prepayment meters- price rise

KasCo

Hi
I've been on prepayment meters for gas & electricicty for many years (currently with eon) I find paying up front suits me as I never have to worry abut unexpected bills. As I pay for my services in advance, I'm wondering if it's worth paying a large amount onto each before the price rise due on 13th Sept. Common sense tells me that I would be buying my electricity and gas at the current rate, but I wonder if the new rate would be charged from 13th Sept regardless of when I paid. I assume my meter would not be updated until I charged my key/card after 13th Sept.
Any ideas?

chris1973

I believe that the next time you top up the meter at any time prior to 13th Sept, it will be sent a program change through the key to tell it to bill units consumed after 13th September at the new increased rate. So the meter will continue to deduct credit at the current tariff until 13th sept, after which the unit rates will automatically change to the new Tariff.

Had you have loaded the credit BEFORE your supplier announced the increase you might have had a small chance of this working, but now I assume any top up carried out between now and then will now carry the advance reprogram information telling the meter to reprogram itself after this date, using its built in Time and Date system

KasCo

Thanks Chris
I might have to get on my consumer high horse & follow this up. After all, if I was buying coal or oil in advance, the suppliers couldn't come back to me & tell me I owe them more when they put their prices up!

chris1973

There is a big difference between buying a physical product like coal and a real time product like Electricity.

Coal is a physical product which you buy and the title then belongs to you, and you store it where you like and then consume it as you use it.

You cannot store electricity en masse, so you pay for it in real time as you use it and at the rate which is current at that time of purchase. So any credit on your meter is just that - CREDIT, its not pre-purchased or advanced purchased electricity which you have bought and have stored in a cupboard somewhere its 'cash' which is digitally put aside for a future purchase.

Of course, there is nothing to stop you buying a few 1000 batteries, charging them up at the old rate, and then running down the charge after the tariff update!, totally uneconomical in practice but its really the only occasion when you point would work!.

Interesting that some LPG users have the ability to fill their tanks during the summer months when the price / demand is lowest, but seldom do!, and usually see their downturn in usage as more money to spend on holidays etc, and then complain when the weather turns colder, the tank is almost empty and the price has risen due to the spike in demand!.

Either way Your going to pay the difference anyway at some point down the line, with some ways of doing this being less stressful and time consuming than others.

My advice is to note your existing tariff prior to the 13th, then perhaps top up on the 13th and ensure that the tariff has changed accordingly. This would be the easiest solution, as this forum is littered with posts 3 or 4 months down the line with people wondering why they have a huge bill all of a sudden for energy used, because of some billing error or paying catch up for a tariff change meant that differences had built up a debt

Even *if* you managed to stay on the old tariff for a while its only a matter of time before they'll find out or the meter eventually updates then no doubt they will want the difference back, and that back billing difference will probably be estimated and more than likely in their favour than yours!. So better to ensure it updates on or around the date of the tariff change, then you wont have to worry about a catch up bill later on.

I_luv_cats

chris1973 wrote: »

I believe that the next time you top up the meter at any time prior to 13th Sept, it will be sent a program change through the key to tell it to bill units consumed after 13th September at the new increased rate. So the meter will continue to deduct credit at the current tariff until 13th sept, after which the unit rates will automatically change to the new Tariff.

Had you have loaded the credit BEFORE your supplier announced the increase you might have had a small chance of this working, but now I assume any top up carried out between now and then will now carry the advance reprogram information telling the meter to reprogram itself after this date, using its built in Time and Date system

Not every supplier / meter acts the same. Some wait and sends it to pay-point and you pick it up on your earliest top up after the price change. If you miss it I don't know how long it remains on the pay-point system.
Data queues can build up and if you don't top up at the same venue you can miss it. (but that might only apply to catch up, mistakes or new customers)

I don't know the legal position of any energy supplier:(a) If they fail to upload your new tariff and you underpay for a period - they will get meter readings when you top up or the meter reader guys (b) If you avoid the tariff change by building up a credit and not inserting your key/card with the new rate until that runs out.

chris1973

Some wait and sends it to pay-point and you pick it up on your earliest top up after the price change

Well the best of luck doing that with me then, as I travel the length of breadth of the country with my Job, often topping up in my lunchtime at wherever I happen to be parked up for lunch.

