S s e customer. Warm home discount, price hike switch?

wordsfan

I'm an sse customer. Following today's announcement I am worried sick. I am not working due to ill health and on benefits. Try n keep my energy usage as low as possible. Single mum 1 child. I need to do meter readings but I'm not sure if I can afford to switch. As think I owe current company money but having trouble getting a clear answer on this. Even once I can give them readings. I am entitled to the warm home payment thing of £130?? But not sure how best to sort this all out. Live in west of Scotland no citizens advice locally, local charities inundated/under funded. Are there any other charities/ organisations that can advise?

Nordor

Be very careful about switching suppliers if you think you are entitled to the Warm Homes Discount but have not yet received it for this year.


As you probably know, only pensioners on the Guarantee Element of Pension Credit AUTOMATICALLY qualify for the discount, although some people who receive other benefits may be eligible to receive what is known as the Broader Group Rebate. You would seem to qualify in this second category. However, not all electricity suppliers are part of the scheme plus applications for the Broader Group can be closed early.


So, if I were you, I would contact SSE immediately to see if they already have you flagged up as qualifying for the discount. If they haven't, get your application in as soon as possible because most (and perhaps all) of the companies seem to insist that they must be supplying your electricity both when you apply for and when you receive the discount.

Therefore apply straight away. Get the discount put onto your bill - and if you do, in fact, already owe SSE money this may well wipe out some, or all, of the debt. If it doesn't wipe out all your debt it may prove difficult to switch anyway, so at least make sure you don't jeopardise getting the £135 in the first place. But if you do find yourself debt-free you can start the switching process as soon as your discount has been applied.

I've just registered for the forums in order to write this reply - so I hope it's been useful!