NPower gas 'sculpting'

meggsy

Well done sofa-spud, I've just read the article in The Times, £2000+ for an overcharge similar to mine:eek:

(still with npower on the basis of better the devil you know than the devil you don't)

sofa-spud

meggsy wrote: »

(still with npower on the basis of better the devil you know than the devil you don't)

Thanks Meggsy, you may be interested in my recent post...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/36132645#Comment_36132645

I am currently in the process of trying to escape;)
I seem to spending too much time reading my bills:o

DirectDebacle

The Times have just broken the news that npower are to compensate 1.8 million gas customers for overcharging in 2007/8. compensation will vary and range from a minimum of £1.00 to over £100 depending on individual customers usage and time with npower. Total cost to npower is around £70m and that will hurt.

This is what this thread has been working for since early 2008 and shows what persistence and determination can achieve. Congratulations to all contributors and of course to The times and Consumer Focus.

Full story in The Times. There may well be a follow up in the Saturday edition as well.

moneysavingwannabe

Not been on for a while but story on the BBC too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11449744

DirectDebacle

Here is a link to npowers mealy mouthed press statement:


http://www.npowermediacentre.com/Press-Releases/npower-makes-special-payments-to-gas-customers-eb3.aspx

nPower

Hi

Yes, we've announced that we'll be making payments to some of our gas customers.

Most of our gas customers were better off after we made changes in 2007 but some changes were not easy to understand and we didn’t communicate them well. We’re sorry for the confusion and we're going to make some payments to put things right.

We've posted a video clip on our Brighter Energy Debate website, which shows our Retail CEO talking more about this matter. To see this just follow the link http://thebrighterenergydebate.npower.com/

Cheers

Sally

DirectDebacle

nPower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi

Yes, we've announced that we'll be making payments to some of our gas customers.

Most of our gas customers were better off after we made changes in 2007 but some changes were not easy to understand and we didn’t communicate them well. We’re sorry for the confusion and we're going to make some payments to put things right.

Cheers

Sally

Yes it is confusing isn't it?

What I find confusing is that according to npower, customers were better off by around £60 each. So in effect npower refunded £120m to their customers because they love them so much. Now npower have decided that £120m was nowhere near enough and have added another £70m (over 50%) to that amount.

I am sure the shareholders are going to share the love too.

Almost tempted to switch to npower, almost....

notbritishgas

nPower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi

Yes, we've announced that we'll be making payments to some of our gas customers.

Most of our gas customers were better off after we made changes in 2007 but some changes were not easy to understand and we didn’t communicate them well. We’re sorry for the confusion and we're going to make some payments to put things right.

We've posted a video clip on our Brighter Energy Debate website, which shows our Retail CEO talking more about this matter. To see this just follow the link http://thebrighterenergydebate.npower.com/

Cheers

Sally

So the Npower rep will still not admit that they charged a wholelot of their customers more than 4572 primary units in one year.
Rather to blame their thick customers for not understanding their changes. I think this thread proves that their customers understood the changes rather well!

davidgmmafan

To be honest its fairly obvious that people were charged more than the 4572 - that was the whole basis of the complaint (s) as I understand it. Though its before my time I believe the !!!! up was around integrating different systems, it didn't go well so they ended up bringing sculpting in, stopping it, then starting it again.

The thing I take from this is how utterly useless Ofgem is. I'm not even sure if this comes within the re-mit of Consumer Focus, but I know which organisation I wouldn't shed a tear over if it was axed - Ofgem!

I can sort of understand there being a problem with intergrating different billing systems, just look at Santander; but it was clearly handled incredibly badly by NPower and Ofgem (shocker)

sofa-spud

nPower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi
Most of our gas customers were better off after we made changes in 2007 but some changes were not easy to understand and we didn’t communicate them well. We’re sorry for the confusion and we're going to make some payments to put things right.

You didn't communicate some of them at all.

nPower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi
We've posted a video clip on our Brighter Energy Debate website, which shows our Retail CEO talking more about this matter. To see this just follow the link http://thebrighterenergydebate.npower.com/

Perhaps your CEO should be ordering an entirely new billing system as I have evidence that it still screws up. Despite being given detailed usage information you have over charged me for primary rate units again...