POWERGEN changed over meter & charging me 2yrs price increase

Cardew

Well as prices have now fallen on pre-payment tariffs will any accrued credit, where meters have not been updated, be written off?

Kimitatsu

Why would it?

As a customer with a prepayment meter you already pay more for the priviedge of having a ppm. In addition the majority of people on a ppm are those that are on benefits so it is easier for them to budget and/or it is used as a mechanism to retrieve arrears, hence the majority of people with a ppm would come under a "vulnerable household".

Why then would you write off a credit? It is far more unlikely that the company would leave a ppm to be in credit than to accumulate arrears!

tripled

Kimitatsu wrote: »

Why then would you write off a credit? It is far more unlikely that the company would leave a ppm to be in credit than to accumulate arrears!

I would have thoght it would be the other way around... surely a company would prefer money in their bank account than yours?

RobertinHerts

I've just been dealing with Powergen over this issue of the Prepayment meter undercharging. They just sent a bill saying that there was £80 owing. The first phone call to them got nowhere so I took it over and called them again. They admitted it was their fault for the discrepency having occured in the first place. Then said that by agreement with Energy Watch they would knock off £10 for one period and 20% for another (I don't see this mentioned elsewhere in this discussion) so as a consequence of my phone call they would reduce it to £56. This would be collected at £1 per week using the new meter to be installed next week.

They admitted they had had plently of time to do this already and to have sent an explanatory letter which they hadn't done. I indicated that there was no intention, or indeed ability, to pay due to (genuine) hardship, so after checking with a supervisor, the slate was wiped clean now and will be again after the new meter will be installed. PG didn't propose installing a new meter until our second phone call. I now read, above, that they had already agreed to do this 'proactivly' back last December.

I've since read elsewhere on this forum that the fact that this accumulating debt hasn't been made clear before should mean that 'debts' over 12 months old should also have been wiped off anyway.

Robert

SwanJon

One thing that i don't think I've seen brought up with this issue is that a company won't let you leave if you have a balance with them.

If you are paying £1 a week, you're tied to them for another year, even if they are more expensive.
If you are looking to leave you'd need to pay it off first.

Cardew

SwanJon wrote: »

One thing that i don't think I've seen brought up with this issue is that a company won't let you leave if you have a balance with them.

If you are paying £1 a week, you're tied to them for another year, even if they are more expensive.
If you are looking to leave you'd need to pay it off first.

I think that is the stance taken by all companies if you have a large debit balance.

roadkiller

Cardew wrote: »

I think that is the stance taken by all companies if you have a large debit balance.

Why does a large debit balance matter

roadkiller

SwanJon wrote: »

One thing that i don't think I've seen brought up with this issue is that a company won't let you leave if you have a balance with them.

If you are paying £1 a week, you're tied to them for another year, even if they are more expensive.
If you are looking to leave you'd need to pay it off first.

Usually thats how it works

Cardew

roadkiller wrote: »

Why does a large debit balance matter

In the normal course of paying by DD or quarterly credit, there will usally be a small debit balance when you change supplier.

i.e. if I pay £50 monthly to BG and decide to move to NPower, my final settlement figure(after final meter reading) might be £100 or so. That would not normally present a problem.

However if I had run up a large debit balance of(say) £500 BG would not normally allow me to change supplier unless I cleared most of this. The reason being that they would have no leverage over me, to recover that debt, if I were getting my supply from another company.

Apart from the above reason, I suspect the prospective new supplier would be unwilling to take on a customer who had run up a large debt and was unwilling, or unable, pay that debt.

SwanJon

Balance doesn't have to be large - just outstanding for more than 28 days - technically £1 is enough.
If you have a DD or SO etc it ususally doesn't come up, but if you pay quarterly or pay as you go it'll stop the transfer.

I only mentioned it as you may be better off paying off the balance and switiching supplier.