Housecraft is blaming “system errors” for the company’s overcharging of electricity. Now more and more customers are discovering that they have been affected by the same error.
Last Saturday, E24 wrote about electric company Huskraft, which has charged hefty fees for electricity on four out of six electricity bills.
Huskraft claimed that this was due to a system error in the subcontractor, to some extent.
The regulator RME, based on Huskraft’s invoices submitted by E24, asked the company to explain the matter in more detail.
In recent days, E24 has received advice about eleven other Huskraft customers who have been overbilled.
Among them is Selja Vestri, who discovered in January of this year that the company had over-billed since becoming a customer in April 2021.
“takes an additional 10% price and pretends to be a ‘data error’ if detected,” is the address of a Posts Vestre posted on the consumer website bytt.no.
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11 of 13 show over-billing
Vestry explained in her post that she first started looking closely at her electricity bill in December, as the spot rate appeared to be suspiciously high.
“By calculating hourly consumption and price, we found that they took about 10 percent more per kWh than the spot rate. It doesn’t look good at the low spot price, but it turns out when energy is expensive,” Pfister writes.
Thus, it used the same methodology as Ole Markussen, one of the prominent members of the Facebook group “Prismatch Power”, which revealed for the first time that Huskraft got way too much money from many of the group’s members.
Like Vestre, Marcussen compared the electricity price quoted on Huskraft bills against historical hourly rates at the Nord Pool energy exchange, as well as the electricity consumption for a customer’s meter reading during the period, which was obtained from Elhub.
“Since the price of electricity fluctuates hour to hour, and people’s consumption throughout the day varies greatly, this is the only way to know what you should actually pay,” Markusen told E24 on Saturday.
Of the eleven new advice mentioned about the excess bills E24 has received, six come from Markussen, who in recent days has examined 13 bills from six Huskraft customers. Eleven of them show excess bills, often for hundreds of dollars a month.
E24 saw these accounts, which are in line with results already presented and have since been followed by RME.
Both invoices at the correct price are for February. E24 first started asking Huskraft about over-billing on February 23.
– How much do you apply to this?
When Vestre complained to Huskraft, she received an answer that there had been a billing error, and the December excess was reimbursed.
After guessing she had been subjected to the same thing in the previous months, and reporting this to the company, it was also confirmed that there was a “billing error” here as well, and a refund was given.
“Had I not sat down and rained, and found that there was something wrong with the December bill, this would have gone on. And they did nothing to reveal that there was a systematic error in all the bills, before I demanded a new revision. How much does this apply to me?” Vestry wonders. in the publication.
Huskraft replied to Vestre’s post. After emphasizing that it appreciates all the feedback, the company denies that it has hidden costs.
“I understand that the issue was resolved quickly, and the errors were corrected,” Huskraft replied.
Huskraft does not want E24 to know how many customers it has, as this is “competition sensitive”.
Founded in Norway at the beginning of 2021, the company generated sales of 23.3 million last year, with profit before tax just under 1 million kroner.
According to Statistics Norway, average household spending 16,000 kWh per year, The average price of electricity last year was 90 microns per kilowatt-hour, according to the same source.
Based on these numbers, E24 estimates that Huskraft has just over 1,600 customers.
I still think the range is small
“We are in contact with RME and have responded to their inquiries,” Huskraft president and principal owner Asad Ismail wrote in an email to E24.
E24 asked Huskraft that, in light of all these new cases, the alleged system error is still allegedly small-scale.
“Unfortunately, we had some clients that we did not judge on internal control. We are now working on providing post-reconciliation for clients affected by this error. The scale is small compared to our client portfolio”, Ismail answers.
He further wrote that the company “takes full responsibility and will correct customers if this applies.”
“For clients who have referred places other than us directly, we ask them to contact our skilled customer service representatives, so we can look into their case,” Ismail continues.
Refers to links
Ismael previously indicated that Markusen, along with other prominent members of Prismatch Strøm, is a co-owner of Besparelse AS, which makes money from recruiting customers for electricity deals.
“Besparelse AS has been in touch with us previously to sell our products at a commission rate of NOK 300 to its members. We did not want to go ahead with their order to sell,” Ismail writes.
Huskraft chief therefore believes that Markusen has commercial interests in the case, and this undermines his reliability and credibility as a source.
I don’t get paid by checking the wrong spot price on Huskraft. This is done out of self-interest, not on behalf of savings. I’ve relied on conventions of several other companies, Markusen says, and it’s remarkable that Huscraft alone can’t calculate properly.
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