Owing money with a prepayment meter

sugaJen

Hi, wondering if anyone can explain this for me,
I used Npower for my elec on a prepayment meter since day 1, late last year i switched to british gas, I recieved a final bill from Npower for £129.?? being a prepaying customer I chose to ignore this (wrong I know) I have now recieved a letter threatening court action if I dont pay up, I have read somewhere that if the rates go up then I wont be buying enough credit to cover my usage but isnt that Npower's responsibility to update my meter when this happens and is it the meter reading man/woman that should do this as every 3 months without fail they had access to my meter.

Jen

mspig

I have got the same problem at the moment with British Gas, as we have moved house in December and i recevied a final Gas bill for £80.95, but like you i have had a prepayment meter since i moved into the property.
I rang British Gas up and they were doing a balance enquiry into how this amount had come about. I was told this would take 4 weeks so to ring back around 7th February to find out what happened.
In the meantime i have had Final demand letters and received a court action letter yesterday about it, so i rang and they told me that as a balance enquiry had been raised that they could not take me to court and to ignore the letters.
I was also told that it could be due to using a replacement card that people get from the shops when the usual card stops working as the money goes to another company but i have never used another card.
Until the balance enquiry is done there is nothing more i can do, but there not getting anymore money out of me anyway.

sugaJen

Thanx for that, think I will phone Npower in the morning and ask them to do a balance enquiry, after all whoever is responsible for updating meters I know that it isnt me. And even though elec/gas rates baffle me I dont recall personally getting told that they went up.

fleur

If the tariffs went up, then the amount you had put on the card wouldn't have lasted as long. Why would they need to send you a bill if you pay by card?

blakea8k

I am in exactly the same postition and have contacted the energy watchdog to see what they think, i will let you know how i get on

sugaJen

fleur wrote:

If the tariffs went up, then the amount you had put on the card wouldn't have lasted as long. Why would they need to send you a bill if you pay by card?

I dont know.
Usually I get a "statement" but when I changed supplier and they took the final reading I was sent a final bill.... I refuse to pay until I am given a reasonable explaination for this, maybe im mistaken but I thought the whole point of prepayment was to avoid large bills.

molerat

fleur wrote:

If the tariffs went up, then the amount you had put on the card wouldn't have lasted as long. Why would they need to send you a bill if you pay by card?

The problem is that the meter needs to be manually adjusted to take account of the increased cost per unit. Prepayment meter is really the wrong term for these meters. What you are actually doing is drip-paying towards your energy bill.

You have used the energy so you have got to pay for it. If the prices have risen, which most have over the past few months, it could be considered that the energy supplier has been negligent in not adjusting your meter. Tell them that and they should adjust your meter to overpay and allow you to repay the amount at a rate which will not cause you financial hardship.

With a final bill of course it is a different matter but at least they can't cut you off.