NPower gas 'sculpting'

Cardew

c0113tt3 wrote: »

Finally a break through.

Of course with no admission of liability, Npower executive complaints have been informed to clear the backlog of complaints, although this maybe a smoke screen as a small claims court case is due within the next week or 2 and they may just be in damage control mode in expectance of losing the case and would be far cheaper for them to just settle the complaints.

Anyway, they offered myself £170, and my father in law £100 to settle the complaints with no admission of liability, to which we accepted and have received the cheques. The amounts included calculations and goodwill gesture for a deadlock complaint that has spanned many months. Of course they were aware that I was awaiting OFGEM / ENERGYWATCH response or successful court case (which ever was the quicker) to reclaim the money I considered to be over charged that had been proven to them.

The complaints we made were the same as this forum thread, ie over charge on tier 1 during the suspended gas sculpt during end of April 07 to end of October 2007, in which the lowered tier 2 did not compensate in our circumstances. The other complaints were that we are contracted to 4572 kwh tier 1 per year, and not tariff year (which is now referred as cycle) which can mean paying more that the 4572 kwh tier 1 per real year, in which is a breach of contract, and we had over paid on that too in our circumstances. I also raised the point that this could be anti-competative with other suppliers, as comparison sites compare the contracted 4572, to which npower may charge more than that in a real year, which would give them an unfair advantage.


Anyway good luck everyone (especially DD), I consider my complaints closed now.

Sadly, this is what I expected would happen(including with DD)

i.e. Pay off those few who have made a 'fuss' - without any admission of liability -and they will get away with the money the have taken from the millions of others who are not aware that they have been scammed or lack the ability/can't be bothered to make a claim.

If OFGEM/Energywatch let NPower get away with this exercise, it will be a disgrace!

DirectDebacle

c0113tt3 wrote: »

Anyway, they offered myself £170, and my father in law £100 to settle the complaints with no admission of liability, to which we accepted and have received the cheques. The amounts included calculations and goodwill gesture for a deadlock complaint that has spanned many months.

Congratulations and well done for sticking to your guns. The main point has been for people to get their money back and you have achieved this and received some compensation on top. I hope this encourages those that were thinking of throwing the towel in to continue with their fight.

Sadly Cardew is probably correct. There are no doubt hundreds of thousands of customers who are still blissfully unaware that they were ever overcharged in the first place. It is a shame that Martin MSE never mentioned it on one of his T.V. shows. It isn't too late for that and the amount c0113tt3 has received would, I think, make peoples ears prikk up.

My court case is still several weeks away. I think it unlikely I will hear from npower between now and then.

Cardew

DirectDebacle wrote: »

My court case is still several weeks away. I think it unlikely I will hear from npower between now and then.

DD,
I bet you a 'virtual pint':beer: that you will be made a without liability offer - probably on the 'courtroom steps' - if not before.

DirectDebacle

Cardew wrote: »

DD,
I bet you a 'virtual pint':beer: that you will be made a without liability offer - probably on the 'courtroom steps' - if not before.

Ok Cardew, you are on. If I lose, the virtual pint will only be theoretically purchased as a real sign of genuinely insincere goodwill. It must be quaffed in one within 15 seconds or an npower year, whichever is the shorter.

If I win, then we all win.

tbbowdon

Having followed this thread for some 3 months and benefited from the info, I thought I would add my experience -
I signed up to npower in Feb 2007 using energyhelpline.com. Supply started in April 2007. Supposed to be Direct Debit but npower failed to process bank info correctly so became quarterly cheque payment - a good thing as it turned out.
Reviewed gas costs in April this year and could not understand why they were so high.
First bill 17.4.07 to 6.7.07 used contract rates of 3.639/2.047 p/kWh
Second bill to 28.9.07 recalculated earlier usage at 4.412/2.492p up to 30.4.07 then 4.412/1.915p and changed the number of higher rate units they had charged to 6.7.07.
No notification of a change in tariff in April 2007 was sent to me.
Third bill to 28.12.07 used 4.412/1.915p rates
Fourth bill to 28.3.08 changed to 6.643/1.99p/kWh from 5.1.07
Npower wrote in early Jan to notify of this tariff change.
Over this period they charged 6251 higher rate units in 11 1/2 months

There were two problems with the billing -

No notification of the tariff increases in April 2007 , my "Standard terms of supply" state that they must notify within 10 days (npower at one point argued that they had 65 days under their supply licence terms but I think this is nonsense)

No notification of the changes to the higher rate charging ie sculpting off in 1.5.07 and back on 1.11.07 (as set out in the thread) in breach of the requirement to inform within 10 days of "changes which put you in a worse position" - see para headed "Changes to these agreement terms"

After phone calls and several letters to them , and their standard (but very slow)responses about the " complex issue" of seasonal weighting. I deducted £120 from my final payment to them to correct the overcharges including the excess higher rate units at the most recent differential of 4.653p + VAT plus £10 for postage,phone calls and printing.
Had an offer of £40 credit to settle in early July and refused despite threats from " Collections Direct".
npower today offered to credit the full £120 to settle as a "Goodwill Payment" due to their delay in dealing with the complaint. I have accepted but still believe that they are trying to settle with the few complainers to avoid having to go back and correct 2 million plus bills.
As Cardew said it is scandalous at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet - this needs more publicity to get more people to claim repayment because most of us don't check every utility bill in detail.
Ofgem should make npower credit all customers and give them a punitive fine which could be used to help those in fuel poverty.

