NPower gas 'sculpting'

DirectDebacle

I am going bonkers. Thought I'd have a chat with Cust. Serv at npower. I was told that seasonal weighting never changes and that the percentages for Nov 07 were 10.3
Dec 07 12.7
Jan 08 13.8
Feb 08 13.6
March 08 12.2 ?????? Whats going on.Looks like I was getting the pre Nov 07 figures quoted on here.

So I asked her what 12.2% of 4572 was and after a few seconds said 381. That elusive npower calculator again.

They are going to send me some leaflets on how to wotk out a gas bill and what the seasonal weighting figures are. I can't wait ! Bet they never arrive.

colonelhall

I have been away for a few days and am pleased to see that there are more people getting involved in this issue. I have had a letter from Energywatch saying that they are chasing Npower, but have had no reply. They are now threatening to send my case up the line to more senior managers.

I think that we need to keep the issue simple:

The sixth month period during 2007 when sculpting was suspended resulted in around 1500 higher units being added to the bill.

All customers with an account covering a year which includes this period, have been overcharged.

This needs maximum publicity, else they get away with it.

Cardew

colonelhall wrote: »

I think that we need to keep the issue simple:

The sixth month period during 2007 when sculpting was suspended resulted in around 1500 higher units being added to the bill.

All customers with an account covering a year which includes this period, have been overcharged.

This needs maximum publicity, else they get away with it.

That is really the issue and I believe it is essential to get the simple message across to everyone - you have been ripped off!!

The percentages etc quoted in this thread are all very well for us 'anoraks' but I suspect they will confuse many customers.

The message is simple. You should have been charged for 4,572 high cost units, and nearly all customers with Npower last year will have paid for far more.

RM5_2

DirectDebacle, don't hold your breath about the promised nPower leaflet. The leaflet "How to work out your gas bill" is essentially what colonellhall posted a while back, starting with

colonelhall wrote: »

Over the year we charge a maximum of 4572 KWhs on the high rate tariff.

The part before this sentence

colonelhall wrote: »

The first 4572 kwhs used are charged at the higher rate during the year, this is then divide out over the months. If there is a price increase the 4572 will start again. The information below is how we calculate our gas bills.

is not part of the leaflet and probably was added by whichever nPower rep sent the reply to colonellhall.
The leaflet then goes on to explain the whole sculpting on/off scam and should be enough evidence to get nPower crucified by Ofgem or in court.
In my bills and also in meggsy's bills I found what they charged to be consisitent with the sculpting schedule laid out in that leaflet. From 12/3 to 1/4 (19 days in march, 1 day in april, as the boundary dates count towards the previous period), you should have been chards 175 kWh at primary rate, so 281 is indeed too high. However, have a good look at the bill if the 281 units are really marked out for this period, because they will have corrected the estimated meter reading for 12th march based on your supplied meter reading and thereby changed the units charged for the period leading up to 12th march. This is legitimate. As colonellhall and Cardew have pointed out we should concentrate on the sculpting scam which is obvious from their (belatedly) published sculpting schedule.

I just spoke to Ofgem about this and they are very interested in receiving evidence for the to the "Energy Supply Markets Probe - Call for Evidence"
http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Pages/MoreIn...TMKTS/ENSUPPRO
The deadline is 30th of april, so hurry, but please focus on the sculpting scam.

DirectDebacle

I agree it should be kept simple but you can only simplify to a certain degree. It is not the 'anoraks' that need to know the percentages but every gas customer needs to know. Without the basic tools to work out a bill you have no way of knowing whether you have been charged correctly or not. If some customers cannot understand how to work out a bill then as long as they have the correct formula someone else e.g. C.A.B. can do it for them.

My point is this. As far as the percentages go it is the consensus on here that two sets have been given by npower. Those applicable up to Oct 31st 2007 and those from 1st November 2007 to present. Many have said the overcharge has only occurred due to the suspension of weighting from May 2007 until the introduction of the new weighting figures effective from 1st November 2007.

From my recent conversation with customer services and the bill I have received from them it is perfectly possible that those customers who joined npower on or after the 1st November are already being overcharged.

