Forum for residents of St Georges Park and Long Leys Road Lincoln

[deb]

Have just been shocked by a £399.58 gas bill. It's an actual and for four months so about £100 per month for the winter. It seems a lot to me so wondered if anyone is using a supplier other than nPower (sign on line 4 tariff) and what your actual winter bills look like. I'm at home all the time and work in a south facing office so don't need to go mad on the heat but the total for the four months was 6548 kWh average 1637 per month.
I've done the comparison sites and nPower still comes out well so I'm wondering if they really look at how the primary units are spread. For me, (info is on the bill under 'how we calculate your bill') during all those months November to February inclusive, the primary units are at their highest at 882 so I suppose that's the good news, the very worst if very much over. If we have a cold spell March and April the most primary units that can be charged are 272!
Any recommendations/comparison info on primary unit spread and charge, any standing charge etc i.e. anything that would help me decide if or where I should move my direct debit!
Thanks

[john shipton]

Gas and electric will remain high until the companies stop ripping us Brits off. The price is yet to come down but don't hold your breath. Most of the utility companies are now either French, German, and Spanish. The prices compared with these EU countries is lower than what it costs for the UK.
I took out a special deal with E-on which ends in the summer. Like with deals with other companies, they too will end sometime depending on the fixed term agreement.
Some will say change whenever, but the snag is what penalities one has to pay in changing supplier.

[deb]

I didn't fix or I'd've been paying more but yes no point in telling me about fixed tariffs I can't switch to. It's easy to switch, there are no penalties and if you switch direct from energyhelpine or moneysupermarket there are cash backs to be had (£15 and £30). nPower itself gives a cash back at the end of the year of £105 which I need to take into account but I'm sure the problem here is not so much the price as the spread of the primary units. I can use the same amount of gas for the rest of the year i.e. for another 8 months and the bill would be about two thirds less! Of the big 6, 5 have announced price cuts. British Gas have already implemented theirs and the others are either this or next month. nPower have yet to make the announcement but all the savings with them are to be made November to February because of their massive weighting of primary units in those months.

[SteveW]

My gas and electric have been supplied by Scottish Power for the last 4-5 years, however paying by direct debit I was getting somewhat annoyed that they seemed to increase the monthly payment with each bill and seemed more interested in making money from interest charges gained by peoples money rather than the sale of gas/electric. So , last December after several phone calls I told them if they insisted on increasing my monthly direct debits I would look for another supplier. In the end I agreed to stay with them but revert to the traditional method of a bill each quarter. They told me it would be more expensive because they have to pay someone to come and read the meters. Actually the few pence in increased costs is outweighed by the saving you make by not having to phone them every time you receive a bill .

A WARNING TO EVERYONE:

So several months later and my latest bill arrived but only the electric meter had been read. When I questioned this, Scottish Power told me they no longer supplied my gas and that is why I didn't receive a bill. I asked who was my supplier explaining that I had not signed up with anyone else but they did not know but gave me a number to ring to find out. I then phoned this number and quoted my 10 digit meter reference point number and was told my new supplier was EDF Energy. So I phoned them and explained that I had not signed up and I was happy with Scottish Power. The only explanation they could give was that the salesman who had been in the area had mistakenly used my details in place someone else. When I pointed out that he most probably was signing up several customers to increase his commission only wages they denied that this would happen but I have my doubts. Eventually I received an apology and was told that this mistake should never have happened.

[john shipton]

Check want you are paying for. This story involves a pensioner...

Grandad's shock at £2,200 power bill

Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 07:30

A Lincolnshire pensioner is fighting an electricity bill of more than £2,200.
Charles Hippey (85) lives alone in the modest Bardney home he's owned for more than 50 years and is used to paying less than £200 a quarter to supplier British Gas.
But his latest bill claims he's used more than £2,200 of electricity since the summer of 2007. The bill - once existing credit is taken off - demands more than £1,500 in back payment.
"When it came it knocked the wind out of me," said the grandfather of 12.
"I don't think I've used that much but when I rang them they said it's right and you can't do anything about it.
"I don't know where to go for help. I've always paid my bills as soon as I've got them but I think I might refuse to pay this one."
After several calls by his daughter-in-law Shelley Hippey, British Gas agreed to reduce the demand from £1,500 to £598.
"They said they'd been charging him the day rate for night-time units and the night rate for day-time units," she said.
"And they said they could only go back a year, so they had to take off £988.76, but that still leaves a bill of £598.30.
"I asked if there was anything Charlie could have done to avoid this and they said no."
For more on this story, including a response from British Gas, see Tuesday's Echo.