Prepayment meter £6 a day- help

Fuzzy2logic

Hi,
I just moved to a newly built apartment yesterday. It has a prepayment meter from Scottish power and since yesterday the meter has already gobbled up 6 pounds and this is with only fridge/freezer, laptop,1 heater,a few low power bulbs and boiler which I beleive only turns late in the night for few hours. At 6 pounds a day I would end up paying 180 pounds a month average. Any idea of what I should do? Should I complain to Scottish power or just try and ask my landlord to switch to a normal meter?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated

roses

How long do you use the heater for and what is the wattage. Is it a 2kw heater?

agile83

Hi there,

£6 is very high - At the moment in our 2bed flat (which is all electric heating, no gas) , we pump in around 45 quid a month via prepayment key.

In the summer when there are no electric heaters on, or the electric fire, we can go for over a month without topping up, and can get away with paying 30-35 per month. We are with Npower.

If we had the 7.5kw shower on every day plus all the 1-2kw heaters on plus and Xbox, tv and all lights on we would be hard pushed to be paying £6

Have you checked that you are not inadvertantly paying a debt off? When I moved into my flat i got a letter stating i owed £60 from the year before as the tariff was on the old one, and that they were going to take it at the rate of a few pounds per week. Perhaps you were charged that day and thats why it jumped £6?

Hope this helps, cheers

Fuzzy2logic

Funny you should say that, there was a previous debt for 200 pounds at the apartment, however, landlord was told by Scottish power that it has been wiped as it was due to previous tenant. I shall ask my landlord to double confirm this.

Sirbendy

stuff me...that IS high.

What's the unit cost on the meter?

Here's a comparison. I'm with NPower, key meter again. Reputedly the most expensive way to burn cash.

3 bed semi, circa 1940. Low energy bulbs throughout, 2 laptops, 1 desktop on daily. TV/DVD/Wii/Digibox on for a couple of hours a day tops. Fridge, freezer, router powered up 24/7 (must reset the timer..), grill/oven/microwave used at least 4 out of 7 nights, kettle boiled 3-4 times daily, boiler constantly powered.

Even with £1.40ish standing charge a week, I'm using £5 approx. Weekly. Only when I use things like the oil-filled radiator for an hour or so do we go over the £5 "norm".

Do you have an electric water heater, and if so, is it on? Failing that, try not using the heater..check your meter settings - is it a white key meter with a blue smart key? Cycle through the screens with the "A" button, note them all down...we got a booklet with ours detailing all the screens - look for any debt, and check the standing charge and unit cost..I've had occasion where these are wrong.

You should be able to check all the data yourself at the meter - I wouldn't trust the energy company to do it..heh..

If everything seems OK, maybe try shutting off a circuit at a time, 1 per day on your distribution board to see if you can isolate the power eating, and track it down..

squidge60

Fuzzy2logic wrote: »

Funny you should say that, there was a previous debt for 200 pounds at the apartment, however, landlord was told by Scottish power that it has been wiped as it was due to previous tenant. I shall ask my landlord to double confirm this.

ring scottish power theyll be able to get you to run though the meter to see if theres anything owing.:D

Fuzzy2logic

Sirbendy wrote: »

stuff me...that IS high.

Do you have an electric water heater, and if so, is it on? Failing that, try not using the heater..check your meter settings - is it a white key meter with a blue smart key? Cycle through the screens with the "A" button, note them all down...we got a booklet with ours detailing all the screens - look for any debt, and check the standing charge and unit cost..I've had occasion where these are wrong.

The house does not use gas - it is all electric so I am assuming its an electric water heater.

The prepayment meter needed a green color Fob/key which I had to enter once and then pull out..

I am going to get my landlord to give scottish power a call today and find out whats going on.

thanks to all for your advice - Shall post back with results.

anniecave

on a prepayment meter often the debt being paid off is included in the weekly standing charge, but if you scroll through all the screens it will tell you whether there is a debt balance and how much per week it is paying off the debt
I'd keep an eye on the readings to see how many units you are actually using
Is it E7 (day and night) or is it just single rate

anniecave

Any amount more than about £3.50 per week of standing charge is likely to be paying off a previous debt

dizziblonde

Go to your meter (you may have to leave the key in depending on the model it is) and keep pressing the big button on the front (it was blue on my last one but the colour may vary) and it'll go through a range of screens - some of them will make no sense whatsoever but what you're looking for is the pence per unit for your energy and the debt screen to see if there's a debt set on the meter.

We used to have a prepayment in our old place - one bed flat, storage heaters and I hate being cold and used just under £20 a week.

Fuzzy2logic

After two days on the phone this is where I am now
- there was a previous debt of 200 pounds from previous tenant
- I am being charged for that doubt for some odd reason - even after sending a tenancy agreement to them last week proving that I was a new tenant it took me two more days is yesterday and today to get the records updated. I am still not sure if they have updated it
- they are sending me a new key which will theoretically not charge me extra but I can only use it once my existing money in the current key runs out. I am supposed to ask for a refund once the current key runs out as it is charging me at a higher rate

With regards to screen info here us the info
Screen f - £1.14 charge/week
Screen g - 357.3 kWh
Screen h - 103.48 kWh rate 1
Screen I - 12.27 pence per kWh