nPower Prepayment Meters - Forced to stay on them

Terrylw1

spiro wrote: »

A couple of points about this.
1) The new tenant would know the property has a ppm before they move in. Therefore they should consider this when moving. I understand where you are coming from but until Suppliers offer fair charging, it's just a way to grab some extra cash because it's already there and you have to fight with them to get it out.
2) If its a rented property a lot of LLs prefer these and can state in their T&Cs that you cant swap them to a credit or have to swap them back to a ppm before you move out. This is especially in areas with high levels of transient population.Agreed.
3) The supplier incurs a charge of about £40-60 per meter exchange so why should they not pass this obnto the customer.See below.
4) If the ppm is relatively new the owner of the meter can claim a payment for his meter being removed before the end of its life.Thats not relevant to a new tenant or homeowner like the many charges Suppliers incur in operating costs and are not made public. Npower like many are telling the consumer they have to wait 12 months, but since they have moved into a property that already has one, it should be less than 12 months or more based on the meter life issue if they were trying to stop these extra charges. The 12 month rule was always to understand peoples payment history but it's an old policy that was around at de-reg so how relevant is it now with all the changes and the adding DD's we now have? If they were trying to reduce these costs, they should be checking the installation date, not the customers account start date so it doesn't seem this charge is factored in. The meter might have been there several years so 12 months wouldn't necessarily be an issue in this.

1) They don't charge to pull or replace a fuse
2) They don't charge to change from 1 rate to E7 and vice versa (in those case of Suppliers I know)
3) They don't charge for numerous investigations to site or even try to claim them back off their agents who lost the details (again in the case of those I know. I know some are more savvy)
4) Customer wants a read taking, or wants one as they are leaving/moving into a property.

All of the above cost the same fee to the Supplier. 4) has different costs as a different agent, but it still costs.

So, why don't Npower charge for any of those? Simply, PPM's are an easy target backed up by how fast their complaints dept reversed this "commercial" policy claiming it wasn't the case.

In the case of these, the new consumer is penalised for the old one who either wanted a PPM (and would not have been charged for it going in) or a warrant call where it was forced. Eitherway, those charges should below to the person who caused the situation, not someone moving in.

Costs are also different by region since Suppliers often use different Meter Operators, but the fess quoted are all the same on these threads. To make this faiir, it would have to be inline with the agreements made with the NHHMOP in contracts (which are often very ropey). So, if it's £40 say in Midlands, Yorkshire & Northern for say Npower, but £60 in Scottish regions due to less customer base, they pocketed more profit from their higher customer base regions which consumers are not aware of.

If Suppliers were so serious about enforcing these charges, they wouldn't back down as soon as someone complained about it.