I am so cross! £210 to remove my pre payment meter!!! What shall i do? Please read

mattcanary

That is true Plushchris. You won't stay on DD for long, if you miss payments. But of course, you would then have a normal quarterly meter until the electric company decided to fit a prepayment meter for non-payment if the arrears remain.
But the utilityb company should not assume that someone won;t pay their bills when they have no information to suggest that would be the case.

mattcanary

TiaMaria, I assume that is the amount of money you are putting in to your gas meter when no heating is being used? That does sound pretty high. I only use about £4.00 worth of gas a week when the heating isn't on. Admittedly, I only have the hot water on for an hour a day and do a bit of cooking on a gas cooker. Even so. My boiler is quite old as well and not a combi boiler. I live in a 1 bedroom flat converted from an old Victorian semi-detatched house.

I would suggest that it is not the prepayment meter per se that is causing the large busage. Perhaps it has been set up incorrectly or maybe your supply is wired in to someone else's gas meter?
You could check your gas meter reading twice (maybe about 3 hours apart) when your heating, hot water, shower, or cooker are not on.If the meter reading has advanced during these 3 hours, then there is definitely a problem!

kippen_noedel

nurse34 wrote: »

I dont want to leave scottish power, i simply want to make life easier for myself by not having to top up and wait around for lost cards etc.
also gas is cheaper without pre payment.

Most companies will change the meters for you for free is you swap to them, most companies charge you if you are an existing customer. They will ALL however carry out a credit check first and if you fail you will be asked to pay a deposit that you will have to wait up to a year before you get it back.

The biggest advantage to getting rid of payg meters isnt so much that it is cheaper to pay by DD but a vast array of other tariffs open up to you on credit meters. You should easily save 15% annualy on your bills by using DD and picking a good online tariff.

If you can't or don't want to risk being asked for a deposit look at some comparison sites for other suppliers. BG are pretty competitive for payg electricity and Ebico are good on gas, it will however depend on your usage and location. Do you comparisons :beer:

sar050680

When I paid £110 to remove my Gas and Electric meters I kicked up a fuss, got nowhere with them though. I hate all Gas and Electric suppliers. FACT. Good luck with them Nurse.

Antispam

I can understand how you feel that.

Your not the only one who is on a low income but still find money somehow to pay bills

Have you checked to find out if you get any benefits like tax credits etc to help you make ends meet

nurse34 wrote: »

they have had a fortune out of me , and i think its a cheek as us on a low income, that prefer to use a pre-payment meter are being diddled because of it.
ive never had a debt on my meter , i chose this way as a budgeting method, but have realised that it is not only time consuming topping up and remembering where i have put the card- but also costing me over the odds.
i will write to scottish power and complain about this , it is not made clear enough to customers old and new.:rolleyes:

SwanJon

mattcanary wrote: »

Utility companies' apparent policy of credit-scoring the address, rather than the individual is even more of an outrage. Experian and other credit reference agencies discarded with this policy many years ago as it was totally unfair. Utility companies should do the same.

Do you have any evidence to back this up?
I work for BG, and we use Experian to run credit checks.
I think it would be very difficult to credit chek without using one of the three agencies.

To put other readers minds at rest - when YOU are credit checked, it is based on YOU. The only other things that may affect it are other people linked to you.
I think each of the three agencies has a way of getting your credit report for free, so go and have a look.

Chrysalis

I disagree with cardew.

You cant compare an essential utility such as gas/electric to something like sattelite tv which is a luxury. What I mean by that is sky can choose to refuse custom, charge diff prices to diff people etc. Whilst electric should be available to everyone on an equal basis with no discrimination other than if the person has a bad history.

Now if the OP moved into a property which has a prepayment meter and has no bad payment history I think its not reasonable to expect her to pay a deposit especially when she is ok with paying by direct debit for an amount that is within what she has been paying already.

When I moved here the credit meter was in place and I had no such credit check or deposit to pay, but it seems if a prepay meter was in place and I asked for a credit meter I probably would be subject to it, totally wrong practice.

As for who should pay for the work to be done, well we only need to look at the profit levels these companies make and is fair to say its a cost they can absorb.

Cardew

Chrysalis wrote: »

I disagree with cardew.

You cant compare an essential utility such as gas/electric to something like sattelite tv which is a luxury. What I mean by that is sky can choose to refuse custom, charge diff prices to diff people etc. Whilst electric should be available to everyone on an equal basis with no discrimination other than if the person has a bad history.

Now if the OP moved into a property which has a prepayment meter and has no bad payment history I think its not reasonable to expect her to pay a deposit especially when she is ok with paying by direct debit for an amount that is within what she has been paying already.

When I moved here the credit meter was in place and I had no such credit check or deposit to pay, but it seems if a prepay meter was in place and I asked for a credit meter I probably would be subject to it, totally wrong practice.

As for who should pay for the work to be done, well we only need to look at the profit levels these companies make and is fair to say its a cost they can absorb.

Firstly the OP stated:

think its a cheek as us on a low income, that prefer to use a pre-payment meter are being diddled because of it.
---- i chose this way as a budgeting method,

Secondly, who made the comparison with sattelite TV? - I used Tesco and Asda - and I suggest food is even more important!

My point is Utility companies have to make commercial decisions. Whilst it might be Politically Incorrect to state this, customers who live in houses with Pre Pay meters - are classified as by the Utility companies as more likely to have problems paying with a credit meter.

Before any outrage is expressed, that of course only means a minority of those people will give problems. However that is how commercial companies operate; they have to make sweeping generalisations on 'risk'.

The price of your car/house insurance is determined by where you live.

With your excellent driving record if you move to a different postcode in say Liverpool, and even if you have your car kept in a garage, the insurance will double.

Your careful, considerate and responsible 18 year old will pay through the nose for car insurance because he is in a 'risk' category.

Premier_2

mattcanary wrote: »

It is a disgrace in most cases that suppliers won;t remove a prepayment meter without a hefty deposit. ...

It is a disgrace that we find this world in the financial crisis we are currently in due to the wreckless & uncontrolled lending that you now appear to be advocating.

When a request for a PPM to be replaced is received, the supplier may make a credit check of that individual. This is what happened in my case and as a result I was given a credit meter with no deposit required.
However I was aware that if such credit check did not meet the suppliers credit requirements fully, they could have requested a deposit and/or requested monthly payments by DD ... or denied me credit entirely.

mattcanary

If someone has a good credit history, they should not be denied a credit meter