No Standing Charge

christhesparky_2

Wonder if anyone can help?

I get my electricity via a prepayment meter from british gas, when i signed up was told that there was no standing charge, however my meter is set to have a standing charge of £0.93 per week,
British gas told me that this standing charge is refunded when you recieve a statement from them.

Has anyone actually had a refund from BG?

Xbigman

No you don't get a refund as such. Most likely BG will charge you extra for the first units you use (where as the meter is charging flat rate and a standing charge) you will actually get a bill that is tiered. It should work out about the same.

You need the meter reset. Or move to Ebico if you are a low user.
Regards



X

tripled

Instead of a standing charge, BG charge a two tier rate. If it is an old token meter, perhaps it doesn't support this so they have put one rate on along with a standing charge to cover the difference. It shouldn't have any effect unless you use less than 225kwh per quarter.

They are in a program of trying to replace all token meters for keymeters, so when they get around to replacing it that should vanish.

SwanJon

At the moment all electricity pay as you go meters are set up with a standing charge - really based on the fact that the older meters can't do the two tier thing.
Maybe once enough meters are the new ones they'll change it, but nothing yet.
While the billing system will calculate using two tiers, the meters have been set up to match as closely as possible using a standing charge and single tier.

Recently, they have decided to go with what the meter says, not the billing system. Unless the meter has been set too high - you should be able to check the pence per kWh and compare it with their calculated price.

It's an attempt to make it simple I suppose.