Prepay Electricity Plus extra charge?????

Minty_Cymru

Hello, I hope you can help.

We've received our electricity statement for the year. We have been on prepay schemes with all of our providers for as long as I can remember, using a 'Key' meter (which we pay up front to place credit on to the 'Key' which we then insert into the meter and transfer the credit).

The statement we've had tells us that we are £28 in debit, it is entitled:

"Your prepayment electricity statement, actual use".

Since we are (and always have been) on pre pay, I thought that we always paid the current price and estimates were not applicable?

Can anyone advise if the supplier has the right to charge in this way? More details are available if they are required.

Many thanks for your time.

eurmalian

Most likely the reading that was used when you changed to them from your previous supplier was wrong, making it look like you've used more electric than you actually have.

The only other legitimate way I can think of is if you're using the wrong suppliers key. If you didn't start using this suppliers key when you changed to them from your old supplier then the meter will not have been updated with the new suppliers prices. That leaves you paying one suppliers prices but being billed at the other suppliers, which can again cause a debt to show.

Either way, they *shouldn't* ask you to pay it, as long as you have been regularly topping up the meter. However, sometimes that gets missed and you're still charged it (that goes for all the suppliers as far as I can tell. Some are better than others but it can happen with all of them).

spiro

During price rises its possible to use elec at the old price until you vend and the new prices are applied to the meter, this would appear as an 'underpayment/debt' on the suppliers billing system which estimates the change or price reading.

Minty_Cymru

First, thank you for taking the time to respond.

This is the first annual statement from our supplier (Scottish Power) so we've not seen this before.

There was a period where we were forced to pay with a Swalec key due to a problem with the first Scottish Power key they supplied.


Sounds like this is the problem?

Scottish_Power

Hi Minty_Cymru,

As you have been advised the debit balance could have accrrued for a couple of reasons, one of which being the problem with the Swalec key.

If you want to e-mail me at [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] with your details I can see what has caused the problem and if we can do somthing to fix it for you.

Kind regards

Graeme @ ScottishPower