Npower- Faulty meter

[baldwelder]

hi all

 

A friend of mine(early 60`s) has for the last 7 years had problems with her electricity bills.

She had a credit meter in the house she moved into and was paying her bills via a monthly direct debit.

The bills kept increasing to a point where she couldn`t afford them and started `economising`to the point where she had no heating on even through the winter, wearing multiple layers of clothing, gloves, scarves and hats even in bed. Bathing consisted of standing in a bucket of water heated from the kettle. It contributed to the break-up of her relationship, has been to ashamed to have friends around as she didn`t want them to see how she was living and stopped her doing the final year of a certificate course in counselling through depression seeing no way out(stockholme syndrome)?.

And STILL the bills kept increasing.

She was disconnected more than once, but the last time they did she must have had a flash of her old self and wrote down the meter reading and compared it to the reading when they finally reconnected her and there was a HUGE discrepancy, which she reported.... after several more calls to them they came and took the meter away for testing.

Surprise surprise, it was faulty and after 7 years of complaints and problems she was finally vindicated.

 

Now... where does she stand? she asked them to compensate her and was asked "how much do you think you`ll get?"

and was told she`d be lucky to get 50 quid.

 

This poor woman has spent the last 7 winters(baring in mind she is in her 60`s) in 3rd world level fuel poverty, lost a relationship, suffered depression and more, because of someone elses screw up and should be adequately compensated.

 

 

I have told her to send a subject access request as whenever she called they seemed to have transcripts of previous calls and therefore must have more useful information for her.

Does anyone have a template that is relevent to this topic? if not what information should she ask for? bills? copies of letters? call transcripts?

 

Any help for will be greatly appreciated

[dx100uk]

they shold have a report on how the meter was faulty

i had one for 8yrs that i knew was wrong

eventually it failed totally after me having complained no end during all that time.

 

got £1100 back in the end that was from BG.

 

i'd keep pushing them.

 

dx

[baldwelder]

thanks dx i will, i`m wondering how she`ll go on regarding what she has overpaid all these years as if the meter is faulty the wouldn`t be able to use any of it`s readings to calculate the bill, ergo should she get most if not all of her money back?

[dx100uk]

what they did for me was ask me to take readings over a 7 day period

to give my correct usage.

then back calculated that over the years this faulty meter was in place.

 

they then compared that to how much the meter WAS actually over reading from the test report.

the two were almost equal so were happy and refunded.

 

even if they cant interrogate the old meter, they should still be able to see there has been mass over payment from the past readings on the bills.

 

HTH

 

dx

[baldwelder]

yes they sent a reader out twice in the month after they fitted it to check if she`d bypassed it as the readings were so dissimilar.

 

any idea what should her next move be?

[buzby]

No - the amounts will be recalculated vbased on the estimated overreading by the check meter. Incidentally, rebates for amounts overbilled more than a year cannot be officially recovered - so don;t hack off the supplier as they may be willing to pay much more than they are legally required to. (So keep it pleasant...!)

[dx100uk]

urm was i lucky then...?

thats not what BG said though.

 

dx

[buzby]

And BG said....?

 

Utilities - including Water and Electric/Gas are only required to go back 1 year.

[dx100uk]

p'haps it is because i had a good track record in there files of complaining about it for 8yrs

weird.

i'd better keep quiet.......

i knew they couldn't stitch us up, but i though it was ok the otherway around?

bit like PPI, surely, as they have HAD the money that was not theirs, it should be refunded, bit unfair on the customer if not?

 

dx

Edited December 8, 2009 by dx100uk

[buzby]

Agreed - but I know of several folk who took Scottish Power/Gas to court for amounts going back over-estimated by 5 years (usual statue of limitations) and lost - because the Act of Parliament that permits the utilities to operate cap their liability to going back 1 year. Even folk who were needlessly paying water (sewage) fees for rainwater they found was actually using a soakaway and NOT going down the drains... ever - only got a rebate of 1 year.