Scottish Hydro Prepayment Meters

davidrle

I have just moved into a property which has pre payment meters for both gas and electricity through Scottish Hydro.

I phoned up today about getting them switched to direct debit meters , partly because of the hassle of continuously topping them up but also I was led to believe that prepayment meters charged a much higher unit rate than credit meters.

I was told my Scottish Hydro that that it would be £52 a meter to change over, and the guy at the end of the phone said in all honestly I'd be better staying on pre payment as it would save me £104 for no benefit really as I pay the same rate as credit meters.

Is this true or was he fobbing me off?

Come to think of it, the pre payment isn't a massive issue as I'll put on £50 at a time rather than a tenner - but I'd hate to be paying more for my electricity when I could get it much cheaper?

Anyone have any thoughts?

David

macman

They're called credit meters-you don't have to pay by DD to have them.
PPM's cost exactly the same as the supplier's Standard tariff, not more.
They only cost more in that you cannot access the online discount tariffs, which typically save you 4-6% over Standard.
£50 per meter is pretty much standard, though another supplier might do it for free in return for your business.

mac.d

Is the standing charge for a prepayment meter the same as for a standard credit meter? I was always under the impression that although the tariff might be the same, the standing charge was higher, is that wrong?

misterbarlow

there is no standing charge any more for SSE electric PPM, they slip it into the unit cost... dont know about gas!
any standing charge will be in screen F on your electric meter and should be 0.00!!