Now paying £180 a month for my electricity!

willow12

Hiya, i wonder if anyone could advise.

I am with eon on a prepayment meter that was in the house i rent when i moved in. I have economy seven, i live alone in a small 3 bed terraced cottage. i have been here 18 months, and have a good credit rating, so could now get the meter removed for £50.


I read a few threads on here with people getting quite irate about others hoping to have the meters removed for free, so i will anticipate a flaming. Does anyone know if there are energy companies out there that will do this? Ive heard British gas banded about.

Ive just tried to look on USwitch but they are bringing up no results as im trying to switch from prepayment to DD and the site seems unable to make this comparison.

It's also complicated by the fact that eon keeps telling me i will make no saving by switching to direct debit as their prices are the same. I wouldn't mind if i felt like i used a lot of electricity! But i only have a few lights on at a time, run 2 storage heaters, don't cook, i find it quite strange that it is so much.

Thanks very much for any help

ViolaLass

It's quite possible that you would make no saving going from PP to DD if you stayed on their standard plan but getting the meter changed would allow you to access a whole load of cheaper online deals.

I got NPower to change my meter recently (free) by telling them that British Gas would do it free and that if they (NPower) wouldn't do it, I would just switch.

HappyMJ

If your company won't switch for free then switch to another possibly better PP deal then try changing the meter for free. Ebico changed mine for free straight away (it took 2 weeks to sort a time). Then once you have a credit meter then switch again to the best credit tariff you want to switch to.

Premier_2

willow12 wrote: »

...Ive just tried to look on USwitch but they are bringing up no results as im trying to switch from prepayment to DD and the site seems unable to make this comparison....

No comparison site will show you this directly as it's not possible to switch this way.

But by doing two separate checks on the compason site (inputting your annual consumption in kWh as we always recommend) you'll get two lists of annual figures for PPM and credit meter.
(It doesn't matter what starting supplier/tariff you choose - ignore any suggested savings figures)

Then you need to manually compare the two sets of annual costs.

willow12

That makes much sense, thanks guys.

The other thought i have just had is is it like a phone tariff where you are locked in to the plan for a certain time period? My lease on the house runs in 6 month blocks and i would hate to be locked into an electricity plan and then decide i want to relocate?

Cheers

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi willow

There are no tie-ins with our Prepayment tariffs and you can switch supplier at any time.

Also, I don't think you were given particularly good advice when you called in and I'm sorry about that.

Whilst it's correct that our Prepayment unit rates are virtually the same as standard prices you should, like ViolaLass says, have been told about the discounts available for managing your account online and paying by Direct Debit.

These discounts are not available on Prepayment meters but are on credit meters.

I would follow Premier's advice and use a comparison site to see the sort of savings that can be made, both with us and the other suppliers.

Again, I'm sorry you weren't given the fullest details when you called but hope this points you in the right direction. Give me a shout if I can help further as happy to do so.

Malc