Just come through the door...

C4SH

Hiya,

Well after living in my property for 10 months, the first electricity bill has arrived. I expected it to be quarterly, and due to my lack of planning I did not chase it up when I did not recieve a bill within the first few months. The bill is for £400. As my may of read from my other posts, financially, I am in a bad way at the moment and have no way of paying £400 straight off, just like that. Would the supplier come to some sort of arangment with this kind of thing or will they demand the full payment straight away?

Thanks

Fire_Fox

Is the bill based on an actual or estimated reading? Might not be as bad as you think. Contact the supplier and set up a direct debit and they will hopefully allow you to pay over a few months.

NeverInDebt

If you haven't had the bill for a long time, surely you should at the very least put something away each week to lesson the blow.

Your now on position of owing £400 and will still have pay for consumption all during that time you pay and beyond

You are really going to have to sort yourself out before you get deeply in debt. Hope you learn from this

Cardew

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Is the bill based on an actual or estimated reading? Might not be as bad as you think..

On the other hand ........

saucy77

You'll probably find that you can have a token/key meter installed and they will recover the debt owing by taking a set amount each week from your energy top ups.

Depending on your provider the rate may per unit may change, but at least you know you won't be having to pay such a lump sum.
But please be sure to do what has been advised already and give the correct meter readings to your supplier.

Plushchris

saucy77 wrote: »

You'll probably find that you can have a token/key meter installed and they will recover the debt owing by taking a set amount each week from your energy top ups.

Depending on your provider the rate may per unit may change, but at least you know you won't be having to pay such a lump sum.
But please be sure to do what has been advised already and give the correct meter readings to your supplier.

I would avoid prepayment meters if at all possible, they do give you the chance to pay the debt off gradually but then you are stuck with them and most suppliers charge for removing them (£50 - £150 per meter depending on the company)

If you add the cost of removing the prepay meters onto the debt it could nearly double it.

torbrex

C4SH wrote: »

Hiya,

Well after living in my property for 10 months, the first electricity bill has arrived. I expected it to be quarterly, and due to my lack of planning I did not chase it up when I did not recieve a bill within the first few months. The bill is for £400. As my may of read from my other posts, financially, I am in a bad way at the moment and have no way of paying £400 straight off, just like that. Would the supplier come to some sort of arangment with this kind of thing or will they demand the full payment straight away?

Thanks

They may agree to some kind of an arrangement but will definitly want it to be by monthly direct debit and will probably be looking for something like a 50% deposit as a first payment with your DD set at a level to include your current usage and an amount off your balance so that it will be cleared in less than 12 months.

Badger_Lady

Yes, have a chat with them... a similar thing happened to me years ago (while I was in debt) when two utilities companies both claimed to be supplying my meter and it took them 11 months to resolve it.

I ended up owing over £500 which was paid by adding £5 or so to my monthly direct debit. Obviously that then took a good long while to pay off and meant I couldn't change providers, but they were very relaxed about it and it was easy to pay

kippen_noedel

C4SH wrote: »

Hiya,

Well after living in my property for 10 months, the first electricity bill has arrived. I expected it to be quarterly, and due to my lack of planning I did not chase it up when I did not recieve a bill within the first few months. The bill is for £400. As my may of read from my other posts, financially, I am in a bad way at the moment and have no way of paying £400 straight off, just like that. Would the supplier come to some sort of arangment with this kind of thing or will they demand the full payment straight away?

Thanks

cheapest solution for you
ask them for a monthly DD, to cover your annual usage and repay the debt, assuming the £400 is correct, expect this to be around £75pm (£17.50pw)

Dr.Shoe_2

We pay ours weekly over the counter at a local paypoint.

What they will do is estimate how much you will use over the year and then split that into 52 payments.... Ours is £13.73 a week as we had huge arrears but we pay £15 so to get ahead.

Pincher

I am on fixed monthly direct debits, for which I get a small discount. They only review the fixed amount once a year. If a credit had built up, and they want to run it down, they fix the amount artificially low. After a hard winter on low fixed payments, it's easy for the debit to be £300. It's no big deal.

Prepayment meter doesn't have the direct debit discount, you miss out on the online discount, and the per unit rate is higher, don't go there.