prepayment meter - gas

embb

I also have a Gas prepayment meter with powergen and I'm putting in £20 pw - it's killing me financially, I did wonder if all my rads or boiler were not in perfect working order cause I don't have it on excessively either, hoping to pay off the backlog of money in the next couple of months, get it taken out and changing suppliers

Acc72

stewie_griffin wrote:

Have you checked to make sure there's not a debt set on the meter from the previous occupier?

We are going through this at the moment.

Over Christmas week (when we were not in the house) we used £20 of Gas !! (we also thought that we had a leak !!).

When we rang British Gas they told that were £800 in credit !! - even though we had changed details with British Gas over 2 years ago, they continued to charge us the same tarriff as the previous house owner (who had large arrears and paid a higher rate).

We had our rate changed yesterday - from 5.071 to 2.91 (not sure if this is pence per unit ??).

We are now trying to find out if we have paid the previous tennants debt also !!

The very unhelpful customer services people at British Gas cannot tell me !!

They have referred this to the "Administration Department" and we must wait 28 days for an answer - I also cannot contact this department (the customer services person also said that they couldn't contact them either).

I believe that I have paid the remainder of the other persons debt, plus accumulated credit of £800 over the last 2 1/2 years - but how do I prove this ? I just don't want to take the word of British Gas.

Does anybody know how / where I can write to ?

tripled

You would have been sent an annual statement every year - have you checked these?

Just because the meter wasn't reset doesn't necessarily mean you have paid onto someone else's account. When you make a payment it is sent to BG and they put it on your account, every year they should read your gas meter and then send you a statement showing how much you have used and paid. If the tariff on the meter doesn't match your account then you get a discrepancy. That is the most likely scenario.

The only way the money would be going on to the previous occupiers account is if they didn't register you properly when you moved in and you are using the old tenants card.

The prices you quoted fit are very similar to BG's tier 1 and 2 rates for gas (they charge a bit more for the first bit of gas you use). Usually there will be a 'recovery rate' on the meter if they are clawing back a balance, which is deducted every week.

doodah

got a postcard today from ebico to say my application is being processed and i should hear from them soon thanks wig!

shellsuit

I can easily put £30 a week in my gas meter in the colder months, that's £120 a month!

And No, I don't have any outstanding debt which is being repaid.

doodah

it's rediculous isn't it!! there's four of us in the house, and we put at least £40 a week on now. we really don't have the heating on much at all as well. so annoying!

espresso

shellsuit wrote:

I can easily put £30 a week in my gas meter in the colder months, that's £120 a month!

And No, I don't have any outstanding debt which is being repaid.

You should change to a cheaper supplier then!

doodah

got another postcard saying we're almost there...

i have another question, if we have money left over on our meter with powergen when we switch, will they refund it?

JGWT8M

doodah wrote:

got another postcard saying we're almost there...

i have another question, if we have money left over on our meter with powergen when we switch, will they refund it?

Yes (kind of), they won't actually come to your house.
All that will happen is you'll get a new card through the post, take out your old one and pop in the new one, leave it a minute or so and then when it says everything is ok, go down and put some credit on it.

Any credit already on the machine will stay there, the only reason the meter will be changed is if you report a gas leak, it doesn't get changed if you change suppliers unless you change payment method..

I had a letter from Ebico in December saying something about rate changes on the meter in Jan/Feb time, but it wouldn't affect the price you pay cos they'd give you credit back or something, anybody else get this?

P.S. You will get a letter week or so before from Scottish & Southern with the pre-payment card, don't panic it's them who will supply your gas on behalf of Ebico, if you don't get it call S&S because with us, they send the Gas card but not the Electric key because they didn't have the meter number, and didn't bother ringing me to ask for it.

doodah

cool thanks