Npower, Ripping me off ?

cyber69 · 20 Sep 2013 at 14:18

I think that number I gave you is only for Mon to Fri and not weekends

BuffetSlayer · 20 Sep 2013 at 14:28

Have you got a Cannabis growing Neighbour?

Was the property empty for any length of time before you occupied it?

Who provided the closing reading to British Gas? I would suggest it erroneous.

I can foresee much headache and grief with this one, but I wish you the best of luck!

DogsBody · 20 Sep 2013 at 14:40

BuffetSlayer said:
Have you got a Cannabis growing Neighbour?

Was the property empty for any length of time before you occupied it?

Who provided the closing reading to British Gas? I would suggest it erroneous.

I can foresee much headache and grief with this one, but I wish you the best of luck!

No headache really,

The last reading to BG appears to be estimated, and judging by other information provided by OP in this thread, it has been estimated incorrectly, hence his "low" original bills from BG and "inflated" bill from Npower. OP will find his next 3 months bill approx £550 for electricity.

yer_averagejoe · 20 Sep 2013 at 14:55

So you signed up to NPower without checking their standing charge and charge per unit, because they told you it would be cheaper?

DogsBody · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:00

yer_averagejoe said:
So you signed up to NPower without checking their standing charge and charge per unit, because they told you it would be cheaper?

He did say he was "new to all this"
I know it isn't difficult but if you are completely new to energy pricing it can be quite confusing, and I can tell you from experience when setting up a new business you have much more important things to worry about.

Pestilence · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:01

Regardless of the confusion over the usage, Npower are still having an absolute laugh.

Higher standing charge, higher tariff costs and massively hiked VAT.

OP, if they promised to decrease your bills then you need to give them what for.

ping8781 · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:16

regardless of the reading issue, npower seem to have blatently lied to you about being cheaper, i'd be going back to british gas asap

Gilly · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:20

Pestilence said:
Regardless of the confusion over the usage, Npower are still having an absolute laugh.

Higher standing charge, higher tariff costs and massively hiked VAT.

OP, if they promised to decrease your bills then you need to give them what for.

ping8781 said:
regardless of the reading issue, npower seem to have blatently lied to you about being cheaper, i'd be going back to british gas asap

Agreed on both, and as NPower are ripping everyone off at the minute I would suggest doing it today.

yer_averagejoe · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:28

yup, not to mention the illegal VAT rate

edit: might be worth mentioning the high VAT rate to some regulating body

covenantuk · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:51

The lower VAT rate only applies to domestic fuel tariffs, not commercial.

2.1 Reduced-rated supplies

The reduced rate of VAT applies to supplies of fuel and power for qualifying use (see Section 3).

The following supplies are charged at the reduced rate:
fuel and power for domestic use (see paragraph 3.2)
fuel and power for charity non-business use (see paragraph 3.3)
fuel and power where the amount supplied does not exceed the small quantities de minimis limits (see paragraph 3.2), and
fuel and power partly for qualifying use and partly for other purposes, where 60 per cent or more of the supply is for qualifying use (see paragraph 3.4).

Clav · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:57

yer_averagejoe said:
yup, not to mention the illegal VAT rate

edit: might be worth mentioning the high VAT rate to some regulating body

Pretty sure business pay standard VAT on electricity. The lower charge is just for homes

e: beaten ^

=XDC=FluphyBunny · 20 Sep 2013 at 15:57

20% vat on gas and electric is the correct rate.

edit beaten by a fraction of a second.

edit beaten twice

DogsBody · 20 Sep 2013 at 16:08

shows how often I check my business bill then doesn't it

BuffetSlayer · 20 Sep 2013 at 16:27

DogsBody said:
No headache really,

The last reading to BG appears to be estimated, and judging by other information provided by OP in this thread, it has been estimated incorrectly, hence his "low" original bills from BG and "inflated" bill from Npower. OP will find his next 3 months bill approx £550 for electricity.

Ah yes but from memory he will have to prove / account for the discrepancy, and obviously British Gas customer services will be loathe to take the hit, particulalry being as he has just given them two fingers to go to npower

For example, if the outgoing tennant or letting agent provided a reading but it was innacurate, how does he prove their reading was innacurate?

Simirlarly, if the meter reading person was having a bad day and entered the number incorrectly, how is that to be proven?

How do Npower know that he hasnt been growing Cannabis in the back of his shop?

Thats kind of what I meant, and having had a similar situation to this before, sometimes the customer services are less than helpful!

WillyNelson · 20 Sep 2013 at 16:53

You BG bill is too low as the closing reading is esitmated (it clearly show this on the bill) and your vat rate is too low. Your unit price and cost of delivery from NP is far higher than with BG. That's why your bills don't seem to add up.

Your opening BG reading is actual so as long as the closing NP one is actual as well then you've paid for the correct quantity of electricity, you've just paid NP more than you would have paid BG for it.

What can you do about it? If NP really did say they could do it cheaper then I'd be looking into a case of miss-selling if I were you. Either you misunderstood, were mislead or you were simply lied to. The utilities industry is rife with it & NPower were recently fined £2million by Ofgem for just this. At the very least you should get the charges reduced to your old BG rates (not the vat bit) and released without penalty so you can switch to whoever you want to.

Pawnless Endgame · 20 Sep 2013 at 18:24

ping8781 said:
regardless of the reading issue, npower seem to have blatently lied to you about being cheaper, i'd be going back to british gas asap

Nah, I would go through uswitch. Went from British Gas to Scottish Power. They will need the meter readings, but otherwise the process was seamless.

Zenduri · 20 Sep 2013 at 18:43

DanielMMS said:
What?!? So in the space of a few days you have gone from 14516 to 151589 - 137073 KWh?! Surely there must be a decimal point in there somewhere!

Ahh the old 5 to 6 dial reading issue!

@jonnyp1993 If you want me to help you sit down and work this out and advise you whats the best course of action. Send me a Trust message. Would prefer to do it over Teamspeak if possible but happy to do it via email or whatever.

FYI i work for Eon and over my many years from phones to back office reporting (current role) These are queries i've seen, dealt, and heard of before and can help!

Zenduri · 20 Sep 2013 at 18:47

=XDC=FluphyBunny said:
20% vat on gas and electric is the correct rate.

edit beaten by a fraction of a second.

edit beaten twice

Actually if the business uses under 33.3 KWH of Elec per day / 145kwh of Gas per day, the relevant utility that's under that threshold falls into 5% vat with no Climate change levy.

Over those thresholds and yes its 20% with the CCL charge

Source: My employer

Zenduri · 20 Sep 2013 at 18:52

vanandjuanunited said:
I'm confused how this is saving
u money when the tariffs are higher.

Rather than ringing them tomorrow try today if you are that bothered
about the bill

As he's on a higher tariff i dare say he's locked in for 2 but most likely 3 years. Easily expect to see those prices if locked in for 3 years

londonbairn · 20 Sep 2013 at 18:58

I had grief whereby the previous owner submitted rather low readings on exit which would have cost me hundreds. Luckily took a picture on day 0 of the metres!