news story

22nd October 2008

MP to help local residents with overcharging on fuel bills

Northavon MP Steve Webb is offering to help local residents who think they may have been overcharged on their gas and electricity bills. In a recent case, settled out of court, a customer of NPower received over £1,000 in compensation from the power giant for errors in his gas and electricity bills. The issue revolved around the way in which the company charged for different units of gas and electricity and failed to provide customers with proper information about the way their bills were calculated.

Now Steve Webb, who is the Lib Dems' spokesman in Parliament on energy issues, is looking for constituents who get their power from NPower and who think they may also have been overcharged. He is asking local people to send in their bills over the last two years to see if the same problem has affected local people.

Steve Webb said:

"At a time of rapidly rising gas and electricity prices, consumers need to be confident that the bills they are paying are accurate. I would like to hear from local residents, especially those who buy their power from NPower, who think that their bill may have been wrongly worked out. Ideally, I would like to see a set of bills for the last two years to see if the same problem is affecting customers across the area".

OFGEM is already investigating NPower's charging structure, and Steve Webb has now written to the energy regulator asking him to expand his inquiry to look at whether customers are being given accurate information about the way power companies work out their bills.