NPower gas 'sculpting'

Sterling

Following on from carmine’s and meggsy’s posts on the six months point, and DD’s response with a copy of the actual Energywatch complaint to Ofgem, perhaps I can quote from The Times’ article in which a “spokesman” for Ofgem is reported to have said

“We were specifically asked to investigate a six-month, rather than a 12-month period.”

As can be seen from DD’s post, the above statement is utter rubbish. Consequently, either the said Ofgem “spokesman” was misreported by The Times (which I don’t accept for one moment) or, this was a deliberate falsehood uttered by a representative of Ofgem, designed to mislead the public.

Is the apple rotten to the core?

Upwind

DirectDebacle wrote: »

npower and Ofgem are once again in the spotlight. They have been asked telling questions by The Times, Consumer Focus and Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes. All great news and ensures this fiasco will just not go away. Made my weekend.:D

Story is here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/article6897133.ece

Just wanted to say well done to DD and Sterling for all their efforts. At last some recognition of npower's blatent overcharging is being recognised and answers are being sought. Add to this the fact that ofgem are being shown up for what they are - a toothless body of quango's. Ofgem's existence is futile unless they are given more authority and the power to influence and control the energy companies rather than just paying them lip service and verbally chastising them without any real threat of punishment. Well done agin chaps - keep chasing them....................

DirectDebacle

I was wondering how much npower had gained from sculpting. They did it on three occasions. 1st Oct. 2004, 1st May, 2007, and 1st November, 2007. Assuming 2m customers were affected and they all consumed the necessary amount of gas, then for the two 'sculpting' years, figures are as follows.

1/4/2004-31/3/2005 each customer over charged by 910kWh = extra income for npower of £27,327,300.00 incl. VAT.

1/4/2007-31/3/2008 each customer overcharged by 1963kWh = extra income for npower of £178,619,259.00

Makes a grand total of £205,946,559.00.

Prices based on 1/10/2004 @2.98p high and 1.55p secondary (Diff 1.43p) I think this was a national price. Regional pricing had not then been introduced.

1/4/2007-31/3/2008. Prices based on my unit price of 6.323p high and 1.99p secondary. Diff = 4.324p. These prices vary from region to region.

This is theoretically what they could have gained although the real figure won't be too much less.

Also the date range that customers were affected is way beyond the dates of the actual changes.

For the 2004 sculpt the date range is 19/11/2003-31/9/2004. Peak overcharge date is 1/5/2004 (977).
The 2007 range is 2/5/2006-31/10/2007. Peak overcharge date is 1/3/2007 (2249).

Any customer who was with npower for a continuous period of 12 months (in some cases less) within those two date ranges would have been overcharged.

Of course the further away from the peak dates you go, the less the overcharge becomes. At the start and end dates it is almost insignificant, down to around 4kWh per annum per customer or less. Not insignificant to npower though. 1kWh extra per customer per annum is worth around £40,000 to npower at 2004 prices! Imagine what this is over all the energy suppliers who 'round up' etc to gain maybe 10-12 kWh extra per annum. Must be near £1bn.

No wonder the energy companies are not rushing in 'smart meters'.

DirectDebacle

Simon Hughes M.P. and The Times have another dig at Ofgem/npower. Hopefully the pressure will continue to build for a re-investigation.

Link to article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/consumer_affairs/article6906344.ece

gjh1936

Can anyone tell me if n-power has actually paid out?
When I first queried the excess number of higher rate units, 2 years ago, I was told "It would average out over time". Four years down the line and it still increases.
I have entered my usage of gas on a spreadsheet,from the date I joined in August 2005 to this current period, and whichever way I calculate (ie monthly weighted or pure average) I have been charged for more than 4572 units per annum.
I have claimed from n-power but there reply just "explains" why I should not get a refund!
Should I now refer to Energywatch?

DirectDebacle

Hi and welcome to the thread. You have been overcharged and it is unlikely you have been paid out. There were some pay outs agreed with Ofgem. They were very small and applied to very few of npowers customers. If you fell into this category you should have been paid out automatically.

Energywatch no longer exist and were absorbed by Consumer Focus last year. If you have read The Times articles you will see that C.F. are taking a particular interest in this matter.

