Prepayment meter

concerned43

I have a gas and electricity prepayment meter. The electricy one lets me use emergency credit and when I top up I get the amount minus what I used in the emergency credit - pretty straightforward.

The gas meter however is different - when I go into emergency credit and I top up my card the machine takes of some of the top-up to repay some of the emergency credit, debt (for using emergency credit) and then I am left with the balance!
e.g. today I was in emergency credit and I topped up £10. The meter took £4 for emergency credit, £3 for debt and left me £3 for gas.
I cannot find anywhere in Scottish Power's literture, details of charges for using emergency credit. Other people I know who have pre-payment meters do not have this 'debt'.
Can anyone tell me why I am having to pay 'interest' for using emergency credit?

judy_

If you have recently moved to the property and are using the gascard that was already in the meter then this will be previous occupants debt being paid by you. If this is the case you need to call the gas company and arrange to be sent your own card.

If you have a debt with the gas company then this is what you are paying, not interest on going into emergency fund.

Hope that helps.

concerned43

Thanks Judy - that was the problem when I first moved into the house but I got that all sorted and I have a new card with a new supplier and I do not have any debt to this supplier. This 'debt' only comes up if I have went into emergency credit!

judy_

seems strange, you will pay a little amount for using the emergency credit but I think its only about 50p ish. I would call scottish power and ask them.

chanz4

it will be standing charge which has not been taken while in emergency credit.

Premier_2

There is no additional charge for using emergency credit other than the credit you used.

It will probably be an accrued charge such as the standing charge chanz4 refers to

concerned43

£1.50 seems to be a lot for a daily standard charge.

Scottish_Power

Hi concerned43,

Sorry to hear about the problems you have been having, hopefully I can explain things for you.

Everytime you top up a gas PP meter you will get a minimum of 30% of what you vend for gas.

So for instance topping up £10.00 will get you at least £3.00 of gas.

The question is what happens to the rest of it..........

Well, when you top up a meter it checks three things.

Do you have a debt recovery rate, this is when you are repaying a bill you owe your supplier at say £4.00 per week.

Have you used your emergency credit for example £1.00 of e-credit used.

Do you owe the meter any standing charges, at present the gas standing charge is about 30p a day. If you are in e-credit you do not pay the standing charges so they build up on what we call the owed screen. So if you have been in e-credit for 3 days you would owe 90p.

So when you top up £10.00 the meter takes £4.00 for your debt recovery rate, £1.00 for emergency credit and £0.90 for standing charges leaving £4.10 for gas.

Once you have topped up you can check what your meter has taken by pressing the red button. Each time you press it the screen will change, it will tell you how much you last vended, how much you paid to debt, e-credit etc.

If you visit the Siemens website http://www.siemensenergy.co.uk/pg.asp?p=prepayment at the bottom of the page you will find a PDF guide to the two most common gas meters, this may also help.

This is how it works in the simpilist of forms, if you wish me to have a look at your account and try and explain exactly what the meter is taking in your case you can e-mail me at [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL]

Kind regards

Graeme @ ScottishPower