Can I use any key in a prepay electric meter?

DSmiffy

Hi, just wondered if anyone knows whether I can use any key in a prepay electric meter?

I work on a lot of void properties and often have to contact whoever the energy supplier is for that particular property to arrange a new reset code as, quite often, the key is often missing from the meter.

When we deal with Scottish Power they charge us £8 for a new key and they are difficult to source as not all Paypoint shops hold them. British Gas keys are easy to get hold of.
All the rest are free.

My question is, can I use any supplier key in an electricty meter no matter who supplies the energy? As long as it is topped up, does it matter what supplier is on the key? Or is it a British Gas key for British Gas, EON for EON etc.

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Hi,

I would think not, each key will have a chip for whatever particular company.

Anyhow, just stick it in an see.

DSmiffy

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,

I would think not, each key will have a chip for whatever particular compamy.

Anyhow, just stick it in an see.

Thanks for your reply, but I have in the past come across a meter with a key still in it, but when I have checked to find out who the supplier is, it's different.

I'm all for "just stick it in and see" but I'll have to load it with money first, and if it doesn't work, there goes my dosh !!

[Deleted User]

Hi,

yes but for a fiver and it allows you power, what the heck.

Sounds as though you work in empty houses, so just needing power for tools, and of course music.

[Deleted User]

The meter may just swallow up some of your fiver deducting standing charges or last tenants weekly debt repayment. The correct procedure is the outgoing tenant lets the supplier know end reading and date and forwarding address so the supplier can either forward any credit or establish an address to collect the huge amount of debt still left on the meter. Landlord/Owner is then responsible for the future standing charges and energy usage between tenants. This rarely happens.
These old key/card meters are an absolute disaster.Whoever dreamed this system up and thought it would all work smoothly got it sadly and expensively wrong.Thank god smart prepayment meters are starting to be used

Wolf3

It would be risky and certainly not preferred practice, afaik you can use most suppliers keys in the meters themselves, when you insert said key into the meter it registers it to the meter then you can top up, this makes the key useless with any other meter and clears any credit still held on the key if you had used it previously. the reset code should be used to clear any standing charges or debt repayment. Finally as you are not using the preferred suppliers key you cant guarantee the energy supplier will receive any of the payments

Lynxe

We recently moved into a property with a key meter and had a lot of problems. Hopefully my experience will help you answer the question.

We moved in, and rang the supply company to move the accounts into our name (in this case, e.on). They gave me a code and instructed me to get the key we had in the house recoded. I went to the advised store to do this, and after a lot of "faff" (the woman had no idea what I was talking about!) she claimed the key was recoded. I topped the card up, but it didn't register in my meter. After an angry phone call to the company, a new recode number and recoded at a store who did know what they were doing, and we were good to go.

The tl'dr version of this is that we needed our key recoded for our own account, so I should imagine the answer is no, you can't just use any key.