Mumsnet jury - what do you think of my electricity bill?

[GooseyLoosey]

In the past 2 years, NPower have billed me over £6000 for electicity. I was in dispute with them over this until a year ago when it all went quiet. I thought that they had agreed they had made a mistake until a month ago when they helped themselves to around £3500 from my bank account (still pretty irate over that one).

We are a family of 4. We live in a nice house not a mansion. We do not operate any powerstations as hobbies or anything similar. We did have electic heaters over one winter as the house had no other heating at the time, but apart from that have nothing unusual. Dh and I both work so there is no one in the house for half the week.

It is my contention that at least £4500 of this is wrong (we have already agreed around £1800 is as a result of 2 separate mistakes and are arguing over the balance).

When I tell NPower that this is absurd, they tell me that electricity usuage varies from household to household. So, I appeal to the jury of mumsnet to tell me whether NPower are the incompetent *** I think they are or am I sadly deluded and it is possible that I could have used this much electicity.

Is £3500 a typo?

Please god tell me it is

definitely sounds wrong to me. Argue it like mad.

can you contact which? magazine or website ? they are excellent at investigating mess ups like this.

No - no typos over numbers at all! I was hard pressed to have a civil concersation with them when I discovered this I can tell you!

Gossey we run a B&B in a large house, washing machine going 3/4 times a day sometimes likewise tumble drier in this weather plus showers lights, tv's etc and ou bill is £161 a month so yes dispute it

omg I thought our latest bill was high but when I read the meter and rang them it actually came to £105 ish, which still seems toppy to me. In approximately 6 months ours has come to about £270, 4 bed gas ch/water and hob.

this happened to a friend of ours

they had to record their meter reading every day for a month

and then, an electrical engineer came round to look at it

it was a meter problem

tbh, I would cancel your direct debit now (I'm sure most of the population wouldn't have even managed to have £3500 in their account to clear that bill anyway!!)

I would start recording your meter reading anyway

I think I would faint at anybody taking £3500 out of my bank account

Of course they are wrong, surely that would be a huge amount of power?

Is there some kind of energy watchdog/regulator you could contact

And I was moaning at Scottish Power about my £49 a month direct debit this morning

our last quarterly electricity bill was for £1,162

so, it is possible

(sorry)

Go to uswitch. Take details of your annual consumption, and also get quotes from the description of your house (eg detached, 4 beds) so see if there's a major discrepancy - you may have a dodgy meter or a neighbour stealing your electricity.

[insert story of mother's neighbour who heated their conservatory from her wiring]

Do you operate huge machinery from your home? £6k over 2 years waaaaay too much unless you live in a palace or a house with no roof.

You need EnergyWatch who are the consumer watchdogs for this sort of thing and will take up your complaint with Npower.

But sadly it is incredibly common. Energywatch reckon up to 30% of people are misbilled per year and there are some truly awful stories out there of prolonged incompetence. Roll on Smart Metering, that's what I say...

OMG, and I thought ours was high.
We have just switched (via moneysavingexpert - you get £30 cashback, though thats a drop in the ocean compared to £6k).
We were paying £100 a month, but that included a backlog, when I looked at it we used 7,200kw in the last year, and just over 7,000kw the year before. This cost us £720 last year and the estimate with the new supplier is £550.
fwiw - MSE had a high user as more than 4,500kw per year I think.
We have oil fired central heating and hot water and everything else is on the electricity - applicances (washing machine, tumble dryer, d/washer, tv's, pc's, kitchen applicances etc) plus we have underfloor heating in the conservatory (electric) and outside halogens (dunno if these use alot of power). [Only added this as comparisons might help.]

Electric heating is really expensive if you don't have storage heaters which I assume you didn't during the winter you are talking about? Could that be why? There's no gas in my building and I pay £1200 a year for electricity for my two bed flat so your bill doesn't seem impossible to me

The reason I chekced otr s this mronign is ebcasue we moved in February , gave oru openign figure then had a "reading" taken in May which was so not right that they suspended the account without telling us which we only discovered and resolved 6 weeks later. Don't think the reader even came to our house tbh let alone read and entered the figures. So now I check every time or subsequent estimates will be skewed.

I was wondering if your meter was working properly. You can get them checked - I saw it a few weeks ago on tv but don't know how you go about it. It seems very high to me too. We live in a decent sized house and use all the usual appliances and my husband is moaning that our bill was something like £275 for a quarter.

Have you tried taking meter readings and working out for yourself what you are using. Perhaps take the readings on one Sunday evening and then take it for the next Sunday evening and work out what the average summer quarter bill might be and then compare it with what you are being charged. Of course if your meter isn't working properly that is no help. Do you have any neighbours with a house very similar to yours so you could compare bills?

Good luck. I had problems with British Gas billing me and it dragged on for 2 years. Make sure you get some compo if you are in the right.

Is it an old meter? I read something recently about some meters still being in cubic feet but the company charging as if it were cubic metres, or something like that, which trebled the bill. Even having an immersion heater on 24/7 shouldn't account for such a huge bill. Definitely contact Energywatch to help get this sorted.

Thanks everyone so far, you are giving me hope. More responses the better for my ongoing war with NPower, and it is war, it really is.

Actually only reason there was enough money in my account was that money had just gone in to pay for car. I am not a millionaire

Tutter, your e-mail is the only one that has depressed me so far. Do you live in a mansion with 30 people or do you think that there might be a mistake with yours too? If not, I am wondering if mine might be right and I am the most profligate electricity user in the area. I hope not!

I have contacted engery watch who were equally gobsmacked but until I have given NPower a chance to resolve this, pretty powerless to act.

Niecie. They actually removed 2 meters a year ago to do just that. It truns out, that they are still secretly billing me for one of them (won't believe me that it is not here and have to send someone out to check). They were supposed to investigate them then but if they still think I have one of them, I don't hold much hope that they actually managed to do that and in default of an investigation, their claim is that it must have been right.

Should say, to further illustrate their incompetence, £900 of what they have agreed is a mistake should actually have been £32 and related to them recording a meter reading incorrectly.

I hate them, I really do!

I've been paying £25 a month for electricity, it's about to go up to £40 a month mainly because of a three month period a while back when I was using the tumble drier with gay abandon...We ended up owing them about £70 for that quarter.

We live in a 2 bed terraced house, so probably not very comparable to you though, but even so...

tutter, wow

sounds insane to me, threaten them with the industry ombudsman

who is this 'gay abandon'? what an odd name.

erm.... yeah fuck 'em over - see solicitor, industry ombudsman, ask for officail complaints proceedure, write everything down, no phone calls, get a generator, tell your local and national newspaper.