see after one moments thought
That npower had failed to persuade us

Now all of you out there who feel have been cheated
You can now see how easy a claim is
So let’s have no delay; get your claim underway
Now you all know what npower’s game is

Capistan

Sterling wrote: »

I’ll tell you a tale of dreadful deceit
By a company they call npower
Which billed excess units at its high tier rate;
A unit is a kilowatt hour

Those who complained were told porky-pies
Of “tariff years” and reductions in prices.
Ofgem had the wool pulled over its eyes
By npower’s cunning devices

But some of us knew that all this was bull
And refused to accept this baloney.
And we told npower to settle in full
And that all its excuses were phoney.

We threatened to sue and go to the court
And npower caved in and paid us.
So as you will see after one moments thought
That npower had failed to persuade us

Now all of you out there who feel have been cheated
You can now see how easy a claim is
So let’s have no delay; get your claim underway
Now you all know what npower’s game is

Very good, I thought Npower were to refumd all the other customers
they had ripped off, but I never got anything from them and they defiinately ripped me off.
I guess I can still apply for a refund.

I must see if I can a group sitting with the othe companies I intend taking to court!!:rolleyes:

DirectDebacle

At the end of June I submitted a complaint to Ofgem re the way they conducted their investigation. Part of that complaint was why they had allowed themselves to fall foul of the statutory time limit of 12 months, which prevented them from fining npower.

You will recall that Energywatch submitted their complaint to Ofgem on 7th March, 2008 and the main thrust of the complaint was the 'sculpting' on 1st May, 2007. Ofgem had almost 2 months to issue a notice which would have 'stopped the clock'. Had they done this then they would have been able to fine npower, had they so wished.

Ofgem responded to my complaint in the middle of August. In the main they failed to properly address or answer many of the points I made and completely ignored others. This was one of them.

Below is a reply I received this week from one of their senior managers on this particular point. It took several chasing emails for them to issue this response.


"Dear Mr DirectDebacle,

I am sorry that you do not appear to have had a response to your e-mail, which arrived while I was on leave.

Before opening a formal investigation, we review the available evidence in line with our enforcement guidelines. This involves clarifying the position and internal discussion. In this case, which is complex, we contacted Energywatch and asked Npower some questions. It was also not immediately clear when we would be timed out on imposing a financial penalty, and this only became apparent after we had carried out this initial review.

I understand the Government is continuing to give serious consideration to amending legislation so that in similar circumstances we have greater ability to take action."

So now we know. Or rather we don't. This vague and feeble excuse explains nothing. I have sent a further email requiring more specific information which requires a much more detailed reply. I am not hopeful of receiving one.

To give you an idea of the priority they attached to the Energywatch complaint. The first letter they wrote to npower was on 30th April, 2008, 54 days after receiving the complaint. Coincidentally, 30th April, was the very date that the statutory time limit became effective.

Makes you wonder...

Comforting to know that this letter was signed by someone on at least £130k per annum. As this is a moneysaving site it gladdens my heart to know what value for money these organisations give us.:rolleyes:

Cardew

Capistan wrote: »

Very good, I thought Npower were to refumd all the other customers
they had ripped off, but I never got anything from them and they defiinately ripped me off.
I guess I can still apply for a refund.

I must see if I can a group sitting with the othe companies I intend taking to court!!:rolleyes:

Capistan/esbo/iamesbo/windmill/reactor or whatever name you choose to use when you are banned again.

Why don't you leave this serious thread alone and post elswhere to amuse us.

DirectDebacle

Cardew wrote: »

Not content with turning the rest of of the Gas and Electricity forum into the rant forum, esbo/iamesbo/reactor(whichever name he choses to use to post) is determined to pollute the most useful thread on MSE with more of his inane incoherent ramblings.

Deja vu. Your post #802 from 13/11/08.

Cardew

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Deja vu. Your post #802 from 13/11/08.

Deja who?;)

Forgot about 'Reactor' added his name to my post!!

DirectDebacle

According to npowers definitoin of a tariff year, from 1/4/2003 - 28/8/2008 there were four 'tariff years', these being 1/4/2003 - 30/9/2004, 1/10/2004-30/4/2007,1/5/2007 - 31/10/2007 and the final one, 1/11/2007 - 28/8/2008. From this point (28/8/2008) they ceased re-starting the tariff year when changes were made, presumably because it had now been well and truly rumbled.


If they cannot charge more than 4572 a year then for these four tariff years they were entitled to charge no more than 4572*4 = 18288.


In actual fact they charged my account a total of 25873. That is 7585 more than they claim they were entitled to charge.This is over 5,000 units more than I claimed in my court case, as I used the universally accepted definition of a year as being 12 months to calculate years.


It shows three things.


1. The absurdity of the concept of a tariff year and npowers lack of understanding their own invention. Not like them to dream up something designed to raise revenue, which if it thad been properly applied, would have lowered it.

