NPower gas 'sculpting'

nearly_2

I received a long, dense letter from npower in response to my queries.

I managed to speed up the response by ringing the head of customer services directly. This got things moving and I got a written answer less than 24 hours later. If anyone else wants to do this some fairly simple googling can get you the necessary information.

Although the letter is long and fairly opaque there appear to be two salient points.

In the letter they claim it is standard practise for the industry to use a 'tariff year', and that when npower changes tariff rates a new 'tariff year' commences.

It is also explained that the reason for turning on and off the gas sculpting procedure was to assist with the migration to a new billing system (it's easier to migrate using the non-sculpted system), and that they recognised that because of this they recognised that a higher number of higher rated units would be consumed than would be normal and therefore they set the secondary rates lower to compensate for this.

They state that from Nov 2007 they have reverted indefinitely to a sculpted system and that in the full tariff year the 4572 units would not be exceeded but for a 12 month period across Nov 2007 this might not be the case.

I've not fully read the accompanying information sent with the letter or am sure that I fully understand the contents of the letter sent to me after just a couple of read throughs, so haven't yet decided on my next step.

c0113tt3

Yes, colonelhall that is exactly how npower work it out, and in their view its 4572, but the reality is you do actually pay more than the 4572. Do you think the current sculpt will be left untouched? with a history of changing it? which will then throw out the 4572 for 2008 to be above as well.

Cardew

Nearly,
Thanks for giving the NPower response.

Whilst their explanation makes sense - and presumably the system will be OK for the future - the fact remains that almost all of their customers will have paid considerably more(many £££s) on their bills for the convenience of NPower migrating to their new computer system.

All of those customers surely must be entitled to a refund!

It is a unannounced price increase - period.

Energywatch must surely take this matter up - If not go to the Regulator or take them to the Small Claims Court.

Terrylw1

Cheers Nearly,

I know when they migrated into the new systems they had problems where customers DD's were cancelled or changed.

In this industry when they migrate data, they have to inform the regulator. They also have to inform them of any likely areas of concern. Their migration has been taking place for several years to seperate their bus/dom accounts into 2 systems as well as get all their customers out of the various systems used in the companies Innogy Group PLC purchased.

In relation to the tariff year, thats garbage. The industry has always worked on tariff years commonly known as settlement quarters. These are just the months your quarterly bills are due.

Over the past 8 years, Npower has changed it's prices constantly and they have never restarted the tariff year on the elec side. So, I would regard that response as a lie aimed at stopping you taking it further.

There are no open investigations against Npower on the Ofgem website.

Energywatch may have had complaints before but I don't believe they would settle for "we can't change a marker in a billing system" and make customers suffer. The way they restart randomly would mean they could make you pay far higher prices.

Since these contracts have implied terms, I would agree wth Cardew. I very much don't moving the goal posts every few months would be deemed legal.

DirectDebacle

Hi all. This is my first post but I have been following this thread with much interest as I have been with npower since the mid 90's and have a record of every KWh of gas they have ever billed me for, on which dates, the high low split, the works. The way I see it is this. Sculpting or Seasonally Adjusted rates are separate from and not to be confused with the 4572 KWh high rate allowance per annum. To lump them together is confusing and npower do this for precisely that reason. In theory there is no reason why sculpting will affect the majority of gas customers as almost all will use up the allocation in a year. As long as you are not charged for more than those set units in a year it doesn't really matter in monetary terms how they apply it. Of course spreading it evenly over the year would be sensible which was the case as far as I can make out up until 1st april 2007. Remember this is the maximum amount of units they can charge you per annum at the high rate. They don't have to charge this amount if they don't want to

Now dealing with the 'tariff' year. As far as I know a year is a year, 12 months, 365 days or whatever. Usually Jan 1st to Dec 31st. Or a financial year 6th april to 5th April. Fairly simple. Seems an npower 'tariff' year is as long or short as the piece of string they decide to cut it from. Wrong. A year is a year.
Lets say their allocation of annual block units started 1/4/07. That block would have to be used by 31/3/08. A price rise (or fall) doesn't alter the block allowance or the period it falls in and neither does the sculpting. The price rise or fall merely alters the price applied to the block and the 'sculpting adjusts what proportion of the block is applied at various times of the block allowance year. As you will have guessed the key word here is year and how it is defined. Nearly all of the citizens of the U.K. know what a year is but very few know what an npower 'year' is. In fact even npower don't know that until they have adjusted the sculpting formula and then they know they start a new year. Nonsensical isn't it and all meant to confuse you and not realise how much over the top you are paying.
Lets say the block allowance started 1/4/07 and was allocated at 381 per month until 1/11/08. Thats 2667 KWh at the high tariff leaving a balance of 1905 KWh for the rest of the year. On 1/11/07 npower change the percentages at which the allowance is assigned to the remaining months. They should have only applied these revised percentages to the remaining 1905 units of the block allowance. They have no right to start a new block of allocation units. This block is industry wide and set by the regulator for a year not whatever npower decide to call a year.
It gets worse. Check your bills. My high rate units for 1/04/07 - 1/11/07 came to just a tad over 3500 KWh. That left npower 1072 KWh at the high rate for the rest of the year to 31/03/07. Lucky for them that a year is only 7months in npowerland and they could start a new count. Lucky for me that they didn't spot I only got charged 3500 KWh for their last 'year' and not the 4572 they are allowed in a 'year'. You might like to wonder why they didn't start another 'year' on 5th January 08. Wasn't there a price change then? Maybe they have but haven't told anyone yet. I am now disputing every npower bill I receive. As there is insufficient information on the bill in order to accurately calculate it and the information is not readiily available it is virtually impossible for anyone to check their bill for accuracy. So I immediately dispute mine and won't pay until they provide the necessary information to enable me to check it. Check your bills for the way it has been added up paying attention to the cu. ft conversion to KWh. you can do this with the info provided on the bill. Mine tend to be over what I make them, but maybe my calculator is set to the wrong length off year lol. Have fun.

c0113tt3

In reply to directdebacle, from what I understand of your comments, you state that we would not pay more than 4572 kwh tier 1, I believe you may have misunderstood, you do pay more than 4572 tier 1 kwh. This is not tied in with tariff years, nor is it tied it with price rises or times of price rises.

