NPower gas 'sculpting'

judy2357

On the subject of npower, have just received letter stating my electric and gas direct debits are to be combined (a dual fuel account). Please, all you experts on npower, am I being taken for a ride again? Apparently we are going to get 2 statements a year. I would be grateful for your views.

mute_posting

judy2357 wrote: »

On the subject of npower, have just received letter stating my electric and gas direct debits are to be combined (a dual fuel account). Please, all you experts on npower, am I being taken for a ride again? Apparently we are going to get 2 statements a year. I would be grateful for your views.

2 statements a year ( is that one for each utility?!?) sounds like an ideal way for NPower to "bury bad news" and hide even more "creative accounting".

What's the betting that they aren't very well itemised?

judy2357

the letter says - "We'll send you a statement twice a year so that you can see how much energy you've used and check your payments". Our first payment will be 16th June 08. My last payments were Gas 1st May 08 and Elec 15th May. Do you think I am losing out here, seems ok to me.

DirectDebacle

Jan 07 to Apr 07 1711kwh at 4.412 and 1636 at 2.492
Apr 07 to May 07 122 kwh at 4.412 and 129 at 1.915
May to Jul 07 845 kwh at 4.412 and 65 kwh at 1.915


Now we are on Sol 10 Gas Tariff

Unit rate up to and including 4572 kwh per year 5.602p/5.880p
Unit rate over 4572 kwh per year 1.631p/1.71p

Judy above is the gas usage you posted in another thread. Comes to a total gas usage of 4508kWh for 6 months. If we double that and add a bit lets say this equals 10000kWh per annum for gas. Comes to £361.65 a year. (4572*5.88+5428*1.71) or a D/D of £30.00 per month should cover it.

Do the same calculation for your electric consumption over a year and add the two monthly amounts together. Compare to the D/D npower propose you should pay. You need to make sure the D/D is pretty close to your combined monthly cost for annual consumption in order to avoid large under/overpayments, neither of which are good. Do a comparison check as at the moment nearly 50% of your gas is charged at the high rate. You might be able to save a bit on your gas bill there.

judy2357

My gas DD is £29 and my elec DD is £35, so the monthly payment they propose is £64. I think I may be able to reduce this shortly as I think I am in credit but Im going to wait until the £80 payment goes into my fuel account which I think is in July. Thanks for your help

DirectDebacle

npower in the news http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/consumer_affairs/article3994954.ece

and here http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/consumer_affairs/article3992766.ece

and here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3994897.ece

oscar_merkx

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Oscar are you sure of your figures? £80.00 extra over for the period you quote sounds a lot even for npower. The overcharging we are discussing in this thread is normally over a year. I would be interested to know the figures. Have you calculated them from April 07 to April 08? Have you paid this bill you are disputing? I would make sure of the figures and if you are correct you should phone npower and immediately put the bill into dispute and make sure you get a complaint no. from them. Then follow it up in writing. Keep copies of your letters and make a note of the person you speak to, the time and date and a brief record of what was said.

Hi ya

I will reply via PM.

Cheers

Oscar

c0113tt3

With thanks to DirectDebacle:

THE TIMES NEWSPAPER 24/05/08

Regulator investigates £50m gas overcharging claims against npower
Mark Atherton

Millions of consumers may have been overcharged by at least £25 on their gas bills by one of the biggest energy companies, The Times has learnt.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, is investigating claims that up to 2.2 million customers of npower may have been billed too much for gas usage. Energywatch, the energy watchdog, believes that excess charges could total more than £50 million.

The problem has come to light after readers of The Times uncovered apparent flaws in npower’s billing systems and alerted the watchdog, which referred the matter to Ofgem.

Energywatch is urging all npower’s gas customers to check their bills for the past 12 months. A spokesman said: “We think up to 2.2 million npower customers could have suffered from the same problem that Times readers have identified. If we are proved correct we want to know what the company will be doing to compensate those who have lost out.”
Related Links


The problem centres on how many units of gas npower is entitled to charge customers each year at the higher of its two rates. In literature and on its website, the company states that the higher charge applies to a maximum of 4,572 units per annum — after which customers pay at a lower rate.

However, the company claims this figure refers to a “tariff year”, not a calendar year. In 2007, npower’s “tariff year” lasted only seven months — from April to November, when the tariff was altered — meaning that many customers ended up paying significantly more than 4,572 units at the higher rate over the course of the year.

Consumers are already facing sharply higher energy costs. Since January 2006 the average annual household energy bill has risen from £735 to £1,048, according to uSwitch, the price-comparison website. The increase for npower customers has been even steeper, from £671 to £1,056.

Since the start of 2006 npower’s gas customers have suffered no fewer than four price increases. In January 2006 npower put up prices by 13.7 per cent, and followed this up with further rises of 15 per cent in March and 17.2 per cent in October.

