Npower statement - Update

Have you had your meter read recently?

Eon (I think) just did this to us. Turns out the man had transposed a 4 and a 7 when he took the reading.

They did this ot us but not with such an extreme amount. Our 6 month bill was about £350 so they put up our payments from abnout £80 to £189. We paid this for two months just to clear what we owed them but we brought it down again afterwards ourselves via the online service.

Just check the meter readings are correct first then get on the blower to them!!! It won't be so difficult to get sorted so don't worry! x

British Gas done the same with us a while back, the estimated our meter reading. I told them the correct meter reading and they adjusted the DD. This was on top of the fact we were £96 in credit!

Thanks all.

When you look at your gas meter, should you be able to see the number at the end turning round? Also, the statement is saying that we've used more electric than gas, which has never been the case before.

Sorry if I sound a bit dim, but I really don't understand the bill ?

Have you been providing meeting readings yourself or allowing them to estimate? We allowed EDF to estimate ours for 2 years and stupidly didn't read the meter ourselves, we are stilling paying back a £1,000 bill 3 years later ....all due to a meter change and incorrect conversion.

Definitely call them and get them to explain why the bill is so high all of a sudden ...see what their explaination is and go from there.

Have they installed a new meter recently?

I recall reading about certain companies that have installed new meters & now customers are having large bills to pay.

Thanks. Typically this bill is in Mr Hole's name so they won't talk to me only him, they're fecking happy to talk to me when they want something from us though. I've rung Mr Hole at work and he's going to call me back, take down the details, then ring them.

Have just been to look at the meter again and the numbers really are going quite fast, it's gone up a significant amount since I last looked 15 mins ago.

If I was heating Windsor bloody castle 24 hours a day it shouldn't cost me that much!

E-On have just written to us to up our DD from £52 for dual fuel to nearer £70 all because we have a £20 debit on our account at the end of a very cold winter and 2 price hikes since the summer. We argued it with them and have kept it the same until the next bill and they've just cut their electricity prices by 9% and gas should follow soon. Oh, and we do a meter reading for every bill so there's no estimates happening either.

I'd argue it with them, especially as the companies are starting to cut their prices again.

We were with Eon, and we were paying about £45 by direct debit (the amount they set) - we didn't realise it wasn't enough, and when we got a statement in finally we were quite in debit and they decided to move the payment up to £157 (we had no choice). They never moved it back down though, so when we moved from them we got a cheque for nearly £800 in overpayments. Was a nice surpise and I bought a laptop with it.

There have been loads of horror stories with gas and elec recently. People reading the meter wrong, putting the amounts in as metric when its an imperial meter (or something like that) etc.

A friend of mine moved in to a new house and they tried to charge her electricity for her whole row. About £1000 a month. She complained and tried to sort it out, but they were useless. They wouldn't listen and didn't change the bill. She didn't pay them as she had no idea how much she needed to give them and they kept promising to sort it out, then one day she got a letter saying they were gonna change her to a pre-pay meter as she'd not paid her bill. Lovely people. She prefers the pre-pay, means shes only paying for her electricity and not the whole streets.

Regarding the meter reading going up a lot in 15 minutes, might be an idea to turn everything off at the socket, and then take a look to see what the meter is doing!? we had to do this once as our meter was faulty.

Hope you get it sorted Hole

J x

Is your heating on?

Ummm not to worry you, but if it's not, and the dial is still whizzing round... can you smell gas anywhere?

Often they try and put it up so you can repay what you owe by the end of a certain period, rather than recaculate it through the year.

I would take your current bill (assuming it's quarterly). Multiply the useage amount by 4 and then add on any amount outstanding. Divide this by 12 for a monthly figure (and even this will be high as we're just out of winter and useage is less in the summer), then tell them this is what you are paying and why. If you have a years bills then it works better to add them up! My parents get it a lot with Eon where if they are in debt at the end of the winter, they try and change charges so they end up overpaying in the summer, whenever Dad phones to query it, it goes up by very little!

The gas will keep going round if you gave your central hetaing on (assuming its gas CH)

My parents had the same problem with a meter reading - he wrote an 8 instead of a 0 and the bill was £500 more!

Maybe I'm dim too but I'm with npower and I struggle to understand the bill layout too. I once called to ask them to explain it and the woman was SO patronising!

The last number on your gas meter will be visibly going up, yes. That sounds normal if you have the heating on.

If you have your doubts then take readings over a 7 days period (at the same time of day).

If you have no luck with npower customer service, (they are rubbish), then ring Consumer Direct on **** 05 06. They can refer your case to a slightly less rubbish part of the customer relations dept.

Utimately any ongoing energy complaint can be referred to the Energy Ombudsman (http://www.energy-ombudsman.org.uk/) if it's been ongoing for longer than 8 weeks and you are still not satisfied with the outcome.

End of public service announcement. ?

Thanks everyone, it was the last 4 digits that were going quite fast. I've turned off the boiler now and the gch so will check it again in a bit. Even if the gas part of the bill is right (feasible) the electrickery is way way higher than the amount we've spent on gas, and that's never ever the case with our bills.

My shopping came while I was outside looking at the meter and I made the delivery man have a look at it for me, I have no idea why ?

Stafoo, that's really helpful, thank you.

?

Might be worth turning off your gas and the electric, take a reading and then another in 15 minutes. If it's still going up then you have a problem somewhere. If it's not that then when you put the electric back on go around the house turning off all lights, plug sockets and anything which uses electricity and check again. If it's still going around then that will need fixing somewhere. Do the same with the gas as well with the electricity off, if it's whizzing around with the gas turned on but you're not using it then there's a leak somewhere.

Hope you get it sorted.

Delivery man? ? what did he say?

Sorry dude, as you know I'm a bit clueless about things like this. Will hunt them down if they're ripping you off though.

When I had my last statement they tried to triple our monthly payments which I refused and told them I would much raher cancel the DD and pay the bill off in full and switch suppliers. They soon backed down and decided to up the DD by £10 a month instead. We're with EDF, we're are slightly in the red at the moment but thats because it's been a very cold winter and will soon even out in the summer when the heating gets switched off.

Did they not think that a little odd when producing the bill??? Surely someone must look at the statements before they go into envelopes?? ?