Electricity Prepayment Meter Charge

ShakeyRed

Hi everyone,

I have a query, if anyone can help it would be great.

My wife had a phonecall last night telling us how we were getting on with the bill we'd ran up 4 years ago.

We were a little gobsmacked as we'd thought the bill was paid and didn't know we were paying it off. We'd never had any confirmation of any payment plan and so assumed we'd payed enough not to owe a bill by the time the machine was installed. (We used to pay on a card at the post office and continued to do so until the machine was fitted)

My wife phoned back today to ask for more details and she was told that the electricity bill that we owed was £220 and we have been charged £500 for the prepayment meter, we can't deny the bill amount as we knew we had run one up, but a charge for the machine - i would have rejected it if I'd have known about the cost.

My query is on the cost of the machine as i can't find any info on the cost to install a prepayment meter and I don't know if it makes a difference but we didn't ask for the machine, we wasn't given a choice, we had to have it as we'd got in to debt.

undaunted

Do you mean the supplier said that they would fit one and you let them (I wouldn't have expected them to charge you for this)

OR that they had to go to Court for a warrant of entry and then fitted it despite your objections (I would expect there to be a charge of about £200 or so to cover the engineer & Court costs)

£500 doesn't sound right. I would suggest writing to your supplier with your query & requesting a breakdown of the account

ShakeyRed

undaunted wrote: »

Do you mean the supplier said that they would fit one and you let them (I wouldn't have expected them to charge you for this)

OR that they had to go to Court for a warrant of entry and then fitted it despite your objections (I would expect there to be a charge of about £200 or so to cover the engineer & Court costs)

£500 doesn't sound right. I would suggest writing to your supplier with your query & requesting a breakdown of the account

Yes to the first one, they said we would have to have a machine fitted and they arranged a date and came and fitted it, we didn't dispute the bill so didn't have any court interventions, we just agreed to have the machine fitted - but was not informed of a cost.

NotScottishPower

charged £500 for the prepayment meter

£500 does seem a little steep. All energy companies charge various prices for this. I know Scottish Power currently charge £55 per meter plus a £150 refundable deposit after 12 months. As undaunted has said i would contact your current supplier and queery these charges!

chanz4

It wont be just the fitting charge, at what stage of collections were you? Had you recieved a doorstep visit at all?

ShakeyRed

No there was no doorstep visit, no court proceedings, nothing.

We were no further than telephone stage, we'd been quite hit and miss with our weekly card payments, always robbing peter to pay paul, and they telephoned and told us that if we didn't pay the whole amount owed we'd loose the availability to pay on a weekly card, we explained our situation and they said we'd have to have a meter fitted to pay the bill, which we did.

At no time, until yesterday, had anyone mentioned that we would have to pay £500 for the meter nor is there anything on the yearly statement that we get.

t0rt0ise

Sounds like a misunderstanding. You need to write to them asking for the situation to be put in writing so that you can see it and understand it.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

maybe it was that you still owe £220, and had already paid £500 through the meter.

How much did you owe to start with?

There may be a small charge for the meter, probably built in to the unit price, or a daily service charge.

You should be able to scroll through the settings to see what your fixed charge is.

torbrex

As frugal says, your initial debt would have been loaded onto the meter and you will be paying this off at so much per week as well as what you are actually using in electric.
It is the power companies way of getting back your debt without going through the court system and there would not have been anything added to your original debt for the instalation.

If you scroll through the display screen you should be able to find out how much the charge/week is and also what the outstanding debt still exists.

chanz4

they dont normaly charge for a fitting of a meter, unless via legal channels so something is been miscomunicated.