Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/16/npower_bill/
Cambridge woman in £90m 'leccy bill shocker
Npower juice times n to the power of ahem
Posted in Bootnotes, 16th June 2008 10:25 GMT
A Cambridge woman got a bit of a shock on Saturday morning when a bill from 'leccy outfit Npower landed on her doormat demanding an impressive £90,454,217, the Cambridge News reports.
Alison Turner, 50, was surprised not only by the colossal total for juice, but also because she's on a pre-pay meter. She recounted: "I shouldn't really be getting any bills from them because I pay in advance. I switched to Npower in January, but found I was paying more, so I switched back to Eon after a month.
"When I left I rang them up to explain and they said they wouldn't bill me, so I was shocked when this bill arrived. I know electricity bills have been going up recently, but this is ridiculous."
Turner added the traditional observation: "It's lucky they didn't send this bill to an old age pensioner. Luckily, my daughter was with me when I opened the bill and told me not to worry about it. We think it's quite funny now."
The Cambridge News has helpfully calculated that even at Npower's 13p per unit tariff, Turner would have to consume 700 million units to rack up a £90m bill, which, even if she operated a domestic electric blast furnace consuming 1000 units per day, would take 1,900 years.
Npower has now cancelled the bill. A spokesman said: "We have systems to ensure these errors are not made, so I'm at a loss to say why this happened. We take customers' bills very seriously and we will look into this mistake to see what has gone wrong." ®
Bootnote
Thanks to David Harper for the electrifying tip-off.