Gas/Elec arrears - advice required.

foolishqueen

Hi Everyone,

As the title says I am in arrears with my gas and electricity after they wanted to put my DD up twice to an amount I could not afford. I am already on a DMP so money is tight.

I have tried explaining all this to my energy supplier but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. I today received a letter from ResolveCall demanding immediate payment, otherwise I could have my supply disconnected, prepayment meter installed etc.

I have 2 young children to think about - they are my priority. Has anyone else been in a similar position to me? What do the energy companies usually end up doing? Would they disconnect me as I have children in the house? What are these prepayment meters they talk about?

I want to try to come to some agreement with them - I certainly want to pay what I owe.

Any advice would be very much appreciated as it's get me quite worried now.

Thanks.

nickyhutch

I was in the same position as you a few years back, and got pre-payment meters installed. I love them! Yes, the base cost is a little higher than on DD or quarterly bills, but I've found we use much less as we're paying as we go. I don't just stick the heating on because I'm cold and think "sod it, I wont have to pay for weeks", or use the dishwasher half full like I used to.

The debt was put onto the meter and paid off at £x per week, so that was a relief too.

foolishqueen

Thanks for your reply. So, does that mean that now all your energy costs you now have to pay for as you go? Including the arrears? Can you move off the pre-pay meters once you have paid the arrears off? Apologies for so many queestions.

nickyhutch

Yes, I paid the arrears off a long time ago. I think I could come off the meters if I wanted, but I also think they'd charge me to take the meters out.

brightonman123

have a look here-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1865723


british gas energy trust offer grants (covering all suppliers, i think) towards arrears, if in deep shtuck.

they helped me out, big time- will be a great weight off your mind.

there are similar ones for water co's, too.

Tixy

Hi

Gas & elec arrears are priority debts so need to be dealt with before your DMP money. Who is the dmp with? can you speak to them to ask for reduced payments whilst you get you arrears paid off (or at least pay a chunk off them). You should be able to talk to someone 'reasonable' as your utility company about spreading the arrears over a longer period if that would help you.

Depending on who your supplier is some of the companies do have representatives on this board who can be quite helpful.

With regards to the immediate payment, obviously you don't have it but you should be able to come to an agreement with them to stop prepayment meters being installed. Are you in a position to pay anything off the arrears in the next few days?

foolishqueen

I've had a look at those engery trusts but as I'm no a customer of Britsh/Scottish gas I'm not sure I could apply and I couldn't see anything to say you can apply if you are a customer of another company.

I am with Scottish Power. Alas, I don't have anything to offer in the way of an extra payment, but having spent the last hour going through my budget, I reckon I could increase my payments from £100 to £140 a month. Whether that is enough to keep them happy I don't know.

I will get in touch with them and see but after my last attempts to explain my situaiton simply had them increase my required payments twice, I'm not hopeful

I currently manage my DMP myself. I'm paying about £176 on around £55k - full payments were over £700 a month. I've only just managed to get 7 of my 9 creditors to agree, so really don't want to have to reduce again, although I take the point about utilities having priority.

I just don't know what to do. I feel it's all getting on top of me

Scottish_Power

Hi foolishqueen

Sorry to hear about your situation.

The first thing I would do is check how much gas/elec you are using based on accurate meter readings. I would then check that you are on the best tariff and if not, change you onto a cheaper tariff. The next issue is the outstanding balance on the gas/elec. If you are unable to keep up the repayments to cover ongoing use and clear the arrears, we may be able to look at extending the period to recover the debt. Alternatively, we will suggest that you agree to install prepayment meters for both gas and electricity which will allow you to pay for the gas and electricity as you can afford to do so and also clear the debt over a far longer period of time, therefore lowering your monthly expenditure.

If you want me to look into your account for you then please send me your details and I will see what I can do for you.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

stokelady

Hi, I was in a similar situation....I decided to have meters installed. This takes a few pounds a week towards the outstanding bill until it is paid off. It is nice not having another bill....its like pay as you go !!! and it does make you think twice about what gas and electric you use, and both offer 'emergency' credit should you need it.

foolishqueen

Thanks again for the replies. Colin - I will send you details in a PM. Hopefully we can come to some sort of agreement and move things forward.

Cheers.

timmmers

Just a little thing I have recently encountered that I don't see mentioned here.

I have a problem with my energy folk...not a massive one but they weren't getting paid until they asked for something close to the correct amount which left me a couple of hundred quid behinnd recently...they weren't being reasonable in any way especially estimates of how much I was likely to use...anyway, one day a few weeks ago I have a visit from a guy asking to read he meters and he then told me they were a mile out (as I knew already) he rang the firm direct on a special number and still got a mad payment plan for me to agree to OR they would want to fit a Pp meter or two. I told him to stuff it...and he then said that maybe it would be good for me to sort it fast and argue later since they would charge me 250 quid or so for fitting a meter and would not have any problem getting a warrant to do it without my consent. That obviously wasn't much of a deal and thankfully I have almost sorted the matter out sensibly now....but if you are struggling now it may be worth finding out if this kind of fee would be added to your arrears (obviously making them much worse) if a PP meter was fitted....it may be easier to budget via prepayment but adding a whacking extra amount to repay wouldn't be a good way to go if it could be avoided I think? Maybe the guy was bulling me about that, I haven't any experience of these matters apart from that time, but he was very helpful and seemed genuine to me so I didn't take the risk.

t