NPower gas 'sculpting'

sofa-spud

DirectDebacle wrote: »

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.

Well, you, me & several others from this thread are much better off now..._party_
I think its clear they dont want any more customers to feel quite as 'loved' as we do;)

DirectDebacle wrote: »

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

I'll be so sad when I finally leave them...After all, they keep sending me letters saying they are sorry to see me go...I wonder if I'll get a Christmas card from them:p

davidgmmafan

"Perhaps your CEO should be ordering an entirely new billing system as I have evidence that it still screws up."

I believe he has...

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/business/8386530.Power_to_the_people_as_firm_opens_call_centre/

The relevent bit is found below

"of greater relevance to npower’s 6.5 million gas and electricity customers is the Germanowned company’s £200m investment in a new IT system, due to be implemented in December, which the firm claims will greatly improve its billing systems."

I know I know now everyone goes oh no £200 million I'm sure I could knock something cheaper up blue peter style. Can't have it all ways I guess.

sofa-spud

davidgmmafan wrote: »

"I believe he has...

"of greater relevance to npower’s 6.5 million gas and electricity customers is the Germanowned company’s £200m investment in a new IT system, due to be implemented in December, which the firm claims will greatly improve its billing systems."

I suppose they will be suspending the seasonal weighting(again) while the 'migrate' everyone then...

Sterling

Back in 2007/8, Npower thought it had pocketed a massive stealth profit of around £95 million, just like it had done in 2004/5 when it made an extra £20 million or thereabouts, all through overcharging its two tier gas customers, who had no idea what was going on.

In fact, Npower had become a repeat offender. And then, when Energywatch complained to Ofgem, for a brief moment the directors at Npower held their breath; that is, until Ofgem (our energy guard dog) rolled over and played dead.

However, the power of this excellent forum is that we could all exchange information which collectively benefited so many people including me, and that in turn lead to some of us complaining to the then newly formed Consumer Focus, which to my great joy, took up the challenge. This was no easy task after the Ofgem fiasco, and it has taken a long time, but here we are at last with some very good news indeed.

Very well done Consumer Focus, a seriously impressive result.

Clearly, Npower now desperately needs to save face. Having to give back £70 million over the next two months is difficult to explain away, but I have to hand it to their spin doctors; if I didn’t know the full circumstances, I would never have guessed from the press release that Npower ever did anything wrong at all.

As for Ofgem, although this £70 million payout is good news for the affected customers, it is of course devastating news for Ofgem and the credibility of Ofgem’s senior management. Ofgem can no longer hide behind the pretence that it did everything possible during the course of its investigation to oblige Npower to make restitution to its affected customers.

undaunted

:rotfl::T Justice has been done at last.

As for those of you who were hoping to see Npower actually admit that they were unscrupulous & wrong as a result you might as well look for a flying pig.

As has been said the cost is going to hurt though & no doubt shareholders will have something to say eventually if this dreadful company doesn't get it's act together

Terrylw1

An interesting concept, changing your primary block by increasing it which would make customers better off. The whole point of using more over primary is to gain balance against the high rate and then save after you reach the breakeven point!

One radio station was quoting an average of £35 per customer. If thats correct, divide £70m by 35 and see how many customers...so, how exactly was it beneficial to more than it was detrimental?

Increasing someones top block...is never beneficial to a customer...since it makes them pay more!!!

antrobus

MSE_Archna wrote: »

In April 2008, npower changed the way it bills gas customers and miscalculated.

This would be one of the reasons why I left npower.

moneysavingwannabe

I joined this thread in the early days but never got round to working out my bill. Should NPower now send me some money? Do I need to actually find my bills and do something? Well done to all on here who did take action.

DirectDebacle

Sterling wrote: »

As for Ofgem, although this £70 million payout is good news for the affected customers, it is of course devastating news for Ofgem and the credibility of Ofgem’s senior management. Ofgem can no longer hide behind the pretence that it did everything possible during the course of its investigation to oblige Npower to make restitution to its affected customers.

It is a common mis-conception that Ofgem have the power to compel energy companies to make compensation payments. They don't.

It is for this reason that Ofgem, after completing their flawed investigation into npowers 'sculpting', they negotiated with npower and reached an agreement whereby 200,000 customers would be re-imbursed an average of £6.00 each.

From a consumers point of view it is difficult to see the point of a regulator charged with consumer protection that does not have the power to order those they regulate to re-imburse customers they have overcharged.

Further it is not within the remit of Consumer Focus to conduct the investigation they did. As such they are not provided with the staff or funding to undertake such investigations and it was a brave and bold decision they took.

I cannot praise them high enough for this and they did an excellent job with limited resources.

Ofgem, on the other hand, fully equipped to conduct such investigations failed the consumer and themselves miserably. They showed themselves, on this occasion at least, to be negligent. They do have the power to fine energy companies but on this occasion failed to preserve that power. Hence the feeble negotiations with npower resulting in a mere £1.2m payout.

Only npower will know whether the restitution they are now making will be more, less or equal to what they actually received from their inaccurate billing.

On the face of it they have come out of it very well. Apart from some adverse publicity, which is the norm for them. They have faced no retribution.

All they are having to do is repay income which they were not entitled to in the first place.They are therefore suffering no loss as a consequence of their actions.

If there were a regulator with the powers to regulate properly and a willingness to use those powers then things might be different.

As I understand it Ofgem have the power to fine a company up to 10% of its turnover. In this case such a fine (had they remembered to preserve their power to fine) would not have been disproportionate. I do not know of one case where Ofgem have imposed such a fine.

The new govt. are examining quangos. As far as I know Ofgem are not on their 'hit' list but Consumer Focus are. Personally I would like to see this position reversed. The consumer protection arm of Ofgem should be amputated, transplanted on to Consumer Focus and beefed up to bionic proportions.

This would leave Ofgem free to snuggle up even closer with the energy companies, creating a market out of ever more confusing tariffs and payment methods and enable Consumer Focus to protect us from them.

Terrylw1

moneysavingwannabe wrote: »

I joined this thread in the early days but never got round to working out my bill. Should NPower now send me some money? Do I need to actually find my bills and do something? Well done to all on here who did take action.

Yes. They are sending out refunds via the PO.

However, if you moved house since they will have no hope of finding you so will depend on customers to call them.

I would also advocate people checking and working things out themselves though...otherwise you never know if the refund is correct.