Prepay Meter Problem

zulucal

Hi Everyone

As I mentioned in another thread have just accepted an offer on my house with an entry date of 24th September. So I decided to get a gas engineer friend of mine to check the gas to make sure everything was working nicely.

However have encountered a small problem he said there was no electricity in it and he put in £10 to fire it up, which did not work. He then told me there was a debt on the meter of £75 which I find impossible as the flat has been empty for a month since the last top up when it has £10 credit in it.

Flat has been empty since November last year. Any ideas as to what the deal is here and the best way to proceed? Just have been desperate to sell this flat and do not want anything to wrong.

Regards,

ZC

SwanJon

Standing charges?
I assume you're not paying a bill back through it?

dunloadin

Phone up the supplier and explain you need new cards and accounts for the property...perhaps a key for the lekkie meter as well.

Tell them the date your moving in and that the meter(s) need a change of tennancy or 'wind on', this will zero out the debt.

Premier_2

I'm unclear if this is a flat you are selling or just moving into.

If you are selling, then SwanJon is correct in that you could have accrued some standing charges (and possibly a debt repayment amount)

However, standing charges wouldn't be £75 per month and I thought debt repayments were limited to a certain amount of the credit you applied (so you can't have the whole £10 credit swallowed up in debt repayment)

If this is a flat you are moving into, then as dunloadin says, get new cards. If you use the old occupant's card, you will be crediting their account.

zulucal

Sorry for not being clearer earlier the flat is one I am selling. Am just checking everything is OK in it before the new owner moves in. I was in yesterday afternoon and the meter said debt = £80 and I tried to phone Scottish power but they are not open till tomorrow. I switched of all the mains and everything in the fuse box and when i came back a few hours ago the debt had risen by £2 overnight.

Is just a standard prepay meter and like I say when I last did work on the flat there was £10 credit so I am guessing that there is a fault somewhere.

agrinnall

My prepay electricity meter did indeed include a standing charge element which meant that even with the electricity turned off the crdit still got used up. That wasn't the case with the gas, which only charged for use. Scottish Power's website says that it offers a choice to have standing charge or not on it's prepayment meters so it may well be that yours does have one. I also found this statement :

While you’re away from home

If you’re going to be away from home, you should make sure there’s enough credit in your meter to cover the fixed weekly charge. This continues to be collected even if you’re not using any gas or electricity. Otherwise, your supply may be cut off.

Scottish_Power

Hi Zulucal

The best advise I can give you in this situation is to contact our prepayment team to find out exactly what has been happening with this meter. They will be able to tell you if any debt has been added to the meter and, if so, why? If the property had been left unattended for a while then it is possible that the daily standing charges have mounted up and when you last credited the meter with £10, this activated a signal to add the debt to the meter and then start recovering it back at a small amount per week. Our prepayment team will be able to give you all the answers you need.

Let me know if you have any further issues with this account and I will be happy to look into this for you.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

Premier_2

zulucal wrote: »

... I switched of all the mains and everything in the fuse box and when i came back a few hours ago the debt had risen by £2 overnight.

Is just a standard prepay meter and like I say when I last did work on the flat there was £10 credit so I am guessing that there is a fault somewhere.

There does indeed seem something not quite right to have been charged £75 plus the £10 credit you originally had plus the £10 credit you applied in just one month, (total £95) especially if you don't know of any existing debt being applied/recovered.


Follow Colin's advice and speak to the supplier's pre-payment team to unravel this.

As for the £2 extra charged overnight, did the units recorded change?
If so, then you've still left something on somewhere (in the loft perhaps, if you have one? Or perhaps you are paying for external security lighting?) If you turn off the supply at the main isolator switch, then no units should be recorded as being used.

If no units are used, but the debt still increased, and you don't have any existing debt applied and don't have a standing charge either then the following could happen.
If you have no standing charge, you will be on a 2 tier tariff.
This charges the first x units per quarter at a more expensive rate.
Initially the meter charges these pro-rata on a daily basis, but then if you stop using any energy, recalculates the amount to ensure the correct /full amount is charged at the higher rate for the quarter.