NPower gas 'sculpting'

savers_united

Direct Debacle is your man, he went through the process with me and I ended up getting a cheque back from Npower for £50.
But you must get your figures and dates right if you want to claim, spend time doing this and you will be rewarded.

Cardew

shoopshoop wrote: »

It's even worse if I tot up 15/1/07-4/1/08 - it's 6111 which is 1539 over.

That is what I will concentrate on now!

Thanks

Bearing in mind that in January they are charging for over 800kWh a month, so in the 11 days from 04/01/08 to 15/01/08 they will have charged for another 250+ tier 1 units so you are at about 1,800 over the 4572.

Direct Debacle will hopefully advise soon.

shoopshoop

Thanks savers united, That gives me hope.

I'm kind of tied by my bill dates at the moment - which is why they're not all necessarily exactly 12 months. Is it OK to included an argument along the lines of

"they are charging for over 800kWh a month, so in the 11 days from 04/01/08 to 15/01/08 they will have charged for another 250+ tier 1 units"
(quote Cardrew's post)

or is it best to stick to the known figures?

Thanks

shoopshoop

An update....

I have put some figures in a spreadsheet and come up with an approximate overcharge (£40 ish). I'd appreciate someone with a bit more know-how giving it the once over.

Direct Debacle, would you be able to help?

Thanks

shoopshoop

Just been trying to fathom out how to attach attachments and found I'm not allowed to, so I guess I need to ask the administrators. Would that be through [EMAIL="webmaster@moneysavingexpert.com"]webmaster@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL]?

Also I couldn't find Direct Debacle on the Members List

?

Cardew

DirectDebacle (Note: one word) visits MSE from time to time and I am sure he will look at this thread as it is his baby.

You can send him a Private Message by clicking on his name.

alleycat`

I Imagine they have a picture of DirectDebacle on the dart board at npower head office.

The man power and goodwill payments (plus kicking them in "the times") probably means he won't ever get a Christmas card again :rotfl:

DirectDebacle

shoopshoop wrote: »

An update....

I have put some figures in a spreadsheet and come up with an approximate overcharge (£40 ish). I'd appreciate someone with a bit more know-how giving it the once over.

Direct Debacle, would you be able to help?

Thanks

Hi, Thanks for your posts.

First don't get too hung up on the spreadsheet. It will check if npower bills are correct but not to the penny, so use it as a useful guide. Second it is really meant to enable you to work out the charges for parts of months e.g your bill 29/11/07-15/1/08. Use to calculate what you should have paid in Nov and Jan and the amount of high units they should have charged. Whole months are known. In this example Dec is 882.

As far as 4572 high rate units per annum goes it means exactly that so you have to deal with whole years. I have used 1st April-31st March as the year for calculating high rate units. The reason is the two tier system was introduced on 1st April, 2003 so the first year would have been from then to 31st March, 2004. This was charged at a flat rate of 381 per month and no overcharging would have occurred (but check if you with npower from then).
Overcharging would have occurred for the year 1/4/04-31/03/05. They intoduced the weighting on 1/10/04 which caused this. The weighting continued from then through to 30/4/07 when it was changed to a flat rate of 381 per month for May-Oct 07. Nov. 07 a more aggressive weighting was introduced and this would have caused the 4572 per annum to be exceeded by the end of Dec. 07.(1/4/07-31/12/07= more than 4572). Don't forget the price changes that occurred on 30/4/07 and 4/1/08.

Calculate the high units you should have been charged from 1/4/07-31/3/08.
noting price changes/sculpting changes and compare to what is on your bills.
If you have a problem post all bills covering 1/4/07-31/3/08 on here and they can be gone through.

Your claim should be for what they owe you, an element of compensation to reflect time and effort in making the claim and if you wish to go as far as I did, a recalculation of all gas charges at the price in force when you joined npower. They were in continuous breach of contract.

Good luck and I will follow your claim and help if I can.

Cardew

Welcome back DD - we were counting on you!!!!

DirectDebacle

Cardew wrote: »

Welcome back DD - we were counting on you!!!!

Oh dear, I'm not that reliable, unfortunately.

Shoopshoop has exposed a flaw in my spreadsheet which might be confusing him. It doesn't account for bills which start and end in the same month, which is showing a discrepency for the bills 1/1/06-11/106 and 19/8/08-28/8/08.

These have to be calculated separately as follows.

Jan 06 = 13.8% (as per table)

Bill is for 10 days. Therefore high units to be charged are 4572*13.8/100 = 630.396. This is the total for January. Therefore 10 days high units are:

630.396/31*10 = 203.527 round up to 204kwh high units. Same principle for the 8/08 bill using appropriate % and no. of days.

Not exactly as on the bill but very close. Sorry to mess you about Shoopshoop. npower won't quibble over the odd unit here or there. Their main concern is to keep it out of court and pay you off with as little as they think they can get you to accept. Work out what you were overcharged as accurately as you can. Do not accept goodwill payments. Accept what they owe you AND a goodwill payment. Stick to your guns. I suspect if you used sufficient gas from 1/4/07-31/3/08 overcharge should be at least £70 and you want extra for the deceit and your inconvenience of exposing it.