Debt on meter and tenants moving in

shootme

Hi. I have a prepayment meter at my old property which has been empty for the past 6 months. When I left there was no debt on the meter but every time I have been back to do some work and put a fiver in to put the heating on it only gives me £1.50 for gas and takes the rest for debt.

I've just been on the phone with npower and they tell me that the standing charge is £3.50 per week! Does that sound right?

Also I've got tenants moving in on Saturday. Npower says it could take 4 weeks to send them a new card and they will have to use mine in the meantime. They can send an engineer to reset the meter but that could take 1-2 weeks as well. He did say to tell them to keep receipts and they would get reimbursed but I can't see them being too happy at having to put loads of money on the meter just to get £1.50 a time.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you

KimYeovil

No that doesn't sound right. I think it's worse than you describe. It's £3.50 of every £5 you put in, not just £3.50 per week, that will be taken off for arrears.

(Sorry - not very helpful. Just thought I'd warn you.)

shootme

The thing is there weren't any arrears. But surely the standing charge isn't that much? It's not as much as that per month on a normal direct debit account.

spiro

You dont say how often you have been have been there is the last 6 months but £3.50 * 26 weeks equals £91. So if the maximum they take is £3.50 from every £5 put on the meter then you'll need to put £130 on it to get £39 of gas plus with every week that goes by another £3.50 will be added.

Pssst

The meter has an internal clock and will register a standing charge for every chargeable period whether the house is occupied or not. When someone puts money in,it will start to deduct those charges. I have no idea what the standing charge is.

The meter will require an engineer visit to do a full decom/recom. If they arrange an engineer visit AND in the mean time they send you a new card,DO NOT put that card in the meter . Keep it to one side and give it to the engineer when he visits. He will then decom/recom and set up the new card.

For anyone else who is told that they will send an engineer to "reset" your gas meter,if they send you a new card,DO NOT put the card in the meter. Save it for when the engineer comes otherwise you will !!!!!! up the system!

digimate

Hi

Re above, the standing charge is way too high, with most pp meters, the standing charge is normally about 74p per week. If you haven't topped up the meter in a while and there is build up of standing charges in the meter. It just means that the next time you top up your meter, 70% of whatever you put into the meter will go towards any standing charges and you will always receive the remainder of the 30%. Once all the standing charges are paid back. its back to pay as you go.

Re taking so long to receive a new card, a few days before the new tenants move in, call the supplier and request that they send out a new gas card, when the new gas card is received, wait until there is less than 50p in the meter before inserting the new card as any credit that is in the meter will be lost.

Cheers
Digi

KimYeovil

I know how to suck eggs. Why am I being quoted?