I would recommend that you now make a complaint to Consumer Focus via Consumer Direct.

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

As you have complained to npower and they have not resolved the issue, this the next appropriate step. Consumer Direct may well tell you to contact the Energy Ombudsman. If they do tell them that C.F. are already looking into it. Even if C.D. still refer you to the Energy Ombudsman,it may well be that C.F. would be interested in your billing data, amongst other things. So please ask C.D. to inform C.F. of your complaint.

As far as I know the Energy Ombudsman was unwilling to deal with this type of complaint. However as the press and Consumer Focus are still probing into it there may have been a change of policy by the Ombudsman as npower would probably prefer to have the matter dealt with by them.

The energy companies set up and finance the Ombudsman service.

Let us know how you get on. It will be interesting to know if either or both of these organisations are willing to deal with your complaint. If not then you will have to follow the example of others and take your own action. That is where this thread will be of assistance.

Good luck.

Sterling

Hi gjh1936

I’m afraid I must disagree completely with the advice that DirectDebacle has given to you, insofar as I do not for one moment believe that going down the route that DD recommends will yield any compensation at all for you in the short term, if ever; and probably nothing like the level of compensation you are really entitled to, including for your time.

In my own case, I obtained £1,351.43 from Npower by taking the direct approach that is by simply writing to Npower and threatening to sue. The vast bulk of my claim was to compensate me for the time I had spent trying to figure out how and why I had been overcharged, as well as the time spent dealing with Npower’s phoney baloney excuses. After 57 days Npower paid me off in full without my having to issue a summons…scared or what? From what you say, you have already spent quite a lot of time on your matter already, and that should come into the reckoning.

Other contributors to this thread also took the direct approach include Mick Steel (who received a payout of £500 – post #1254, page 63) Hvaghela (who received a payout of £150 – post #1252, page 63) and meggsy (who received £75 – post #889, page 45), and many more. DD himself took the same course of action, although in his case he was actually obliged to start a court action; but even then, Npower paid out his claim in full rather than let the matter go to a hearing. In fact, this whole thread has been about helping people to take this direct approach; and why DD should now advise you to take a different route is quite beyond me, especially in the light of his post #61, page 4 of this thread in which he said

“I will request a refund which I expect they will refuse. I will then give them 14 days to settle or take them to the small claims court.”

Indeed, the signature to DD’s posts contains a link to his separate thread that shows exactly how he made his claim.

And, in post #422, page 22, DD said

“They have backed us into a corner leaving us few options. You can wait for Ofgem, complain to Trading Standards who now have investigative powers for this type of complaint, go to court or just forget about it. I would recommend you write to them and give them 14 days to refund you or you will take them to court. See if you get a reaction.”

For my part, may I perhaps suggest you take a look at my posts as listed below (in that order), and then do by all means come back if you would like any help to taking the matter further.

# 1327, page 67
# 1006, page 51
# 1048, page 53

If your claim is of the sort I imagine it to be, then you should be looking at a claim something very similar to my own, and I would be delighted to assist you should you wish me to do so.

DirectDebacle

gjh,

I am sure you are aware of this but for the benefit of anyone that isn’t, the following is worth bearing in mind.


Any claim that is accompanied with the threat of court action has to be based on the assumption that it will be contested and go to court, however unlikely that may be. This will ensure, as far as possible, that you have prepared your claim to the best of your ability.


Assuming differently is potentially a big mistake.


Taking a claim to court is the last resort. All other means of resolving a complaint must be explored and be seen to have been explored before applying for a summons.


The court may well ask the complainant what steps were taken to resolve the matter, particularly in respect of other tribunals. Failure to take these steps will not be looked upon favourably.


Sterlings assumption that I did not take these steps are wrong. Perhaps he is unaware of these basic steps. It would explain some aspects of his post.


You asked the right question, i.e. should I take my claim to another authority. I repeat the answer is, yes, for the reasons set out above. I do not recommend cutting corners. I do recommend following procedures and best practice.