What it is tied in with, is when they turn off, switch on, change or ammend the gas sculpting system to apparently assist them in migration of billing systems. This is what effects how many tier 1 kwh units you pay which should be a max of 4572. If the gas sculpt system was left alone for 12 months, it would work out to be 4572 kwh tier 1, but because it is not left alone you are continuously at the mercy of npower , messing around with the gas sculpt system to assist in billing migration, which does make you pay more tier 1 kwh than 4572, even if you counted a year from april to march or from jan to dec. It was last ammended / switched on in dec 07, so if they left it alone till the end of nov 08 inclusive, you should only pay 4572 kwh tier 1, but if they change it, ammend it, switch on or off in the meantime to assist in billing migration, then that would effect how many tier 1 kwh you would pay which is over the 4572 kwh. So for instance, lets say they switched it off in may 2008, you would have paid the current gas sculpt from dec 07 to april 08, then from may 2008 the number of tier 1 kwh paid is RESET, and from that point would pay 1/12th per month (standard division of 4572 kwh tier 1 = 8.3%) then from july 08 they switched back on the current gas scuplt figures of roughly 1% of tier 1 (each month through summer), immediatley you have over paid because in june you should have only paid 1% of the 4572 but have paid 8.3%. This is how it works out that you over pay and that this is what happened throughout 2007 with switching on / off, and over the 4572 tier 1 kwh. This is all at a whim of when they want to assist their billing migration. So if you then calculate from dec 07 to nov 08 inclusive, based upon them switching it on / off etc.. you over pay the 4572 tier 1 kwh, but in fact it was reset to 0 from may 2008, and then reset again in july. So you would need to take 12 months from july 2008 to june 2009 which should result in a max of 4527 kwh tier 1, but again what is to stop them stopping / restarting it again to assist in billing migration time and time again !!! and better still none of us would even know until a time came when we recieved / inspected the quarter bills, because they do not inform you of when they start / stop or change it.

Basically, anyone who stays with npower until they sort the mess out / migration with billing systems is open to possible overpayment of tier 1 kwh. I suppose eventually it would be sorted out, but until then... Also, npower have not informed customers of this on marketing information, in fact they say you pay a max of 4527 tier 1 !! but yet openly admit when questioned that we have overpaid due to the migration of billing systems / gas sculpt. They also have other problems too if you read the other npower thread, such as when new price rises come into effect and how the billing system estimates useage upto and after the price rise (from my experience), misleading averages advertised for price rises (from my experience), informing customers late of price rises (from my experience) etc.... How could I ever trust this migration of billing system / gas sculpt system for them to leave it alone for the next 12 months?? and didnt inform me during 2007 what was happening....

Rumman

Good post c0113tt3. I think i'll put of switching to npower who come up the cheapest for me now.

colonelhall

Direct Debacle,

I don't know how your allocation of units during that period was only 3500. I would have thought that everybody would have been allocated the same. From the end of April to the beginning of November, I was charged 4,100 units.

However, if the period you are looking at starts 1/4/07, then check the units from 1/11/07 to 1/4/08. Under their system, you should be charged a further 3200 units.

The percentage of 4572 per month is 19.3 per month during this period. which is 77.2%.

In spite of what some are saying, my information is that sculpting existed up to 1/5/07 and then again from 1/11/07.

c0113tt3

colonelhall

There will be 2 versions of gas sculpt for / from consumers, of what has been happening over the last 12 to 15 months, and possibly over the next 12 months. This would be due to 2 different / configured billing systems, just to make it more complex lol

I suppose it should be easy for anyone to identify when a gas sculp existed in 2007, I cant say ive gone that far into detail myself, but i had over paid by over a 1000 kwh tier 1 myself. Anything I would assume that is more or less than 8.3% per month or 25% per quarter of the 4572 would inform you that a sculp has existed.

But the main point to be made is that it has been (gas sculpt / migration of billing system) going on during 2007, it has caused to pay over the 4572, they still have 2 billing systems and yet to migrate consumers, so what is there to stop them stopping / starting the current gas sculpt to assist them in 2008, and they are not forthcoming with the truth of the facts, or inform us.

Cardew

I think this subject is in danger of getting over-analysed!

The bottom line is that you should pay for no more than 4,572 primary units in any 12 month period.

By changing the basis of the sculpting(they call it seasonally adjusted weighting) NPower are getting their customers to pay for far more than the 4,572.

The explanation given to 'Nearly' by Npower is the most plausible. In effect they suspended 'sculpting' during the summer last year. So during a period where customers should have been paying for very few primary units, they were paying at the pro-rata rate of 381 units per month.(i.e. 8.3% or one twelfth of 4,572)

The above is what appears to have happened to 'DirectDebacle'.

Apart from the fact that they have overcharged all their customers, if they are allowed to get away with this scam, what is to stop them doing the same again this coming summer. It is a cast iron bet they won't suspend sculpting in the winter!!!

So Npower customers - your move next!