npower prepayment electricity & gas meters

JohndC

I own a property that is let, and uses prepayment electricity and gas metering. In the last three years or so, the property has been empty for 9 months, either with builders in, or waiting for tenants.

npower have suddenly hit me with a bill for electricity and gas consumption, as well as standing charges, that they say I owe for the period when it was empty. I accept that I may owe some standing charges for that time, but I do not see, with pre-payment meters, how I could have run up fuel consumption bills (and they are saying that I have).

Can anyone comment on whether this can be the case?

nPower

JohndC wrote: »

I own a property that is let, and uses prepayment electricity and gas metering. In the last three years or so, the property has been empty for 9 months, either with builders in, or waiting for tenants.

npower have suddenly hit me with a bill for electricity and gas consumption, as well as standing charges, that they say I owe for the period when it was empty. I accept that I may owe some standing charges for that time, but I do not see, with pre-payment meters, how I could have run up fuel consumption bills (and they are saying that I have).

Can anyone comment on whether this can be the case?

Hi JohndC,

Thanks for your post.

Are the bills/statements we have sent based on accurate or estimated reads? If it's the latter this may be the cause of the issue and providing up to date reads should help to resolve.

If builders were renovating the property it may be that they weren't topping the meters up enough to cover the energy/standing charges and this can cause a balance to accumulate.

Also, if the property is being rented the meters will need to be reset after each change of tenancy to clear down any debt's that have accumulated and that are being re-paid through the meter.

The quickest way to identify what's causing this is to contact our Prepayment Team on 0800 073 3000 or 0330 100 3000 with the up to date meter settings. Alternatively, you can email me (using the address from my profile) with your account details and I'll be happy to take a closer look into this.

Thanks

Leigh

JohndC

nPower company representative - thank you for your response. Perhaps you can explain something to me that your complaints team cannot -

My understanding of a prepayment meter is rather like a pre-paid phone - that is you pay in advance for what you consume. So - I go to wherever and buy £10 credit, and use the card or whatever to draw against. When the credit runs out, so does the electricity, until I put another £10 (or whatever) onto the card.

So, I fail to see how I can get into a debt - surely that is the whole thing with pre-payment.

Having said that, I do recognise that there are two ways that a debt can mount up - there is a standing charge, and there is something called 'emergency credit'. I am happy to pay the former, and your rules state that the maximum that the emergency credit allows is £7.00.

So - what do the meter readings have to do with it? Surely I can only consume electricity that I have paid for in advance - where does the consumption debt come from?