@npowerhelp NPower are bleeding us dry on pre=payment meters

[lucyferrier2]

Hi all, I have requested British Gas to take over my electric and gas meters as i'm currently paying in excess of £50 a week alone in electric to NPower for our small 2 bedroom house. I'm a single mum of two teenagers and self-employed. Business is dead at the moment so our sole income is tax/child tax credits. I can't afford gas, in fact I only put money on my gas card when the cold is unbearable as we only use the gas for heating purposes, a couple of weeks ago I put £15.00 on the gas card that only gave us around £4.50 of gas. The bill for my gas is currently at £300.00 because i'm not putting money on the card weekly, just when we need it desperately. I'm livid that I have a bill so high for something we seldom use. There is apparantly a daily fee for having the pre-payment meter in the first place. I only requested it in the first place so I didnt have yet another large bill to pay out for and wanted to remain in charge of what we spend. As you can imagine with all of our other daily living expenses we are on an extremely tight budget and I'm finding it more and more difficult to survive. British Gas sounded very good and said they were cheaper than NPower but will they allow me to change suppliers if there's a £300 bill on my gas pre-payment meter? I'm becoming desperate! I did call NPower and said something must be wrong but they said the meter reading sound right, we dont have anything running longer than it should and I have become very strict on leaving lights on/standby etc but it's making no difference.

[rebel11]

Hi lucy

 

Welcome to CAG

 

Electricity tariffs are many times that of Gas tariffs, typically, times 5. So you should be using more gas then electricity. Because of your circumstances you should be on a Social Tariff due to your low income. You need to get rid of the meter, on to a Social Tariff. Have you got any monies outstanding on your account? O.K. you have £300 on gas.

 

Has the £300 accumulated through, like a standing charge for the pre-payment meter.

 

I think the first think to do is talk to NPower again. See what they say. Write down notes before you ring them or you could E-mail them. Be assertive.

 

http://www.npower.com/web/At_home/customer_service/Debt_management/index.htm

 

http://www.npower.com/spreading_warmth/Content/Homepage/index.htm

[lucyferrier2]

Hi, thanks for your quick reply! First I had heard of 'social tariff'. I did owe money before having the meter installed but this has since been paid back and now it's the charge that has accumulated just for having the meter in the first place. For example I had a bill in October for £250... and have recently received another for £300.. we have had maybe three days of heating in our house for the last year alone. I will call NPower again with this information although last time I demamnded to speak to managers and have someone to assess the meter etc etc, i'm not usually walked over! But they refused to budge. Thank you.

[rebel11]

Hi lucy

 

Give them a ring, lets see what they say and then we can try and formulate a plan. Pre-pay meters shouldn't get you in a debt situation, but they do.

 

Others will offer advice.

 

 

Hi, thanks for your quick reply! First I had heard of 'social tariff'. I did owe money before having the meter installed but this has since been paid back and now it's the charge that has accumulated just for having the meter in the first place. For example I had a bill in October for £250... and have recently received another for £300.. we have had maybe three days of heating in our house for the last year alone. I will call NPower again with this information although last time I demamnded to speak to managers and have someone to assess the meter etc etc, i'm not usually walked over! But they refused to budge. Thank you.

[davehsug]

It is quite possible to change suppliers & take the debt with you, although I think you'll find that every supplier will have a standing charge on Prepayment meters.

[Natstrea]

Hi Lucy, I am so sorry that I can not offer any sound advice but can entirely sympathise with your plight. I moved last July to a rented house with a key-meter. This was my first experience of pre-payment in this way and like you, I am on a very tight budget. I have grotty, old Economy 7 heating and am currently being charged approximately £40 per week through the meter. This despite the fact that I never put the water on and only have three of the five heaters operating to get the bare minimum of warmth in the main part of this small house. During the snows at the end of last year, food actually froze in the kitchen because the heat just would not bring the temp above freezing. I thought I was going to get hypothermia. I have just been sent the new tarrifs from my supplier, EON, and the day rate is about 4p pkw higher than a normal bill. The standing charge is about 30p per day. On occasion, I have run out of juice in the middle of the night. The key will give an extra £5 of energy only to deduct £1 for the privilege when I next top-up. I am brassed off to the back teeth with it all. The cost of keeping warm is putting me into debt as I am finding it impossible to pay other bills when I am constantly frightened of having no power. I see no rhyme or reason that the cost should be so much higher than a normal meter. EON's suggested tips include using as much power as possible between midnight and seven in the morning when the rate is cheapest. I would if I could but I am stumped as to what I can actually do between these hours as I work during the day and am normally asleep for most of this time. I hope you can find a way to make things better for yourself and family. You are not alone in this and perhaps with enough 'people power' something will have to be done to make this whole system fairer. Good luck. natstrea

[Surfer01]

I suppose it is still possible that the debt on the meter is still being deducted by Npower as nothing they do will surprise me. A` standing charge (SC) on a pre-payment meter probably will not be more than a £1 a day if that much, so not sure how they have come up with £300 fro a short period unless they have just added on another £50 to the original £250. I would estimate that to use gas and have heating it would probably average out at about £40 per month including SC. On your last bill it should show the SC cost. The problem being if you don't top up regular you may end up with a huge bill anyway. Are the readings estimated or actual? Npower are very bad at calculating bills and invariably make mistakes.

