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.

Thanks very much both.

No Sagger, I wasn't. NPower say they will make a BACs tranfser of money today otherwise I will be on to my bank.

Kiskidee - I can do this when I get home from work tonight. Are you involved in the electricity industry in some way?

On the last bill I got, there were 2 meter numbers. One reflects the number on the meter in the meter box and the other is a number on one of the meters that was taken away from the property in July 2006.

I worked for a while, a while ago, for a large energy company. Mostly doing new installations of meters but quite a few billing queries also came my way.

You should of course only be billed for one meter at a time if only one meter is installed in your property. It may be that they leave the details of the previous meter on the bill (doubt it) but see if they are estimating readings for 2 meters or one. Should only be one.

The MPAN no. I mentioned is about 13 digits long, no breaks in it and will start like this: 12000 then more unique digits. (12000 i believe only apply to MPANs in London) other areas may be 17000 or 19000.

Not to the same extent - fortunately, but when we moved here 3 years ago we kept receiving bills for people who must have loved here years ago, not the people who we bought from.
I eventually opened one and it was a bill for £1800.
So I called them, think it was British Gas, and explained it all to them. Gave them our details (we didn't even use them as suppliers) and I presume it was all sorted.

Now we are getting bills from them again, but this time they are bill to say the previous owners are in creduit as they are stiil paying their DDs. I have called them and written to them 3 times. Ridiculous.

glad I saw this thread. I live in a tiny 3 bed house and have a £60 a month bill which seems way too high for what we use [hmmm]. I'm going to investigate too.

For those of you who responded to me on this thread, I thought I would let you know that NPower have concluded their investigation and as well as refunding the £3500 which they took from my bank account, they have decided that far from me having a debt to them of around £4500, they actually owe me £600.

For any of you thinking your bills might be wrong, I urge you to go for it!

wow

that is great news... it shows it is well worth arguing with them.

I bet its a HUGE weight off your mind too.

so pleased it is all sorted in the end

I reckon they'd been adding extra "0"s to your bill GL

As someone who worked for npower in my dark and shameful past I will tell you to always read your meter, keep a record of it where you will find it, like inside your address book etc.

If you ever get an estimated bill ring and give a meter reading.

If there is ever an invesitgation where they have to send someone to visit your property, talk to the person they send so you know what he/she finds, check they have the correct meter details etc.

These days with the open market if you do not live in the midlands then npower pay your local electricity company to read your meter (obviously they would not trek a meter reader to London for a meter reading) so information can be misinterpreted and the meter reader doesn't give a shit because you would complain to npower.

I am not excusing their behaviour but the reason I left npower was because they were making everyone redundant and getting rid of staff who had been trained and there for many many years and moved their call centre to Newcastle where they could get staff cheaper but completely untrained. At one stage they had so many complaints they nearly lost their licence to sell gas and electricity!!!!

My advice, now it is sorted, wait until all the companies announce their new prices and change supplier.