Cardew

tbbowdon wrote: »

There were two problems with the billing -

No notification of the tariff increases in April 2007 , my "Standard terms of supply" state that they must notify within 10 days (npower at one point argued that they had 65 days under their supply licence terms but I think this is nonsense)

No notification of the changes to the higher rate charging ie sculpting off in 1.5.07 and back on 1.11.07 (as set out in the thread) in breach of the requirement to inform within 10 days of "changes which put you in a worse position" - see para headed "Changes to these agreement terms"

Nice post. I suspect you will be one of the 1% who have had some compensation, NPower will get away with scamming the remaining 99%!

I believe that there has been a recent change for all Utilty companies that allows them 65 working days to notify you of a price increase AFTER it has been implimented.

Whilst at first glance that might seem to be a bad thing, it actually works to your advantage.

If you decide to change from your utility company as a result of that price increase, provided you notify the company within 10 days(14?) you will not be charged at the increased rate and all your gas/electricity will be at the pre-increase rate.

So a company silly enough to wait the ful 65 working days(3 months), before notifying you, could potentially have given that customer over 3 months energy at the pre-increase price.

Even though I am on a capped rate, I got a letter from BG explaining these changes.

tbbowdon

Cardew, that is what is so annoying , npower clearly believe they can get away with tens of millions in overcharges :mad:
They were quick to bring in the "Collections Direct" people with threatening letters and phone calls even though there was an ongoing dispute ( the lady dealing with the dispute had marked it as closed after offering £40 and then going off on holiday).
At one point in my discussions with them they denied that there was an ongoing Ofgem investigation and claimed they had won court cases on the sculpting issue which I doubt.
With regard to the 65 days ,I think that the supply contract the utility company sends to its individual customers has to be amended to reflect the changes in terms which clearly BG have done in your case.( Shows the need to file all the correspondence I guess - with a note of the date received)
In my case npower also tried to say that sending a bill calculated at new tariff was satisfactory notice of a change which I do not accept in principle , and in the particular case was too late anyway ( even allowing 65 days).

epsilondraconis

Hi all, I've been with npower for 3 years or more and like everyone else, it appears I too have been overcharged.
I am in the process of switching away from npower to scottishpower - I imagine it will be finalised within the next 4 weeks.
I am trying to determine whether there is scope for me to also claw back some of the money that these rogues have taken.
Part of the reason for switching is that npower have annoyed me with the tactics they have used - I read some of this thread a couple of months ago and so knew what they had done. Essentially I just wanted to switch and forget it. I'm currently attempting to be more laid back and reduce any stress in my life, largely because I had a heart scare a couple of years ago (in my early 30s) that made me think. Anyway, I also don't believe npower should be allowed to get away with treating customers this way.
I guess I'm trying to determine whether it is worth my while writing to npower etc or whether people think it is too late for that now.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Cardew

epsilondraconis wrote: »

Hi all, I've been with npower for 3 years or more and like everyone else, it appears I too have been overcharged.
I am in the process of switching away from npower to scottishpower - I imagine it will be finalised within the next 4 weeks.
I am trying to determine whether there is scope for me to also claw back some of the money that these rogues have taken.
Part of the reason for switching is that npower have annoyed me with the tactics they have used - I read some of this thread a couple of months ago and so knew what they had done. Essentially I just wanted to switch and forget it. I'm currently attempting to be more laid back and reduce any stress in my life, largely because I had a heart scare a couple of years ago (in my early 30s) that made me think. Anyway, I also don't believe npower should be allowed to get away with treating customers this way.
I guess I'm trying to determine whether it is worth my while writing to npower etc or whether people think it is too late for that now.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Personally I would become stressed if I knew I had been 'ripped off' and did nothing about it!

It seems that the precedent for compensation has been established - except DD as yet! - so what have you got to lose.

DirectDebacle

tbbowdon wrote: »

npower today offered to credit the full £120 to settle as a "Goodwill Payment" due to their delay in dealing with the complaint. I have accepted but still believe that they are trying to settle with the few complainers to avoid having to go back and correct 2 million plus bills.

Thank you for that information and good on you for holding out. It won't be long before there is nearly as much 'goodwill' at npower as the Russians are showing towards Georgia.

This is a dishonest and disreputable company which has consistently been in denial of any wrongdoing. The fact they are refunding in full and paying compensation on top is telling me that if push comes to shove they are very uncertain that their arguments will stand up to scrutiny.

As has been said there is probably a significant majority who are still totally unaware of any overcharging. I see from Martins latest email that he has T.V. appearances coming up this week. It would be good if he could mention this especially as energy prices are a hot topic at the moment.

npower quite deliberately caused this overcharging and used the price reduction in May and the price increases in January to mask them. By and large I think this was a successful tactic for them.

epsilondraconis: I sympathise with your situation. If I were you I would write to npower showing the figures of your overcharging and requesting immediate repayment in full. If they respond with a token goodwill payment, refuse it. Once you have lodged a claim against them I think you have six years in which to recover the debt (not too sure on this). You can then wait until Ofgem or a court reach a decision and/or your health improves. You are doing the right thing looking after your health and don't let a crummy outfit like npower interfere with that. Lodge a claim and forget about it until things are clearer.