Left SSE PAYG but sending bills?

FortyWinks

Hello everyone,

Hope your new year has started off well.

I inherited gas and electric pay as you go meters when I moved into this house four years ago. I'd never experienced PAYG before but decided to keep them for easy budgeting reasons and brought SSE with me. However, I recently joined the Cheap Energy Club and found I could save some cash by switching to OVO. The switch went through smoothly. I received my new key and card. Used up all the SSE credit in the meters, registered the OVO key and card in the meters then topped up straight away. Simple.
But today...SSE have sent me final gas and electric bills. It seems they have taken estimated readings and billed me as if I'm a credit meter customer. As I was a PAYG customer I don't understand why they are sending me bills totalling £90.
As the post came late today and SSE closed at 2pm, I can't speak to them until Monday.
Has anyone else experienced this before?

Many thanks
Donna

[Deleted User]

Did you vacate the property and send SSE the details of both your meter readings and forwarding address ? You can owe money on prepayment meters with a build up of standing charge debt, and debts which were initially loaded on the prepay meter for repayment via the meter of a weekly amount of up to £16.
If you just left the property without closing your account with SSE possibly you are also leaving the account open and in your name for the next tenant to abuse and rack up debts via prepayment meter with fraud.

FortyWinks

sacsquacco wrote: »

Did you vacate the property and send SSE the details of both your meter readings and forwarding address ? You can owe money on prepayment meters with a build up of standing charge debt, and debts which were initially loaded on the prepay meter for repayment via the meter of a weekly amount of up to £16.
If you just left the property without closing your account with SSE possibly you are also leaving the account open and in your name for the next tenant to abuse and rack up debts via prepayment meter with fraud.

Hi, thanks for your reply

No, I'm still living in the same property. It was just a straight switch between energy companies. So there shouldn't be anything outstanding.
Though, as I'm thinking about my reply on here, it's just occurred to me that OVO haven't asked for any meter readings as yet.
When I used the new OVO key and card for the first time I did make a note of the meter readings just in case. However, I because I'd used up all the SSE credit and went straight over to OVO credit, I didn't think to give SSE those meter readings - it's pay as you go and so I paid and left (as it were! haha).

notbritishgas

So how do the meter readings you took compare with the estimates on the SSE bill?

FortyWinks

notbritishgas wrote: »

So how do the meter readings you took compare with the estimates on the SSE bill?

Hi, thanks for your question

OVO start date was Nov 29th but it took until Dec 3rd to use up all the gas SSE credit. SSE Nov 29th estimate was 7017 and my reading on Dec 3rd was 7033. They have billed me £35.44

The electric bill seems to have got lost in the Xmas post because I've only received a "Unpaid final bill" letter stating an overdue amount of £54.40. So I can't compare that one unfortunately.

Standing charges etc are all part of the top up and meter programming process. There shouldn't be anything further to pay once I'd used up all the SSE credit.

SwanJon

Hi,

Although the meters are described as Pay as you go they are not really, they are a way to budget costs.
As such, when you switched to Ovo, they began supplying you gas that day (Nov 29) and will expect payment. However, SSE stopped supplying you then too. That is the day both suppliers will need a reading for.

As there was credit on the meter on the day you switched, you don't need to worry about the standing charge, but if you had run out of credit and not topped up for a few months (e.g. during the summer) it is possible to build up a standing charge debt on these meters.

There are other ways for a debt to appear on the billing system for prepayment meters

• Estimated meter readings - either opening or closing - this could lead to the system thinking you have used more energy than you have paid for. E.g. a low moving in reading 4 years ago?
• Wrong messages sent to the meter - either adding false credit or removing a true debt that is being recovered
• Wrong tariff on the meter compared to the billing system - this is much rarer with key meters that it used to be with the paper token ones

Best answer is to speak to SSE to see if they can identify when the balance appeared.

FortyWinks

SwanJon wrote: »

Hi,

Although the meters are described as Pay as you go they are not really, they are a way to budget costs.
As such, when you switched to Ovo, they began supplying you gas that day (Nov 29) and will expect payment. However, SSE stopped supplying you then too. That is the day both suppliers will need a reading for.

As there was credit on the meter on the day you switched, you don't need to worry about the standing charge, but if you had run out of credit and not topped up for a few months (e.g. during the summer) it is possible to build up a standing charge debt on these meters.

There are other ways for a debt to appear on the billing system for prepayment meters

• Estimated meter readings - either opening or closing - this could lead to the system thinking you have used more energy than you have paid for. E.g. a low moving in reading 4 years ago?
• Wrong messages sent to the meter - either adding false credit or removing a true debt that is being recovered
• Wrong tariff on the meter compared to the billing system - this is much rarer with key meters that it used to be with the paper token ones

Best answer is to speak to SSE to see if they can identify when the balance appeared.

Hi, thanks for your reply
This information is excellent for future use.

I rang SSE...turned out they owed me a few quid instead!
They didn't want closing meter readings and OVO haven't asked for opening meter readings either.
At least I have that info and I always keep my top up receipts...just in case. I like to be prepared & organised.

SwanJon

That's good to hear - the suppliers should already have regular readings - the meter puts the reads on the key/card which gets sent to the company along with your payment when you top up.
However, it's always worth double checking any read they use on a bill to make sure something hasn't gone wrong.

[Deleted User]

SwanJon wrote: »

That's good to hear - the suppliers should already have regular readings - the meter puts the reads on the key/card which gets sent to the company along with your payment when you top up.
However, it's always worth double checking any read they use on a bill to make sure something hasn't gone wrong.

SSE won t be getting an accurate end read as they have topped up possibly many weeks previously and the OP has run down the credit to zero. I see as much as several hundred pounds credit on meters, so it could be a year between a supplier getting a read via a top up. When changing suppliers its always best, even when using prepays, to go to the meter and give an end read.
The electric meter is confusing as there will be two possible end reads. screen "G " will give the total kwhrs that the meter has recorded since installation while "screen "H " will give the total kwrs that the current occupier has used. Some suppliers use screen "G ", some screen "H" . Thats the sort of question which will baffle the call centres, which end read do you want ? Also screens "S " and "T " will show debts/repay rate from former credit meters.