Pre-Payment Hell

mark2004uk

We have pre-payment meters, we can't afford to put the Central Heating on, we are huddles round a halogen heater at the moment. Theres 2 in the house, we both goto work at 7 and home at 5 monday to friday, we unplug everything and we spend £70 elec and £60 on gas every month - this can't be right !!!!

People on Pre-Payment should get it cheaper as we pay before we get it, surely...:mad:

Premier_2

No, people who pay monthly by DD often pay months before they get to use what they pay for.

Bottom line is your type of payment costs a lot more to administer, yet you probably pay about the same of someone on a standard credit meter tariff.

If you join Ebico, you'll pay exactly the same as any other Ebico customer irrespective of how you pay or what type of meter you have.

I'm with Ebico and don't pay anything like £70 per month electricity, nor anything like £60 a month gas in the summer (infact not even £60 for 3 months).

You do realise you are probably paying about 3 times more for each unit of heat from your electric heater compared to what you could get from gas? Still if that's your idea of moneysaving :cool:

tori.k

If there is no debt on the meter something is seriously wrong somewhere, first thing i would do is switch everything off for a hour and take meter readings, do you live in a house or flat? a while ago there seemed to be alot of threads about mixed meters with flats anychance you could be paying for someone else?

stokefan

Premier wrote: »

No, people who pay monthly by DD often pay months before they get to use what they pay for.

Bottom line is your type of payment costs a lot more to administer, yet you probably pay about the same of someone on a standard credit meter tariff.

If you join Ebico, you'll pay exactly the same as any other Ebico customer irrespective of how you pay or what type of meter you have.

I'm with Ebico and don't pay anything like £70 per month electricity, nor anything like £60 a month gas in the summer (infact not even £60 for 3 months).

You do realise you are probably paying about 3 times more for each unit of heat from your electric heater compared to what you could get from gas? Still if that's your idea of moneysaving :cool:

i use a halegon heater as its just me at home, and it costs me about 5-6p a hour to heat myself, if i have the central heating on it would be a hell of a lot more, i am also with ebico

Premier_2

stokefan wrote: »

i use a halegon heater as its just me at home, and it costs me about 5-6p a hour to heat myself, if i have the central heating on it would be a hell of a lot more, i am also with ebico

You will get about 3 times more heat from gas compared to electricity for the same cost.

i.e. 5-6p is only about 0.5kWh of electric whilst about 1.5kWh of gas.

duggo1

Wow. Like a previous poster said if there is no debt on your meter then something is wrong.

We pay £32 a month gas and £28 a month electric with EDF (on line tariff) and we are never cold, although I appreciate pre-pay is more expensive.

Our usage/payments are based on 1100Kwh gas p/a and 3600 electric p/a.

davethorp

mark2004uk wrote: »

We have pre-payment meters, we can't afford to put the Central Heating on, we are huddles round a halogen heater at the moment. Theres 2 in the house, we both goto work at 7 and home at 5 monday to friday, we unplug everything and we spend £70 elec and £60 on gas every month - this can't be right !!!!

People on Pre-Payment should get it cheaper as we pay before we get it, surely...:mad:

The amount you are topping up is roughly what we used to be topping up on prepayment

if you think you can handle paying by other methods that allow better tariffs switch to EDF energy if you aren't already with them. They will remove prepay meters no questions asked once you've been with them for a month. We had this done recently and now our direct debits are set at £39 each which is much better. Obviously this is subject to change once they get a better idea of our useage. Our unit rate is between 2 and 4 pence cheaper than on prepayment now though

mark2004uk

tori.k wrote: »

If there is no debt on the meter something is seriously wrong somewhere, first thing i would do is switch everything off for a hour and take meter readings, do you live in a house or flat? a while ago there seemed to be alot of threads about mixed meters with flats anychance you could be paying for someone else?

Who can check if im paying someone else's debt ? I asked them to check last year, they said all is ok, who can come on and check if everything is ok ?

mark2004uk

I have been on the comparison sites and British Gas come up the best, with a new pre-payment account called click and pay. I have emailed ebico to ask them what they can offer. I have always thought something is wrong with out electric and gas and I should not be paying that much, I just thought it was due to beng pre-payment

stokefan

Premier wrote: »

You will get about 3 times more heat from gas compared to electricity for the same cost.

i.e. 5-6p is only about 0.5kWh of electric whilst about 1.5kWh of gas.

I understand what your saying but i dont need to heat the house. I just need to heat myself. So if im relaxing at night in front of the tele etc its much cheaper to use the halogen as it gives direct heat. The only time i will put my heating on is when i have my child. I have my thermostat set at 7 degrees. So my pipes wont freeze. I stick my heater on 800w for the first half hour then i stick it on 400w which seems to be comfortable for myself.

tori.k

mark2004uk wrote: »

I have been on the comparison sites and British Gas come up the best, with a new pre-payment account called click and pay. I have emailed ebico to ask them what they can offer. I have always thought something is wrong with out electric and gas and I should not be paying that much, I just thought it was due to beng pre-payment

Just flip the mains off's if you still have lights you know your meter is switched with someone elses, it can sometimes happens when you live in a converted build or block of flats.
I would say something has got to be up even our house of 5 would be hard pushed to go thru that amount of money a month even with all the "boys toys" my lot have.
start taking meter readings each week, your meter should state your unit price that way you can tally your useage to the cost.

Like someone else has stated i changed to EDF as they took out the prepayment meter i had in the house we moved into for free