hey guys

well got home in a pretty good mood tonight, but i opened a letter from n-power saying i owe them £633.
not pleased at all.

whats happened is they have not taken a metre reading since i opened my account with them and they have been estimating my bill. ive been paying £25 a months when i should of been paying £42.

this has all built up now to a charge of £633. so in theory my payments a month now need to be around £100

can theyy do this to me, and is there a way i can get off paying the previous charges?

im not being tight here i dont think. if they had charge me more from the beggining then that would of been cool, and i would of paid it. but to whack me up with a massive bill, i think is just bending me right over!!

Legally they are required to read your electric meter at least once in a 2 year span. When you received your bills you have the option to ring in with your own readings.

If the charges go back longer than 2 years then contact Energywatch, number on the back of your bill. They will give you a case number and work with nPower on your behalf.
Unfortunatly you'll find nearly all energy suppliers will pull this trick. They promise you a low monthly payment, then hit you with a larger bill when they work out your consumption is higher than planned.

i thought that was the case. but the thing is they never took a reading from first opening my account.

i think i might say u can either swallow some of the charges and keep my business or il go elsewhere. british gas never messed up that bad!!!!

[quote name='sorted vti' post='417051' date='Feb 21 2007, 06:09 PM']i thought that was the case. but the thing is they never took a reading from first opening my account.

i think i might say u can either swallow some of the charges and keep my business or il go elsewhere. british gas never messed up that bad!!!![/quote]
So your first ever bill has an estimated opening reading?
If you bought the house from someone they would have used the previous customers closing read or if it was a new build the get the readings from the builder on change over.
Did you take the opening read yourself when you moved in?

Believe me BGas are worse in many more ways

i dont know how they got a reading. i was with british gas before that.
i think they must of used my closing reading from british gas.
but how have they got it so wrong? and im ****** off its been left so long to mount up such a high bill.

and i inheritad the house from my parents. and took over my mums gas bill as such when she was with bg.

I would have thought they [b]can[/b] demand that money from you, as in theory you have used that amount of electricity ?

When changing energy co's you should always submit a reading just to be on the safe side.

Hope you get it sorted

I see this everyday at work and unfortunatly there is nothing you can do about it. Written in the nPower contract, can't remember the section off the top of my head, it basically says its the customers responsibility to ensure that the billed readings are correct. All nPower have to do is read the meter once in 2 years.
They should however be able to set you up a suitable payment arrangement, they may even knock a few quid off for the inconvenience, but they don't have to.
Only advice I can give you is get it sorted sooner rather than later, or you might be seeing me

The other annoying thing is you can't change supplier whilst there is an outstanding bill.

Your monthly payment would have been calculated based on, presumably, what you told them you were likely to use or maybe even previous history of the property ( but not sure they would get / have that ). All you can do really is plead that they take the money owing over a longer period.

yeah they have already said that i can pay monthly to clear the debt.

the woman on the phone said that the someone should of come and taken a reading. which they didnt!

[quote name='sorted vti' post='417170' date='Feb 22 2007, 07:24 AM']yeah they have already said that i can pay monthly to clear the debt.

the woman on the phone said that the someone should of come and taken a reading. which they didnt![/quote]

how did they estimate the £633 without taking a reading ??

i do feel sorry for you as no one wants unexpected bills, but everytime they send an estimated reading it should be checked with the actual reading
i am with npower and they ask everytime they send the statement for me to give them an accurate reading, just by phoning it over

how long has it been being estimated for ?
winter time is heavy on electric use so when summer is here the bills should decrease a bit quicker

[quote name='Bazza' post='417324' date='Feb 22 2007, 07:03 PM']winter time is heavy on electric use so when summer is here the bills should decrease a bit quicker[/quote]
True, plus they have just announced a price drop, but they are still a tad dearer than 2 other companies.

well im sure ive given them a reading at some point. but they never took a reading when i first opened the account.

i dont really know whats going on.

[quote name='sorted vti' post='417333' date='Feb 22 2007, 07:23 PM']well im sure ive given them a reading at some point. but they never took a reading when i first opened the account.

i dont really know whats going on.[/quote]


Im working for EDF at the moment, all i can sudjest is give them an accurate reading (Although this could even increase your bill)

if you got the house off your mum then theres no chance of foul play in the readings when u moved in. All companies have to go through a data collector with the opening and closing reads so u dont get double charged.

Npower are an ok company but for *** sake NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER go to british gas, in a few years they will have feck all customers. they lost over a million last year hench the price drop and there only doing fixed price for a year so its going to shoot back up soon.

If you want mate u can ring me at work and i can talk to Npower for u. If you really want to get pulses racing go to energy watch, your more than likely to get managers taking your calls and a quick and proactive response you have a chance of getting around 25% off if there is any chance of u dropping it espically if there at fault in anyway (thats how we work anyway)

hope this helps