It is now over 18months since I made these enquiries myself. At that time it was Energywatch that were unable to deal with my claim (in fact they had already referred the whole issue to Ofgem) and the Energy Ombudsman would not deal with them either. The position may have changed over that time. As a matter of course you need to make those enquiries and I would be interested to know the result of them.


I anticipate that C.D. will refer you to the Energy Ombudsman. If the Energy Ombudsman has changed their policy and will now consider these claims then I would recommend that you allow them to deal with it. If their decision or action is not to your liking then you do not have to accept it. The route to court is still open to you.

Sterling

DD, all I can say is that my basic claim was for around £96. Had I taken my claim to the Energy Ombudsman that is probably what my compensation would have amounted to, regardless of any claim for my time spent, except perhaps a purely nominal sum.

By threatening court proceedings instead, I was able to claim for my time, and thus slap another £1,255 onto my claim.

Let’s take a look at Npower’s legal position for a moment. It actually admits it charged its affected customers for more than the maximum of 4572 kilowatt hours at the high tier rate over any twelve month period affected by its billing changes in 2007.

It offered two defences. Firstly, “the tariff year”, by which it claimed to have the right to “restart the count” at will. We now know that even Ofgem didn’t accept this ridiculous concept. It wasn’t even in Npower’s terms and conditions either.

That just leaves Npower with its second defence (of “compensation”), that a reduction of its low tier units on 1st May 2007 fully compensated its customers. But this defence is just as spurious as the “the tariff year”, for a range of reasons set out many times in this thread.

When I threatened Npower with court proceedings, there was no doubt in my mind that I could demolish both of Npower’s defences if the matter went to court. I was equally certain that Npower had no wish to take the risk of losing in court, because that would open the floodgates to perhaps £100 million or much more in claims.

So for the above reasons I simply cannot see why your advice to “gjh” goes against everything else you appear to have said on this thread. For example, here is a quote from a recent post of yours.

DirectDebacle wrote: »

The interesting bit is that although my claim, which was only slightly more than Sterlings, was over a much longer period of time and the 'costs' element was a mere £75.00. My claim was based on a breach of contract and a recalculation of my bills from 1/4/03 to the time I left npower in 08/08. The bulk of my claim was therefore made up of recalculating charges at the rate applicable on 31/3/03.

So if there is some lucky and brave person out there who was with npower prior to around July 2004 and stayed with them until around April 2008 (there must be hundreds at least) then by combining Sterlings hourly expenses rate with a breach of contract claim the £2k barrier could be easily broken, which would be nice.

Any takers?

Why didn’t you mention this to “gjh”?

DirectDebacle

Sterling

gjh asked two straightforward questions which I answered as honestly and helpfully as I could. Entirely consistent with my previous posts on this thread.

You chose not to answer his questions. Instead you have embarked upon some sort of Alice in Wonderland journey into my previous posts, in an attempt to support your illogical and irrelevant inconsistency theory.

When you were preparing your claim, did you really neglect to check with Consumer Direct and the Energy Ombudsman that they were unable to deal with claims of this nature? If you didn't make these checks then you were fortunate npower chose not to contest it. Before touting your claim as a good example for others to follow, these shortcomings in case preaparation, if they exist, need to be addressed.

You are wrong to assume npower will never contest one of these claims just because they haven't so far. Unlikely as it is, the possibility still needs to be covered.

You do not know that npower will not contest one and you do not know that it won't be gjh's, should he decide to proceed. Hence it is necessary to prepare properly. The two particular checks I refer to will take no time at all and can possibly save hours of extra work and expense. A County Court judge could refuse to hear the case on the grounds that sufficient prior effort to resolve the dispute had not been made.

DD, all I can say is that my basic claim was for around £96. Had I taken my claim to the Energy Ombudsman that is probably what my compensation would have amounted to, regardless of any claim for my time spent, except perhaps a purely nominal sum.

My previous post covered this point.

I anticipate that C.D. will refer you to the Energy Ombudsman. If the Energy Ombudsman has changed their policy and will now consider these claims then I would recommend that you allow them to deal with it. If their decision or action is not to your liking then you do not have to accept it. The route to court is still open to you.

All basic stuff which you should be aware of.

Hopefully we can now return to the main business of the thread which is to give assistance to those that seek it by giving the best advice that we can.