[MARTIN3030]

A supplier can refuse to allow you to switchif there are arrears of xxx I am not sure exactly of the threshold.I think it was around £200

Its up to the other nominated supplier whether they will accept you or not.

Not all providers charge standing charges on Gas prepayment meters.

Scottish Power and Eon are two who dont.

I actually had a thread on this myself in the past;

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?211518-EON-Scrap-standing-charge-for-prepayment-meters.

[Surfer01]

Martin have you ever known Npower to be up to date? IMHO they are the worst possible supplier that any one can have as they on more than one occasion they incorrectly calculated our bills, also sent a old lady in our block of flats who did to have a gas supply a bill for over £2000, in addition billed us for a meter situated in another block of flats and the list goes on. They still owe us a refund of £12 for a previous address but it was never forthcoming. However at another address we got paid compensation from them of nearly £150 for three different incidents! They are totally useless. We fired a guy because he was useless and made numerous mistakes and they then employed him which says it all.

[MARTIN3030]

Martin have you ever known Npower to be up to date?

 

We certainly seem to hear more about these than any other supplier here on the CAG.

[crk81]

Hi Lucy,

 

Npower gas prepayment tariff does have a standing charge on it which is 40p (due 2am each day) regardless if gas is used, if your in credit it will just come off your credit balance but if you don't have any money on the meter it will build up on the owed screen (further info below how to find out how much is owed). Also your gas unit rate is set to the same low rate throughout the year if compared to npower's standard gas tariff not much diffrent just charged dif (higher & lower unit rate on standard).

 

Is your statement based on estimated reads by anychance? as if your not topping up regular, npower wont be getting firm reads from your gas card so that balance could be incorrect. Give npower a quick call and give them a reading and ask that they send you a up to date statement.

 

Also to find out how much standing charge has built up on your meter without the gas card in the meter press the red button (A) this should come up "please wait" then show your current balance, then press the red button (A) a 2nd time and it will show an amount like "£??.?? owed", this is the amount of standing charge that has built up. The meter does a 70/30split if charges are owed so if you topup £10 & you owe emergency credit & standing charge it will take £7 straight away and leave you with £3 for gas (unless the amount is less than the £7).

 

Hope this info helps and if i can be any futher help just let me know 8)

 

C.K

[MARTIN3030]

Wow so £2.80 a week.

[crk81]

Yip, but as i say you only pay a low unit rate all year round, so in the winter time when everyone is paying a higher block unit rate on most tariff's with most suppliers, the prepayment is still at the lower rate.

[crk81]

A supplier can refuse to allow you to switchif there are arrears of xxx I am not sure exactly of the threshold.I think it was around £200

Its up to the other nominated supplier whether they will accept you or not.

Not all providers charge standing charges on Gas prepayment meters.

Scottish Power and Eon are two who dont.

I actually had a thread on this myself in the past;

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?211518-EON-Scrap-standing-charge-for-prepayment-meters.

 

Yeah £200 is the threshold, anything over that owed to the supplier and they can object to you leaving supply.

[MARTIN3030]

Yes.

Just checked mine.

Its on Eon.

If you hold the red button in the second time it scrolls through the other settings as well.

I have never understood how the 2 tariffs work if you are on a pre payment meter.

For example tariff 4- 7.26 Tariff 5 - 3.15

So I presume Tariff 5 would be the one that kicks in after using xxxx of Tariff 4.

What I cant work out is what period enables this to happen since we are not talking of a 3 month billing cycle ?

Or are we ?

[mattlamb]

Lucy, I am pretty sure that £300bill is wrong. If you put £15.00 on the gas meter, it would not have given you any gas if you truly owed £300.00

[crk81]

Hi Martin,

Example british gas 2 tier tariff is

Tier 1 applies to the first 670 kWh per quarter (or 223 kWh per month for monthly billing customers) and all subsequent consumption is charged at Tier 2.

So supose this might be worked out on a daily baisis with a prepayment meter, not 100% sure of the answer to that one.

[crk81]

Hi Matt,

Npower prepayment meter is set to give 30% of a topup for gas and 70% towards any debt owed to meter so if for example not charging for few years and £300 in standing charge was owed then it would keep taken the 70% of any credit until repaid.

[vimtoman]

hi, yes u can change supplier as long as ur debt is less than £500.00.....my friend eas similar they messed her about......she was in house for 3 weeks and they said she owes them, £1224.64.....they never took a meter reading and when she phoned them and told them she never used electric, they told her the debt was due to having the meter......npower will con you.....get rid off....i agree with crk81....my friend put in £10...and got £3.00 off credit so ye they take 70%........others companys do not......again...change from npower.....they rip offs

[vimtoman]

Yeah £200 is the threshold, anything over that owed to the supplier and they can object to you leaving supply.

if u go to npower website.....u will see it says £500...00....

[Surfer01]

The original posts are over 2 years old!

[dx100uk]

closed