NPower gas 'sculpting'

sofa-spud

Sterling wrote: »

Secondly, because Npower deliberately failed to inform its affected customers of the 2004 change at the time, those customers had no way of knowing they were being overcharged until much later. So clearly, the six year limitation can only begin to run from when they could reasonably be expected to have discovered they had been overcharged. That may turn out to be a grey area.

Some may argue that customers could not have known until as late as 2008. Npower may attempt to argue that it was always open to customers to check their bills every twelve months, and had they done so, they could have discovered their cause of action at that point.

I hope a court (when considering this) would take into account Npower’s poor conduct, and recognise that its customers trusted Npower to treat them honestly and fairly; and that Npower deliberately breached that trust.

When I began my complaint I deliberately asked them for this information. Their reply failed to give the detail regarding the 2004 changes. I feel this made it easier for me to show they deliberately concealed this information and continued to do so. Even if they had given this when asked I still have the letter they sent anouncing the price rise on 1/10/04 which fails to give the detail of any applied weighting.

While they could have argued as you rightly suggest, their arguments so far have always been based on their assertion that it did not amount to a price increase. This is refuted by one of the replies I had from them where they explicitly said weighting was introduced 'to get more people to pay their fair share of fixed costs'

uncovered

received my letter from Npower last week. Getting a refund of £80, totally unexpected, i left NPower a couple of years ago. Anyway I have confirmed who I am and they say they will send me a letter which I need to take to a local post office who will give me my money cash over the counter. Strange way to give me money, why cant I just have a bank transfer or cheque:? anyway thanks to all that fought for this. didnt know anything about it until my letter came last week.

DirectDebacle

An npower spokesman says: “We believe that the years 2004-05 and 2007-08 are completely different cases. In 2007-08 we made two changes to the way we charged for our higher-rate units. In 2004-05 we made only one change.” He adds: “As for the question of time limits, it would be for customers to determine whether they were within the six-year time limit and whether there were any exceptions to this.”

Main difference is they didn't rake in as much as 2007 did. Practice makes perfect eh?:rotfl:

Before determining whether a time limit applies, first thing to do is find a customer who was overcharged over this period and is willing to pursue it. That is the main problem at the moment.

Hopefully The Times article may throw one up.

darkblue_2

I've just switched to nPower and they sent me a letter stating:

For electricity, the first units are charged evenly through the year (2 a day). For gas, the first units are charged as follows:
Month max. units charged at higher rate per month
Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb: 882
March: 272
April, Oct: 271
May June July Aug Sept: 46
Annual total: 4572

This does not apply to our prepayment meter tariffs and certain onlinea nd non-standard tariffs.
For more details, visit npower.com/understandingprices.

DirectDebacle

darkblue wrote: »

I've just switched to nPower and they sent me a letter stating

Month max. units charged at higher rate per month

Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb: 882
March: 272
April, Oct: 271
May June July Aug Sept: 46
Annual total: 4572


:

That is correct. Anyone joining npower on or after 1/11/2007 will not have been overcharged in the way this thread describes.

The above monthly totals are the maximum number of the higher priced units (kWh) for each month npower say will be applied to your gas account. If you are a low user of gas and do not reach the monthly limit then all your gas for that month will be charged at the higher rate.

To ensure you are charged correctly read your meter regularly, at least once a month and submit the readings to npower.

npower will bill you for a period, six months I think.

What they will do when calculating your bill is this:

Example.

Bill Period 22/10/10 - 21/4/11.

Total kWh 11200

High unit 3799 @ lots of pennies

Low units 7401 @ not many pennies.

Total = Big Bill

Now say someone goes away (relatives in Australia or whatever) for Dec and Jan and uses no gas in that period. They return, blast on the heating and the 11200kWh are used.

npower will charge the 3799 high units and not recognise that 1764 were not used in Dec & Jan. This doesn't mean they have over billed by 1764kWh it means these 1764 were charged at the high price and not the lower price.

Perhaps an extreme example but this will happen to some users and therefore it is important to keep and submit regular readings. With a price differential of say 4.5p between the two rates this example would mean the bill was £79.38 + VAT more than it should be.

darkblue_2

Thanks for the explanation, DD.

I'll make sure to give monthly readings. As it's an online tariff, I'd imagine you can do it online and so it shouldn't be a fuss.

I think most energy companies do this sort of thing, but the biggest pain is trying to get overpaid cash out of them at the end of a supply.

DirectDebacle

darkblue wrote: »

Thanks for the explanation, DD.

I'll make sure to give monthly readings. As it's an online tariff, I'd imagine you can do it online and so it shouldn't be a fuss.

I think most energy companies do this sort of thing, but the biggest pain is trying to get overpaid cash out of them at the end of a supply.

Yes and make sure you scrutinise each bill. Six monthly billing may well have been designed in part to squeeze every high unit they can.

Many customers use no gas in May-Sept and only 230Kwh (46 per month) are allocated to them.

Your bill from mid March - Mid October is likely to total more than the 772 odd kWh maximum high rate units for this period.

If you used no gas for any or all of the May-Sept months you would still be charged the high rate units for them. At most 230kWh but nevertheless this is around an extra £10.00 for npower. Possibly an extra £18m a year more for issuing less frequent bills.

Now that's real MoneySaving!

meggsy

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Yes and make sure you scrutinise each bill. Six monthly billing may well have been designed in part to squeeze every high unit they can.

Many customers use no gas in May-Sept and only 230Kwh (46 per month) are allocated to them.

Your bill from mid March - Mid October is likely to total more than the 772 odd kWh maximum high rate units for this period.

If you used no gas for any or all of the May-Sept months you would still be charged the high rate units for them. At most 230kWh but nevertheless this is around an extra £10.00 for npower. Possibly an extra £18m a year more for issuing less frequent bills.

Now that's real MoneySaving!

Well said DD ! I have been suspicious of the change to six monthly billing. In my case I switched to npower in March 2007, so received bills in June, September, December and March 2008, they applied the annual discount that first year (but overcharged of course)
since then I have twice had to 'remind' them to apply it to the account in March 09 and 10. Changing to bi-annual statements means a June and December bill now for me apparently with a recalculation of the DD in December. When I have previously asked about the annual discount, the answer they gave is that it will be applied to the a/c in March but you may not see it until June !

Edit :
The letter, which I guess is a standard one, dated 9th December 2008 says "We'll send you a statement twice a year for information"
In my case I assumed this would be September and March but this is not given in the letter. I've still received a bill in March (maybe an alarm goes off when they get to my account) then again in June and December. They obviously try to delay paying the discount by 3 months by this method, but what else is being hidden ? Maybe npower has now driven me completely :mad:

retired_cricketer

A belated thank you to DD for your 1533# reply to my questions.
I've not heard from npower yet.Do we know how far they have got with the 1.8m refunds ?
Thank you

sofa-spud

DirectDebacle wrote: »

If you used no gas for any or all of the May-Sept months you would still be charged the high rate units for them. At most 230kWh but nevertheless this is around an extra £10.00 for npower. Possibly an extra £18m a year more for issuing less frequent bills.

Now that's real MoneySaving!

I think this is happening more often than people realise, in particular for those of us that are low users, or use little or no gas in a given period(i.e. Summer as you say). The example of mine that I posted a few months ago related to low useage in April.

The simple solution as you suggest is to give them online meter readings every month. Even if your not on their 'online' tariffs you can still do this using your account number. Simple to then check each bill to see if they have grouped any of these periods into a single figure of charging on the bill, if so its likely an overcharge has occurred.

Too much trouble/inconvienience to do this?

I agree, so I am no longer a customer of theirs:D