Who charges to change from Scottish Power prepayment to standard meters? Q & moan.

athensgeorgia

At the moment we have prepayment meters fitted for Gas and Electric and as we're very close to paying off the debt on our gas i wanted to change back to a standard meter when its done, but which supplier charges for it?

When we first moved into our house we moved from a rented virtually the same size house with PP meters so i knew how much gas and electric we were using. When Scottish power set our dd i thought they were really low and mentioned it to the cs person and he said they set them lower because PP was more expensive (Aug 03). So we carried on as we were told, the following Feb we receive a statement saying we owe them money I rang them up and they said because it was winter it was likely to be high and summer would even it out. We carried on like this me ringing them reassuring until the beginning of 06 when they decided to put our DD up. We really struggled to pay them because they'd gone up so drastically from £65pm to £150pm. Eventually we ended up in debt cause we kept bouncing payments that's when we had the PP meters fitted. I rang up Scottish Power to query getting our meter swapped eventually and they said we'd need to pay £150 deposit and £60 charge to change the meter, which i think is really unfair when i feel they partly caused the problem.

So i want to know who i can switch to to change my meter for free or if its worth pursuing Scottish Power some more to see if they'll forego the fees.

Any help much appreciated

mattcanary

BGas, EDF, Scottish & Southern or EON may be prepared to change them free of charge. THey will probably do a credit check on you first though. Most of these (maybe not EDF) would expect you to pay by Direct Debit in future. However, once the meters have been changed, you can always phone them back to remove the Direct Debits and choose to pay via a different method, if you wish.

athensgeorgia

Thats great thanks Matt i want to pay by DD i just don't want to switch to the 'cheapest' only to find when i get there they'll charge me to swap.

Tartanmax

I inherited prepayment meters when I moved into my current house and was quoted £125 per meter to change them from N-power.

Thankfully i found switching to EDF and 6 weeks after the swap had my meters change free of charge.. i switched to a cheaper supplier not long afterwards.

athensgeorgia

Thanks for that Tartan.

After another problem has arrose because of Scottish Power think i'll pay the balance over the phone when i get paid on Thursday. And this new mess is 100% their fault. So i'm definately switching even if they would do it for free for me. I'm actually looking forward to the complaints department ringing me now just so i can say seeya.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

mattcanary wrote: »

BGas, EDF, Scottish & Southern or EON may be prepared to change them free of charge. THey will probably do a credit check on you first though. Most of these (maybe not EDF) would expect you to pay by Direct Debit in future. However, once the meters have been changed, you can always phone them back to remove the Direct Debits and choose to pay via a different method, if you wish.

Hi guys

Just a quick heads up. We almost always charge to replace a Prepayment Meter with a credit meter.

The charge is £50 per meter at the moment.

Hope this clarifies our current policy in these cases.

Malc

mattcanary

Yeah sorry, I meant Ebico and not EON!

Owain_Moneysaver

(A few years ago) I got my ScottishPower powercard meter changed to an ordinary one - no charge.

athensgeorgia

Hmm I paid my balance with SP and signed up for BG last night so I hope they will swap it for free then or i've made a big mistake