Pre paid meter, new house

daveo91

Me and a house mate recently moved in to a new house (back in February) and the house came with pre-paid meters.

Something we have noticed is that if we top up £10 it only seems to add £9.69 or around that figure, is this normal?

We have also noticed that it seems to use a stupid amount over night. For e.g I am on annual leave this week and so have been on my computer/PS4/watching TV and generally not being massively energy efficient during the day - still it only works out at me using 1.5p an hour - which I can live with.

However over night, when we are using nothing, it goes down 40p, which works out at about 5p an hour. As this has happened a few times now last night we turned off all the breakers on the fuse box, except downstairs plugs as they have the fridge and freezer connected to them, but that is literally the only thing plugged in - the same thing happened.

Any thoughts please?

macman

5p an hour is around 0.4kWh, assuming a rate of 12p per kWh. Perfectly possible for a fridge and freezer to use that, plus possibly some other devices on standby on the downstairs ring main. TV, phone chargers, router etc.
Did you obtain your own card upon occupation? If not you could be paying someone else's debt.

enfield_freddy

have you accounted for daily standing charge being taken out (overnight)


yup , get a new card (ring supplier for instructions) as you could be paying a previous debt off

daveo91

There is a daily standing charge?

If it turns out I have been paying off someone else's debt will I be able to claim this back, or is it just lost to me now?

Also how easy/cheap is it to switch to a direct debit style payment? I have never been in debt to anyone and have paid off all bills on time and in full for every other service so should be ok as far as credit ratings go.

SwanJon

Did you call the supplier when you moveed in with a reading?
They should have cleared any debt off the meters at this point.

If you didn't call then there is a small possibility that you are paying off someone else's debt, but the amounts are so small I don't think it is still happening.

If you want to change to a DD meter you may need to pass a credit check, and/or pay a deposit and/or pay a charge for the job.

Good article here:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/switch-prepaid-gas-electricity