2. It tends to support my suspicions that the 'tariff year' was something invented on the 'hoof' during the summer/autumn of 2007. It was dreamed up as an ill-thought out excuse to justify the re-starting of the 4572 Primary Block, which together with changing from a flat profile to a weighted (or vice-versa) produced the overcharging.

npower, like their competitors put a lot of resources into devising tariffs. It does not seem that many of these were put into the 'tariff year' as it clearly works against them over the 5 and a1/4 years it existed, if they follow their definition.


3. Ofgems failure to understand it (though they claim they didn't accept it) gives a powerful reason as to why they should have investigated much more deeply than they did, irrespective of whether they had the power to impose sanctions on npower or not. A thorough investigation of the 'tariff year' and its' effect since its alleged introduction in 2003 should have resulted in Ofgem coming to a very different conclusion and course of action to the one they did, I would be disappointed if these facts, had they been passed to the SFO or OFT, had not been of some interest to them.

Although Ofgem state they did not accept the concept of a 'tariff year' and confirm that npower never, at any stage, defined a 'tariff year' to their customers, their investigation focused on the 1st May-31st Oct, 2007 period. It seems odd that they should pick this time period, which also happens to be a tariff year. If they did not accept a 'tariff year' then one would have thought their attention would be on the effect of the changes made from 1/5/2007-30/4/2008.

However from a claimants point of view it seems to me that whether or not Ofgem accepted a tariff year it is acceptable that a claim can be approached either by accepting a tariff year as reasonable and then pursuing a claim on that basis. This approach is probably only suitable for longstanding account holders.

For the rest then claims should be on the basis that the 'tariff year' is unacceptable and follow the usual type of claim as dealt with on this thread.


I wish I had thought of this before I made my claim. Still, better late than never and it may be of some use if there is anyone else contemplating a claim which goes back into the mists of time. Well, no further than 1/4/2003 anyway.

DirectDebacle

In an attempt to redeem their tarnished reputation, it is rumoured that npower are mending their ways.


Off the record, an npower spokesperson said that they are 'constantly looking at ways of cutting the size of customers energy bills.'


In the relentless drive for new customers npower are outflanking the competition and considering a 25% reduction in the size of bills. The spokesperson went on to say that,


"Following the popularity and success of the 'tariff year', which made years shorter or longer than usual, but for a very few customers, had negative cost implications, this new strategy is good news. In future all bills will be sent out on A5 stationary and not A4. There will be no additional cost to customers."

Upwind

DirectDebacle wrote: »

In an attempt to redeem their tarnished reputation, it is rumoured that npower are mending their ways.


Off the record, an npower spokesperson said that they are 'constantly looking at ways of cutting the size of customers energy bills.'


In the relentless drive for new customers npower are outflanking the competition and considering a 25% reduction in the size of bills. The spokesperson went on to say that,


"Following the popularity and success of the 'tariff year', which made years shorter or longer than usual, but for a very few customers, had negative cost implications, this new strategy is good news. In future all bills will be sent out on A5 stationary and not A4. There will be no additional cost to customers."

Little progress there then..................................

DirectDebacle

At the time this occurred I intended to post it in the thread but it slipped my mind as so much else was going on. I was reminded of it when copying my old npower bills recently.

It concerns the re-calculation of issued bills when they are queried by the customer. For example if an estimated bill is out by too much. There are many other reasons but overestimating usage is probably one of the main ones.

The units used as shown on the meter have to be converted into kWh and the bill is charged using the kWh as the amount of gas used. One of the elements of performing this conversion calculation is the Calorific Value. This C.V. is checked by npower, I believe monthly, and is set for the month until the next check. It does vary and can go up or down.

In July last year I received a bill for the period 11/6/08-1/7/08. The start reading was an actual reading of 1835 and the end reading was an estimate of 1854. The cost was £13.75 which I paid.

The final bill covered the period 11/6/08-4/8/08. The actual readings shown were 1835-1852. The previous bill was over estimated and I had therefore overpaid.

This bill totalled £14.79. £13.75 was deducted for the amount already paid leaving a debit balance of £1.04. As the final meter reading was lower than the estimate on the previous bill I wondered why I was showing a debit balance as it should have been in credit.

I noticed that on the previous bill the Calorific Value had been set at 38.800 and on the final bill it had been set at 39.100. This small difference had caused a credit balance to be converted into a debit balance.

I believe this is a systemic fault with npowers billing system and is probably still happening. It will show when previous bills are requested to be calculated and if the Calorific Value has altered from that on the original bill to the one used on the re-calculated bill. As this C.V. can go up or down it is possible that it works to your advantage if the C.V. has gone down on the re-calculated bill.

Be aware of it, particularly now as winter is coming and estimated bills can be wildly out.

After a small exchange with npower they offered to refund me.

This problem may not just be confined to npowers billing system and it may well be that other suppliers have the same imperfection.

Tomorrows article in The Times promises to be a real cracker. Probably the hardest hitting one yet.