As in my previous post I intentionally provided them with a reading on 1st April in order to raise a bill. This bill covers the period 11th March - 1st April and 281 units at the high rate have been charged. Whichever set of percentages you apply it doesn't come to 281. I asked the customer services operator what 12.2% of 4572 was and she told me 381. This is of course wrong but it is 1/12th of 4572. Now this raises a lot more questions than answers. First is the ongoing 'how are they working it out'. The second is,' Have they gone back to a monthly flat rate?' No way of knowing on the evidence of one twenty day bill but it makes you wonder. Really what we need is npower to put in official print how they work out the bills. As far as I can tell they have not yet done this. I requested this information (recorded del.) last month and not had a reply yet.

I agree this matter needs to be widely publicised but it seems a devil of a job to get anyone interested. Watchdog brushed on it, newspapers seem more interested in doorstep mis-selling and Energywatch do not seem that interested at all. We are on here sounding off but the fact is not everybody has a p.c. and not all those that do are going to visit sites like this.

It might be an idea to go here

http://www.rwe.com/generator.aspx/rwe-npower/group-structure/language=en/id=231814/rwe-npower-contact-us.html.

It is the site of npowers HQ in Swindon. There you will find the contact email addresses and postal address for their various CEO's and directors. Contacting them or their P.A's may be a better way forward than cust. services in Peterlee. It is possible that an M.D. might give a more meaningful response than the mis-information cust. services operators are being told to give out.

RM5_2

DirectDebacle wrote: »

I am going bonkers. Thought I'd have a chat with Cust. Serv at npower. I was told that seasonal weighting never changes and that the percentages for Nov 07 were 10.3
Dec 07 12.7
Jan 08 13.8
Feb 08 13.6
March 08 12.2 ?????? Whats going on.Looks like I was getting the pre Nov 07 figures quoted on here.

So I asked her what 12.2% of 4572 was and after a few seconds said 381. That elusive npower calculator again.

They are going to send me some leaflets on how to wotk out a gas bill and what the seasonal weighting figures are. I can't wait ! Bet they never arrive.

It seems that it would be a good idea if nPower made its callcenter staff read their own leaflets, but I think this is mainly a staff training issue. You could argue that they are trying to obfuscate and delay by quoting rubbish information, but in this case I buy the !!!!-up and not the conspiracy theory and think that gross incompentence is a completely believable explanation.

DirectDebacle

RM5. I have just seen your last post. It appeared whilst I was typing mine. My bill clearly states it is for 11/03/08 - 01/04/08 and is on actual readings of 1646 and 1722, no estimates here. Thanks for the ofgem link.

RM5_2

DirectDebacle: thanks for supplying the details, from your bill it appears they sculpted march at 9% and not 5.94% as promised. You could try to find out on what basis they do that by phoning stage 3 complaints 0800 107 0394. At least the people there seem to know what they are doing.

I did receive a the scylpting leaflet in print, but it was a black&white copy of what could have been a glossy leaflet or an ad-hoc printout. Very unprofessional! Published is of course far too strong a word, as far as I know no such leaflet was ever sent out and the information is not available on their website.

I agree that getting the press interested is surprisingly difficult, the guardian wasn't really interested running the story 'again'.

Contacting the directors directly may be a good idea, as it leaves them with the choice of endorsing the scam or acting 'shocked', like in the mis-selling uncovered by the the sunday times. Given that deliberately charging more than contractually agreed may constitute fraud, they may want to think hard about this one.

Another route may be nPower's competitors, as they should be up in arms when informed that nPower, who consistently lure customers by offering the lowest quote, finance this by charging much more than quoted.

meggsy

"I agree this matter needs to be widely publicised but it seems a devil of a job to get anyone interested. Watchdog brushed on it, newspapers seem more interested in doorstep mis-selling and Energywatch do not seem that interested at all. We are on here sounding off but the fact is not everybody has a p.c. and not all those that do are going to visit sites like this".

Yes, agreed, I posted a message on The Times website item about npower doorstep mis-selling saying that a lot of people were also very interested in the 'sculpting scam' but it didn't appear live on the site !

Taffyscot

Please will someone explain to me what sculpting means in laymen terms. I have been trying to follow this thread and I am getting confused. I agree I do not know how to work my bill out at all. I thought the units shown were the units that I used but all those large multiplication and divisions gets me really confused. Sorry folks but I am a senior non anorak. All I know is that when I moved 2 months ago and npower were the existing suppliers I phoned them up and was told I could divide the 4572 quarterly, monthly or by 365 days. The more annoying thing is that whenever I do a search to try and find the cheapest supplier I still get Npower coming up trumps. I do not know how much power and gas I use as I have just moved. Taffy