Advice Please

kjedwards

Hi

My wife and I are getting ready to go overseas for several months and need some advice on how best to handle our elec and gas supplier.

We are with Scottish Power and I have just been on their web site to put in our latest readings. Their site tells me I am in credit by some £300 with another direct debit to be taken by them in a few days - so we will be over £400 in credit by then.

I want to stop the direct debit while we are away - we will use no gas and elec will only be minimal for a few lights left on a timer, etc. And ideally get some of the credit back - better in my account than theirs.

Can someone please tell me how I should go about this? I am disabled and not too good at standing up for myself but its quite a lot of money

Help will be much appreciated

Thanks

kevin

kjsmith7

I would give them a telephone call and say you would like to now pay quarterly. Most tariffs do not force you to pay via direct debit, but they may reiterate that you'll lose some of your direct debit discount during the period (which won't be a problem for you if you aren't using any/much gas/electricity). As long as you have provided an accurate meter reading that has been billed, there's not much they can do as *fingers crossed* we are coming out of the cold snap now. Also, by 'switching to quarterly' you would be starting with a clean slate. Hope that helps.

kjedwards

Thanks for that.

Problem is we will be away for about 6 months so a quarterly bill I imiagine they would 'estimate' and being away we wouldn't be able to pay. Unless of course they use the large credit we have. But to be honest I would love to get at least 1/2 of the credit back.

Would there be any benefit in swapping supplier to say British Gas who have the pay as you go option? But would they accept us if we are just going away and wouldn't be paying them much for the next few months?

thanks

markharding557

It should be worthwhile for you to transfer to ebico they have no standing charges and therefore will cost you nothing while you are away

kjsmith7

markharding557 wrote: »

It should be worthwhile for you to transfer to ebico they have no standing charges and therefore will cost you nothing while you are away

Most of the big 6 suppliers don't have standing charges, or have no-standing charge tariff options.

kjsmith7

kjedwards wrote: »

Thanks for that.

Problem is we will be away for about 6 months so a quarterly bill I imiagine they would 'estimate' and being away we wouldn't be able to pay. Unless of course they use the large credit we have. But to be honest I would love to get at least 1/2 of the credit back.

Would there be any benefit in swapping supplier to say British Gas who have the pay as you go option? But would they accept us if we are just going away and wouldn't be paying them much for the next few months?

thanks

By PAYG do you mean having your credit/quarterly bill meters exchanged to prepayment meters? Seems a bit of a dramatic step, but I can see the logic. That way, if you didn't use anything, you'd still have whatever you had put on the meter. Make sure there's no standing charge on the meter. Most suppliers have a no standing charge (tier1 / tier 2) option instead these days.

The other BG option is EnergySmart monthly billing tariff, where you only pay for what you use, however a meter reading has to be provided monthly else it estimates consumption, so you'd have the same problem. If you do as you suggested, and left some/all of the credit on there, it would just keep deducting what it considered to be the balance from the credit until it either thought you owed something or you came back home.

It might be worth staying with the current supplier and opting for the quarterly bill, and either having someone check your post (and therefore the estimated account - perhaps a neighbour or family member?). You could leave some of the credit on until you return so there is money to pay for any small amounts of consumption.

All of the options have drawbacks, I'm afraid.

SwanJon

If you go for quarterly billing, you should be able to enter readings online. Will you have internet access where you'll be? You could then enter readings that reflect the fact that you are not there.