There was a 16 per cent cut in 2007 but this was more than wiped out by a further 17.2 per cent rise in January 2008. A typical npower gas customer now faces an annual bill of £631, compared with £466 at the start of 2006.

Domestic energy bills could rise by a further 25 per cent this year as the wholesale cost of gas surges higher.

MPs on the Business and Enterprise Select Committee have been investigating competition in the UK power market. On Tuesday, in evidence to the committee, Allan Asher, the chief executive of Energywatch, accused the big six energy suppliers of being bloated, inefficient, and leaving consumers to “get it in the neck”.

The allegation of overcharging also follows accusations against npower of mis-selling. This month, it dismissed six employees after revelations that its door-to-door sales staff were lying to customers to gain new business.

The customers who approached The Times to complain of being overcharged say that a year should mean a year. David White, 67, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, said: “My contract, which I took out in January 2007, stated I would be charged 4,572 units a year at the higher price and the rest at the lower rate. But after 11 months I had been charged 5,939 units at the higher rate, meaning that I was overcharged by £41.

Andrew Beck, of Teignmouth, Devon, said that he had decided to take legal action against the company. Mr Beck, 55, said: “I have filed papers with my local court alleging breach of contract by npower. In the 12 months to April 2008 I was charged in excess of 6,500 units at the higher rate, resulting in an estimated overcharge of £120. I suspect that many of npower’s customers will have suffered from the same problem. If each annual bill was just £50 too high and npower had two million gas customers, that would be a total overcharge of £100 million.”

An npower spokesman said: “What we promise is that we won’t charge gas customers more than 4,572 units at the higher rate in a tariff year, which is not always the same as a calendar year. In our short tariff year of seven months from April to November 2007 we didn’t charge anyone more than 4,572 units at the higher price, but over a full 12 months, we did.

“This was a one-off situation — between April and November 2007 we changed our normal billing method as we brought different sets of customers on to one system. We suspended our seasonal weighting, which charges more units at the higher rate in the winter and fewer in the summer. This resulted in a number of people being charged more than 4,572 units at the higher rate in the year April 2007 to April 2008 but they should take into account that we reduced our gas prices by 20 per cent in April 2007.”

An Ofgem spokesman said: “We are asking npower questions relating to suspected inaccurate billing.” If Ofgem found that npower had breached the terms of its supply licence it could impose a fine of up to 10 per cent of the relevant subsidiary’s turnover and require it to amend its behaviour

DirectDebacle

Way back in a previous post I mentioned the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, 2008. These new regulations take effect from Monday 26th May and replace the current UTCCR. These new regulations are heavily beefed up in favour of the consumer.

Two of the ways that are relevant to this thread are:

1. Trading regulations (ie contract, terms and conditions etc) not only have to be fair in what they say that also have to be fair in what they don't say. In other words if important information is omitted then that is a breach just as much as if misleading information were included. Can anyone think of anything that perhaps should be in npowers T&Cs that isn't? Err give me a 'year' and I might be able to.

2. The next bit of good news is that under the old regs particularly with the 'sculpting' thing it was a problem to persuade anyone to investigate it. Not under the new ones. Trading Standards are now empowered to investigate exactly the sort of complaint we have been trying to get heard and have the power to prosecute if they so wish.

I would recommend you all complain in the strongest possible terms to your local Trading Standards as soon as possible. For a national company like npower with depts in various parts of the country your local trading standards office will forward complaints to the relevant office. So if you use one of the addresses in the N.E. on the back of the bill eventually all complaints should go to that local T.S. office to investigate. They will probably be quite keen to try out a new bit of legislation particularly on this scale.

Or here:

Durham County Council
Trading Standards Service
Environment
County Hall
Durham
County Durham
DH1 5UB


t: 0191 383 3589
f: 0191 383 4234
e: [EMAIL="tradingstandards@durham.gov.uk"]tradingstandards@durham.gov.uk[/EMAIL]
w: http://www.durham.gov.uk/

Notes: Consumer Advice: 0845 330 3313.

Cardew

I find it quite extraordinary that NPower are now trying to somehow 'legitimise' the term 'Tariff Year' and imply(but not state) that this term is in their T & Cs and that customers should have been aware of the implications.

At least the issue is now clear cut, namely - 'can NPower retrospectively change the definition of a year and make it 7 months, without telling their customers in advance.'

I am simply amazed that NPower thought that they could get away with such an scam; and even more amazed that their PR department couldn't think up a better excuse than a 'tariff year'

Severn Trent were fined a huge amount - many £millions - for a relatively minor 'technical' offence and thus their prices were increased costing customers a couple of pounds(which was repaid)

That offence was trivial in comparison to this major issue, which is a blatant(and successful!) attempt by NPower to overcharge all of their customers a lot of money. Fraud is surely not too strong a term.

Let us hope that Ofgem take the same robust attitude as ofwat - the water Regulator.