Billed while using a pre-payed meter?!

wowzetov

For the first time in a year of being a tenant where a pre-payment meter is installed for electricity, PowerGen sent me a statement "for information purporses only" stating that my account is in debit by 144 pounds. They list an estimated reading on 11April and another estimated reading on 30 April, and then an actual reading on 2 July. a. How can I owe any money if it's a pay as you go meter?b. Why should I accept their estimations of 11 April and 30 April when I never new that they were taking place and had no opportunity to give them actual readings?c. What is the purpose of this "information only" statement and when do they expect me to pay this off?d. What is the use of a pre-payment meter which is meant to be convenient in helping you stay out of debt, when they write to you after a year and contend that you owe them money?

tripled

You need to give them current readings so a corrected statement can be issued, and then if necessary book an appointment for them to adjust the meter. If you have a token meter they cannot be adjusted remotely at price changes, so you accumulate a bill for the discrepancy until it is adjusted.

Some companies don't charge you if the meter isn't set correctly and others do. Powergen is one of the ones that do and there is nothing to stop them I'm afraid, although energywatch is trying to have the practice stopped.

Your contract with Powergen is to pay them for gas/electricity used at their published rates - which is not necessarily what the meter is charging you.

Cardew

If the meter was set too high, either to recover a debt or because the tariff has been reduced, you could be in a situation where the utility company owe you money, and you would get a refund.

The normal method of recovering the debit balance is to set the meter to charge more than the correct tariff.

wowzetov

...if the statement says my account is in debit does that mean they owe me money or I owe them money?

Cardew

wowzetov wrote: »

...if the statement says my account is in debit does that mean they owe me money or I owe them money?

You owe them!

wowzetov

I phoned up and they said that they only issue these types of information-only notices because they have to and that they are not going to make me pay as I am paying on the key.

tripled

Key meters can be updated remotely, so they shouldn't usually accumulate a balance. If they do want anything back off you, they can always just update the meter. Not sure why the statement is estimated though, as to my knowledge a key meter sends a meter reading evrey time it is topped up.