They recalculated and came up with a new figure of £107 which I declined, then they recalculated again and came up with a figure of £70 - so that is down from £156 to £70 with 3 phone calls. So how can this not be a scam!

zefram:They recalculated and came up with a new figure of £107 which I declined, then they recalculated again and came up with a figure of £70 - so that is down from £156 to £70 with 3 phone calls. So how can this not be a scam!

I'm not going to defend NPower, but the question of whether its a "scam" or not depends on the reason why there are three different figures with three phone calls. In the absence of consumption and tariff information which you have not posted its impossible to say it's not just a chaotic billing system and/or customer service incompetence. Or the reason I suggested in my previous post.

However it would be a good service to your fellow consumers to prove that it was a "scam" and take a complaint to Ofgem rather than to just rant.

Having previously worked for the power companies, i would like nothing more than to join you in calling them evil. However, in this case i can't.

The entire reason the power companies tend to over estimate your direct debits is not, as you claim, a secret cabal of power companies conspiring to rid you of extra money.

The actual reason, is that the power companies are bound by the regulators to have a moral responsibility to their customers. This means that they have to prevent all means of knowingly allowing someone to fall into debt with their bills.

The problem here is actually that, as you know, people use more in the winter than they do in the summer. Therefore, your direct debit has to be based on an average years consumption, rather than a few months. This is why your DD is recalculated every six months, and takes your previous annual consumption into account. When you couple that with fluctuations in energy prices, then your DD is at best an educated guess.

You can of course help the situation by supplying monthly reads to the power companies. The system they have is far from perfect, however it is not helped when all they have to go on is estimated readings.

It should be noted that some power companies are now offering to pay you back £1 of interest for every £3 that they have in credit balance for you. So it doesn't seem so likely that they're trying to fund their companies by deliberately taking extra money now, does it?

I enter readings onto my Eon account every month,, therefore it is easy to calculate my usage and yet for the whole of last year I never had a debit balance even in the winter and yet I received a letter increasing my payments!! I telephoned and was told they would leave it as it was (very good of them!) The next month I received the same letter again telling me they were they were increasing my payments!! So how anyone can say this is not a scam I don't know,, unless you check your readings constantly and calculate the payments yourself you are likely to be paying to much,, at one point I had a £600 credit balance and they still want to increase my payments!!

Who are these companies paying interest on credit balances???????? I would be rich :)

As far as I know only Scottish Power have announced this policy.

Well it would seem to be in your case that it was incredibly bad customer service. As long as you are in credit, the customer service representative has no right to refuse to decrease your DD unless their calculations show that you will end up with a debit balance.

I would phone them back, demand that they refund all but a safety margin of credit to you immediately (don't settle for cheque, demand BACS). Also state that unless they comply with the law you will be contacting Consumer Focus.

jacksback1:

So how anyone can say this is not a scam I don't know,,

It's certainly not satisfactory to get a "take it or leave it letter" that the customer feels rightly or wrongly is "intuitively" wrong. That's inept customer service and sufficent grounds for you to decide to excercise your rights to switch.

In the last month I got my Scottish Power review. It was provided online immediately after I submitted a meter reading approximately 12 months after the previous review. For various reasons including a reduced tariff and energy efficiency measures, the monthly payment was reduced to within a pound or two of what I expected. There was a partial explanation. It may or may not be relevent that it's SP who are paying interest on credit balances. I emailed for a better explanation and got a very full explanation, with another pound knocked off which I hadn't asked for or expected, so its entirely possible for a full explanation to be provided.

Rather than rant about scams why not ask Eon for a detailed explanation. They may or may not comply. If they don't comply you have learned something to your advantage about their customer service standards. That would something worth bringing to this forum and possibly grounds for a customer service standard penalty payment.

In the absence of tariff and consumption details which you haven't posted it's possible that in the last 12 months your rates have increased, either through being on a variable tariff or coming off a very competitive fixed tariff.

Whatever, go and look for the reason. Make sure you ask and they inform you the annual consumption basis for the calculation because that is the key to getting an accurate comparison or accurate payments when you switch.