NPower gas 'sculpting'

DirectDebacle

BenNevis wrote: »

Sorry don’t follow your logic.

The logic is that, apart from any year starting on dates from1/3/2007-30/4/2007, the year commencing 1/5/2007 produces the next highest overcharge. You need to appreciate that the price change on 1/5/07 caused a new P.B. of 4572 per annum to commence.

Their allocation of these units and the change they made to that allocation on 1/11/07 meant that the maximum for the P.B. was reached after the Jan 4th price rise. As this price rise was,for me around 43% on the P.B. rate and probably similar for most other customers, it means that the price differential is at its highest.

Therefore all excess units would be charged at the highest possible price differential which is not the case for years beginning before 1/5/07.

Using customers anniversary dates will produce much greater savings for npower.

For example an anniversay date of 1/8/06 could be calculated as the year 1/8/06 - 31/7/07 or 1/8/07 - 31/7/08.

Using my prices these years come to a maximum overpayment of £13.00 or £36.94. If npower were decent enough to refund the two they would come to substantially less than the £82.67 produced by using a start date of 1/5/2007.

I don't believe my method is perfect but just a fairer one to that which is being used. If you can come up with something better than I would welcome it.

As has been said in posts above there is no reason why any method other than the true refund of overpayments made is not being used.

DirectDebacle

You have to use the customers start date & anniversary date which forces a cut off point for the tier 1 to have ended by. However, Npower's "reset" of the primary block actually forced a false anniversary date at 30/04/2007.

It isn't actually false according to npower. In evidence to Ofgem and in papers submitted into court and other correspondence they categorically state that each time there is a change to the P.B. rate then it is necessary to start a new one.

Therefore their system must be set that virtually all their customers will have a start date of 1/5/07 for the P.B. Only those leaving or joining after 1/5/07 would need their anniversary dates to be used.

BenNevis

Thanks for taking the trouble to explain things in post 1556 I now see the logic. So some customers will sacrifice up to 20% of their excess units by using a start date of 1/5/07 but the upside is the compensation on the remaining units increases by around 43% making their claims larger overall.

The only thing you say that puzzles me in that post is

You need to appreciate that the price change on 1/5/07 caused a new P.B. of 4572 per annum to commence.

Only if you believe in the tariff year, and I don’t think even npower does anymore. If the tariff year had been valid npower would not now be paying out £70m. Is the tariff year necessary to support your start date?:)

meggsy

Audrey Gallacher, Head of Energy at Consumer Focus said

"Initially, npower refused to engage with us on the basis that Ofgem had dealt with the matter. Only once they realised we were serious about this, did they become reasonable."

A good enough reason for not killing Consumer Focus I would have thought !

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/money/guardian/news/2010/10/9/npower-pays-back-16370m-to-millions-of-consumers-let-down-by-ofgem.html?page=1

BenNevis

DirectDebacle wrote: »

You need to appreciate that the price change on 1/5/07 caused a new P.B. of 4572 per annum to commence.

I’m sorry but I don’t get this. So why did the P.B. count of 4572 start again on 1/5/07? Seems to me that would only have happened if the tariff year had been real.

Are you saying that it was real or am I missing something?
If it was real then why is npower shelling out £70m?

DirectDebacle

BenNevis wrote: »

I’m sorry but I don’t get this. So why did the P.B. count of 4572 start again on 1/5/07? Seems to me that would only have happened if the tariff year had been real.


Read post #1557

Are you saying that it was real or am I missing something?

You are missing something. Read the thread. Numerous posts exploring, in depth, the concept of the tariff year.

If it was real then why is npower shelling out £70m?

Read the press statements issued by npower and Consumer Focus.

What is it you are pretending not to understand?:)

BenNevis

There’s no need to resort to hostility or sarcasm matey.

If you can’t answer a couple of simple questions then fair enough. Just seems to me that if you can’t then perhaps your logic is flawed.

davidgmmafan

"As has been said in posts above there is no reason why any method other than the true refund of overpayments made is not being used."

