Pay as you go electricity meter ripping me off

marc_pape

Hi Guys,

I'm confused. I'm aware that Southern Electric have up prices recently. But was not aware that they can mess around with my meter loads too.

Recently i've been noticing that on 5 occasions now, that when i top up the meter i am losing money / credit.

On 3 seperate occasions the meter has "frozen" and the electricity has stopped. The meter has declared there is a debt and i have had to top the meter up.

I contacted Southern Electric and they have said there is nothing wrong with the meter and that there is no debts showing on their systems. They were going to investigate and call me back but 2 weeks later i have heard nothing still

Boxing day i out £10 on the meter to find that once i put the key in i lost £2.50 of credit.

I woke up this morning to find the electric off again, i went to the meter and yet again it was saying a debt of £2.25 and as soon as i put the key in i lost the £2.25 that was on their. I even recorded it on my phone this time.

Whats even more frustrating is that i've only been in the property since July and the amount i'm spending has gone from under £10 a week to £20 a week. What makes it worse is i am in the house less. I know that more electricity is being used cos ofthe heating and cold whether but that only upped the amount i was spending to about £15 per week max.

I've tried calling them today and their phones keep saying they are busy. I've logged an online complaint with them. I'm losing my wits over this. Its happened 5 times now. How many more times will it happen before i get some sense from them??

Help please

Tupperware_Queen

have you kept all your receipts when you have topped up? they should be able to send you a statement so you can compare what you have paid, and what has gone on the meter.

Call them up asap

spiro

You may find that the debt on the meter is probably due to it having a 'non disconnection period' set. This means that if you run out of credit between specified times or on specified days it does not cut the power off but keeps it on until the period is over. Then it cuts you off and you not only have to put credit on but the first thing it does it reclaim what you have used during the 'non disconnection' period. This fits with what you are saying, the meter has gone into the mode, switched you off in the morning with a £2.25 debt and then when you put £10 on it immediately takes the £2.25 back.

rich225

has anyone got a non 08 number for these guys?

jayme1

spiro wrote: »

You may find that the debt on the meter is probably due to it having a 'non disconnection period' set. This means that if you run out of credit between specified times or on specified days it does not cut the power off but keeps it on until the period is over. Then it cuts you off and you not only have to put credit on but the first thing it does it reclaim what you have used during the 'non disconnection' period. This fits with what you are saying, the meter has gone into the mode, switched you off in the morning with a £2.25 debt and then when you put £10 on it immediately takes the £2.25 back.

and to add to this there is normally a daily standing charge for these types of meters (say 50p a day) and if you go into the 'non cutoff bit' that gets upped to much much more so that may take even more money off the top up.

if you have a good credit rating and can budget (ie know not to use more electricity than you can afford) you should push to get a standard meter fitted where you pay on recipt of the bill every quarter, prepayment meters are a known rip off

ROY47

http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/HelpAndAdvice/PhoneNumbers/

Electricity - 0800 980 0414 (free call)
Gas - 0800 980 0427 (free call)

or try the live chat or email options