Pre-paid electricity meter Query ?

caz57_2

Hello, and can anyone please give me some advice?
I have a huge bill (£700) from powergen. I have not paid for any electric since last year (I paid bits and pieces off) and now have a real meter reading, and a final demand.
I want to go on a weekly direct debit, but can they insist on us having a pre-pay meter, as I have never had one, and don't want one, as we are, at the moment, on sickness benefits, and we have a baby in the house, and would hate to run out of money at the end of the week, and electric.
Thankyou for any help!

Giddytimes

Yes unfortunately they can insist on you having a prepayment meter unless you can come to a weekly arrangement that is acceptable to them. To be honest paying the arrears through a prepayment meter may be the best thing for your situation anyway. With you both being on benefits the debt colection rate will be much lower per week than if you paid via a weekly payment scheme because the supplier has a greater guarantee of recovering the money through a prepayment meter so they are happier to spread the debt over a longer time.

It would be best to give them a ring for quote on weekly payments and if you can't afford the quote then a prepayment meter may be the only option. One alternative is fuel direct(where the money is taken straight out of your benefits and paid to the electricity company) but you would need to speak to the benefits office to try and arrange this and normally you need a good reason why you cannot have a prepayment meter for them to consider the application.

caz57_2

Thank you for replying. I am worried about getting a meter fitted, as I have heard others tales of how much they have to put in them, and my daughter always used to run out of credit!
Does anyone have an idea on the average amount that you have to put in (will vary greatly I know). We have the usual, washing machine, tumble dryer, gas central heating, tv, pc, microwave.

shelly

caz57 wrote:

Does anyone have an idea on the average amount that you have to put in (will vary greatly I know). We have the usual, washing machine, tumble dryer, gas central heating, tv, pc, microwave.

There are only 2 adults in our house but I am home all day. We run all the usual stuff, dishwasher every 3-4 days, washing machine every 2-3 days, 2 pc's on everyday and only turned off overnight, heating is on constant (works out better for us to have heating on low 24/7 rather than go off and have to heat up from cold) and the usual fridge, freezer, tv's etc. I put in £20 every 3-4 weeks in the winter but now its getting warmer and I don't turn up the heating in the day, I put £20 in every 5 weeks roughly.



HTH

Xbigman

It is the amount of arrears that is more important on prepayment pricing. Whoever you are with will be trying to get you to pay for your current electric usage plus pay off the arrears. So you will have to put in extra per unit used and they will take the amount of extra payment off the arrears. If you find out how much extra they will charge over the normal tarif you can work out how much it will cost. Yes you can run out, but that fact really makes you watch your usage and cut back.

The good news is that they could choose to take money straight from your benefits, which would completely remove things from your control.

The bad news is that prepayment tarifs are a bit dearer to start with.
Regards


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