A festive freezing with your card meter??

Pssst

As all gascard meter users know,if they have a fault with their meter or are waiting for a card,they need to speak to their gas supplier NOT the gas emergency service.

But wait...wont they all be closing for Christmas?

It amazes me that gas suppliers shut up shop at weekends,late in the evenings ,bank holidays and especially Christmas and new year and if their gas prepayment customers have a problem,there is no one to answer the phone and deal with it. Every year it is the same. People with faulty meters,faulty cards,waiting for cards freezing with no gas to heat or cook by and gas suppliers shut and apparently indifferent.

I would urge all gas pp meter users to ring their suppliers this week and ask what arrangements they have in place over the Christmas and New year,should a customer suffer a faulty meter,faulty card or whatever. Post your replies here please..

Here are some supplier numbers. Not sure how up to date they are


British Gas 0845 965 0650e.on 0845 301 4875EDF Energy 0800 096 9966Firmus Energy 0845 608 0088Northern Ireland Electricity 08457 455 455Npower 0800 022 220Phoenix Natural Gas 0845 455 5555Scottish Hydro Electric 0845 777 6633ScottishPower 0800 33 22 33Southern Electric 0845 777 6633SWALEC 0845 777 6633

lemontart

defiantly good idea also take time to check for a battery low sign on the meter and call your supplier asap to arrange for a new battery to be fitted rather than waiting for it to actually fail. and please do not think by saying you have a gas escape when you do not will help get it sorted by an emergency engineer as they will not be able to sort it out and all you will be doing is taking them away from genuine emergencies. Mtr faults and mtr batteries, lost cards etc are the sole responsibility of your gas supplier not the gas emergency service, you will find your gas suppliers name on the back of your gas card along with the number - if no number again call directory enquires or yell.com and not the emergency gas service as they are not there for that either, nor does the GAS emergency service deal with faulty appliances, water leaks or electric problems.

Joyful

Before lots of people call British Gas and stop customers with problems getting through I can advise you that we have 24 hour cover over the Holidays so if you have an emergency there will be someone to speak with you.

Please make sure if you have a prepayment meter that you have topped up enough money to see you through the holidays as running out is not classed as an Emergency. If you need to find an outlet to recharge (in case your local outlet is closed) look on http://www.paypoint.co.uk/ and click on agent locator.

Can I suggest as the other companies that ALL suppliers use will have less staff in or may be closed at times over this period that people hold off till the New Year to call up re booking meter exchanges or anything else that can wait. This means companies such as Meter Operators will be able to meet any emergency appointments over this time.

98sidney

if you have a bp garage near you ours is sadly open all day xmas day, they top up gas cards, and you can buy a replament card from them too.. Dont know about other bp garages in other areas..

lynzpower

Many years ago I worked on the Quantum help desk around Xmas.

It was heartbreaking the people who phoned to want help to "wind on" power for them as they had ran out of cash on thiner cards on Xmas eve.

Note to all- advise everyone who has one of these to make sure they have ample power on thier cards to get them through. Do report any faults with meter NOW!!

credit_crunch_victim

british gas may have somebody to answer the phone but will they send somebody out
will they f**k
we were sent 2 new keys for our meter when they took over our supply a couple of weeks back and when we tried them it messed up our meter and left us with no electric or heating from 4pm sunday evening untill 11-00am monday morning
we had to go out for some food my daughter stayed with our parents for the night
not much fun when you have two litlle pups as well
so be warned that they will not come out to you

lemontart

a note for those call the 24 hr bg number for etm - token meters it is 08000 480 303 it does say closed on the line after a certain time, ignore that and stay on the line and you will hear more options to speak to a bg agent however prolly wise not to options saying emergency as you may get put through to the gas emergency line instead of a bg person. and gas emergency service cannot help with token meter problems it is a similar story for the edf 24 hr number for etm customers.

I am not aware of any other companies that have a dedicated 24 hr number for token meter customers unless of course you know different!

BexTech

Note: If you have kids or are elderly, then don't have the awful pre-payment meters, that way you can't run out of credit.

spiro

Also remember that if you have an electricity token meter, most outlets will have stopped selling tokens any time now. If you have a token meter and your supplier hasn't contacted you phone them on Monday as they may have your meter recorded as a different type and therefore you may get overlooked.

adprob

If your meter goes below 50p then you can call your local emergency number for electric or the national grid emergency number for gas. They offer a 4 hour call out but this is subject to any emergency (gas leak, major power cut) that might occur!

Pssst

adprob wrote: »

If your meter goes below 50p then you can call your local emergency number for electric or the national grid emergency number for gas. They offer a 4 hour call out but this is subject to any emergency (gas leak, major power cut) that might occur!

No they dont. Any calls for faulty card meters or services to card meters need to be routed via your gas supplier. National Grid are a gas emergency service and not a metering maintenance company.

If your meter goes below fifty pence or indeed any other amount which is close to running out then what you need to do is go and buy more credit for if you dont then your power and/or gas will go off. simple as that.