As discussed earlier (or was it another thread) if the method or the amount is flawed then this is because it is a compromize. If Consumer Focus felt, for the sake of argument, the true refund value was £90 million then they would have to decide do they dig in for a lengthy legal battle or take the offer of £70 million or so on the table now.

Given the looming demise of Consumer Focus it is probably a good job they went for option 2! Remember there will be a lot of people who knew nothing about this who are getting a payment they wouldn't otherwise have gotten.

The only contritution I can make in terms of some of the questions is I don't believe the change to sculpting was a price rise, if you just divide the 4572 by 365 there would be some low users in summer who used very little gas and thus didn't pay the 4572 over the year. The higher rate is the equivalent of a standing charge, ie it covers the fixed costs of supplying a home with gas.

The intention of the change is to ensure as many people as possible cover the fixed costs of supplying thier property and thus they are not subsidized by others. Clearly stopping and starting it in the way that they did and the tariff year concept is where it all went pear shaped very quickly.

DirectDebacle

BenNevis wrote: »

I’m sorry but I don’t get this. So why did the P.B. count of 4572 start again on 1/5/07? Seems to me that would only have happened if the tariff year had been real.

Are you saying that it was real or am I missing something?
If it was real then why is npower shelling out £70m?

So why did the P.B. count of 4572 start again on 1/5/07?

Because they changed the way the P.B. was to be applied. Thus a new 'tariff year' commenced.

Are you saying that it was real or am I missing something?

Yes.

In matters such as these I make my mind up on the evidence available.

npower have on many occasions, privately and publicly, explained their definition of the 'tariff year' and how it was applied.

I have evidence to corroborate their application of it to my gas account. My bills show that it was applied in the way they describe. My bank statements show that as a result of their application of the 'tariff year', additional and unwarranted sums were taken from my account by npower.

It would appear that there are possibly around 1.8m other witnesses in possession of similar corroborative evidence.

On the basis of the evidence available, I have therefore concluded that the 'tariff year' was 'real', as you put it.

It was so real to me that I challenged npower to justify their application of it to my gas account, before a court of law. They declined and chose to settle my dispute with them privately and in full.
npower have followed the same course of action with other customers who challenged the 'tariff year' and its detrimental effect.

If it was real then why is npower shelling out £70m?

Because it was 'real' and unjustifiable.

If you can’t answer a couple of simple questions then fair enough. Just seems to me that if you can’t then perhaps your logic is flawed.

Perhaps. No-one is perfect.

sofa-spud

davidgmmafan wrote: »

The only contritution I can make in terms of some of the questions is I don't believe the change to sculpting was a price rise, if you just divide the 4572 by 365 there would be some low users in summer who used very little gas and thus didn't pay the 4572 over the year. The higher rate is the equivalent of a standing charge, ie it covers the fixed costs of supplying a home with gas.

Which works out to 64p per day based on current std tariff rates (7.499p & 2.388p), quite a charge in my opinion. As you say, some low users might not use the full 4572/year but when they introduced the 2-tier system, thats the way it panned out. For them to introduce sculpting to catch people such as myself it had the result that I paid more for the same quantity of gas energy supplied, taking into account any unit price change. To me this has the same effect as a price rise. For high users who would likely use their full allocation each month, it would only have resulted in when they paid, rather than the amount (dependant on price changes of course).

davidgmmafan wrote: »

The intention of the change is to ensure as many people as possible cover the fixed costs of supplying thier property and thus they are not subsidized by others.

This is almost exactly what they said in one of their replies to me, to my mind proving the (detrimental) financial impact on me.

davidgmmafan wrote: »

Clearly stopping and starting it in the way that they did and the tariff year concept is where it all went pear shaped very quickly.

I dont think is is coincidental that every time they introduced their changes, it resulted in a higher PB allocation for the following months:cool:
Example being May07 when just as we approach the low summer allocation for the original weighting scheme, they decide to not only to suspend seasonal weighting, but chose a flat monthly figure higher than 5 of the 6 months it was running. Only when their 'new' weighting scheme allocation begins to show a higher monthly figure than the flat one in use did they then implement this new (& still current) weighting scheme.