In the last 6 months alone I dont think i've ever topped up in the same paypoint twice, and i've topped up in locations 500 miles apart before now. This must really screw up their system as they'll have an entire department and be paying a staff of 50 just to decode my top up habits into their super-computer - would probably be cheaper to just give me my relatively low weekend usage for nothing!. I'm sure i'm not the only person with a pre-pay meter who travels for a living, nor who tops up in several different locations.

I'm willing to bet that come October, my Npower increase will appear magically on my meter regardless of where I topped up, even if it was 300 miles away and it had been 6 weeks since the last one. I know energy suppliers aren't keen on 'gifting' their customer freebies and so whatever stay of execution a person may come up with, there will be balance to pay at some point. Like I said before, this forum is littered with examples of people who thought they were getting a good deal, or underpaying the energy game......until the bill came for the difference.

Personally, i'd rather avoid this and stay in control of future expenditure, however much I dislike the extra being levied onto me. Then I don't have to worry about a bill arriving for the difference, or a debt being programmed into the meter, or spending the next 4 years arguing with an overseas call centre about who was right / wrong and whose responsibility it was to ensure the tariff updated in a timely manner.

If the system does indeed use a geographical update at the regular paypoint used by a given customer, then I look forward to several months of energy at the existing rate, as I dont know where i'm going to be topping up at Lunchtime on October 1st, and i'm sure that Npower don't either!.

I_luv_cats

chris1973 wrote: »

Well the best of luck doing that with me then, as I travel the length of breadth of the country with my Job, often topping up in my lunchtime at wherever I happen to be parked up for lunch.

In the last 6 months alone I dont think i've ever topped up in the same paypoint twice, and i've topped up in locations 500 miles apart before now. This must really screw up their system as they'll have an entire department and be paying a staff of 50 just to decode my top up habits into their super-computer - would probably be cheaper to just give me my relatively low weekend usage for nothing!.

At one time I was overcharged on my gas and under on the electricity and I was running around like a blue-bottomed-fly doing daily top ups to try and get the right prices with different keys n cards!!! It took many months to get it right!!!!!! I had to write to the regulator.

Some do have pre-payment teams. Some have to input tariff codes, send the tariff change to your most regular top-up pay-point or even send you a new key with the price change on it!!

Your irregular venue top-ups don't matter and very likely a mass price change will be picked up straight away. It's just the stragglers.

[Deleted User]

I asked this exact same question yesterday :P The consensus on my thread is go for it.

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3434111

chris1973

sirgib wrote: »

I asked this exact same question yesterday :P The consensus on my thread is go for it.

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3434111

Yes..'consensus' in this case being............ both replies!

One thing I found with forums, is that people are apt to encourage something when they aren't the ones who are left footing the bill for the advice given.

Personally, I still stand by my original cautionary advice. If you have the cash in reserve to pay not only the additional extra credit that you intend to purchase in one go, but also for a potential large bill for any back dated usage or have hours to spend arguing on the phone with a faceless utility company about who is right, then perhaps its worth the gamble.

For me, i'm staying on the side of caution and ensuring that the tariff gets updated on time, just like millions of other credit customers facing the same hikes. I don't agree with the increases, and think that more could be achieved if people banded together and opposed them as a society (like the national outcry over the rioting) rather than any 'action' being the sum total of whinging on forums and Twitter and then just rolling over and having our tummies tickled, but as a pre-payment customer i'm not expecting any special treatment either and i'm sure that if there is a loop hole it will be closed very quickly, or will have already have been thought of by some clever spark within the utility companies and there will be something in place, and in reality some may be in for a bit of a disappointment, if they have spent more than they usually would on their household energy credit purchase and then ultimately find that they have not benefitted in doing so.

Just my 2KW/H worth

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

KasCo wrote: »

Hi
I've been on prepayment meters for gas & electricicty for many years (currently with eon) I find paying up front suits me as I never have to worry abut unexpected bills. As I pay for my services in advance, I'm wondering if it's worth paying a large amount onto each before the price rise due on 13th Sept. Common sense tells me that I would be buying my electricity and gas at the current rate, but I wonder if the new rate would be charged from 13th Sept regardless of when I paid. I assume my meter would not be updated until I charged my key/card after 13th Sept.
Any ideas?

Hi KasCo

Already some good advice on here but just thought I would clarify a couple of things.

When our prices go up on 13 September, the increase will be sent out remotely to all customers keys/cards via the top up terminals.

The increase will be updated on to the meter at the next vend after 13 September 2011. This is regardless of which terminal is used to top up.

Consequently, all energy used after the 13 September increase will be charged at the new rates.

Hope this is useful KasCo. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc