Hi all :)

I got an electric and gas bill through this morning and rang up to give some meter readings to make sure its accurate. Gas was fine, they had, of course, over-estimated slightly. Electricity however...

Our last meter reading (17/03) was 38237 and as of 14/05 they estimated it should be 38698. Which would cost us £66.50 for 2 months. Between two of us in a two bed flat.

Our actual meter reading however is 87054. What?! How could we have POSSIBLY used that amount in two months?! That's 48817 units.

I've been away at least two days a week since my mum broke her ankle. Meaning only my flatmate has been here. And he's mostly at his girlfriend's house anyway. And ok, I cook a fair bit, but surely I'd have to be cooking non-stop to work up that sort of bill!

Just as an aside, I think that would work out at about £930 for two months electricity

I took a meter reading on 14/05 myself, but missed the meter reader coming over. The reading then was 86186. So, over the course of 2 weeks we've used 868 units. That's pretty steep. But on average, that should still only cost us £595. What the hell is going on?

Or am I just an energy using machine?

Any ideas? meh

Edit: And after checking old bills, between september and February, we only used £250 worth of electricity :S

kmwood85:

Our actual meter reading however is 87054. What?! How could we have POSSIBLY used that amount in two months?! That's 48817 units.

That's practically impossible without the flat burning down or being raided for canabis plants.

What type of meter and meter dials do your have?

48817 units at even 10p a unit is £4,881.70.

I think your meter must be faulty. Most people have a 100 Amp suppy, so at 240 volts the most they could draw is 24 kw. 48817 divided by 60 days, divided by 24 hours gives 33 kw. If you had used this much the main fuse would have blown.

Ask the company to put another meter in parallel with yours for a few weeks to check it.

You'll probably see our thread about the approx £850 electricity bill and the £770 gas bills - it's the thread which a record breaking number of typos in 1 posting ;-)

We too can not believe how high our bills are. Now we couldn't pay the bills immediately and this is where is gets interesting with npower - certainly if you dispute the bill.

We have managed to pay them something like £1300 in the last 6 weeks alone. We didn't even get the gas bill. We found out about that bill when a door step collector came to the door to discuss putting in a prepayment meter. She was promptly told where to go.

Have to say that npower have done nothing but bully and threaten us over these 2 bills. Tried to move supplier but they rejected the move due to £400's still being owed at the time of the switch request.

Be careful with this Company. We are going to settle the outstanding amount next week and then get rid of them ASAP.

Also now looking to take action over npower refusing to send out the Gas bill despite 2 telephone calls asking them to do this.

You have posted similar in other posts, now above you say about not getting a gas bill, I always know when myn is due and if it does come I call them and never had any problems with it.

Every supplier if you dont pay them will send you to an agency, but telling a door step collector where to go who is their to help resolve it will really normally end up in court with most companys and you supply cut off.

I have copied this from your other thread,

"We have a small detacted house. 4 bedrooms, 3 of which are small singles. There is
also 2 small reception rooms ( lounge and dining room ). We recently moved into the house.

Our electricity and gas is with npower.

We recently got a 3 month period £850 bill for the electricity and a £770 notification
for the gas (come back to the gas shortly).

With the electricty, it was the biggest bill I'd ever rec'd. I'd expect £400+ (as we have
a very young family and the washing machine is always on) but not £850. We know the price of power
has gone up considerably recently.

We immediately thought there was an issue with the meter and contacted npower customer services.
Got to say that the result was one of the rudest conversations we have ever had with any company.

We basically said that the bill was high and we'd like for the meter to be checked. In a nutshell
npower said no. We talked more and they then said they write to me about coming out to inspect the
meter and tell me about the charges involved in that. That was 6 weeks ago and there hasn't been
anything from them at all.

It turns out the bill is ours. We checked with the estate agents for initial readings and yes, the
bill reflects what we have used. Let's just say that we have gone around the house taking out halogen
light bulbs. Where there was 15 ( kitchen ), there is now 2. Let's say the landlord likes his halogen
lighting - he should of warned us about the costs but lesson learnt, not shifting responsibilities here.

And if the electricity is high then we'll accept the gas bill may be high too. We don't think we have
the best boiler in town in this property.

Why are we writing this thread?

Okay, for the electricty we paid £450.00 immediately to get the bill down. We then agree £200 a month
for the rest of the year with n-power. We missed last weeks first £200 direct debit and just got a letter
from n-power telling us that they are taking action so that they can fit a prepayment meter.

Why did we miss the payment? The gas bill. Out of the blue, with no bills whatsoever a door step collection
agent turned up at our property and demanded £770 for the gas supply. Got on to the phone to n-power and
explained that we had not rec'd any bills from them.

In this call we were basically told that n-power are the world's best company and that we were liars. It was
a real difficult call but we was given no choice (this company is really good at threatening customers) but to
pay the phone bill in full. We demanded that the gas bill was sent to us so that we could see what we are paying
for - that was about 3 weeks. Guess what, no bill!

So in the matter of approx 6 weeks N-power have had £1250.00 off us - almost all of our wages after rent has
been gone to n-power. It's a good job we had food in the cupboards and in the freezer otherwise we'd have been in
trouble.

I know I have to call n-power today to sort out the electricty bill but I am expecting them to demand the full
£400 which is outstanding.

We tried to move the electricity account to British Gas so as to get the costs down but n-power rejected the
change of supplier until the outstanding bill is cleared. Nightmare situation for us.

These bills will be paid and we will be moving to a different house as the place we are living at is too expensive
for us.

But can also say that we'll never ever have any dealings again with npower.

No we told the debt collector to leave because it was the first we learn't about the bill. We got on to the phone to npower the same day and settled the bill in full. It took npower about 4 months to contact us other the electricity, we just assumed that npower would do the same with the gas - not that there was an issue getting correspondence to us.

Don't think it is fair to hijack the OP's thread. £930 for 2 months supply of electricity to a flat is just silly.