Prepayment woes

mikezoe65

An elderly, low income, immobile neighbour, on benefits with a pre-payment meter (electricity only with SSE) who has never switched, challenged me to save him money on his £2200 annual costs using a comparison site. Confident that I could help him, I discovered that the maximum he could save would be £50/annum. So much for suppliers inflating possible savings. It will be interesting to learn when yesterday's ruling on charges for pre-payment will be enacted by SSE. It is clear that none of the suppliers - big nor little - want new customers in his predicament. I doubt this will change.

[Deleted User]

Well challenge your neighbour , who is immobile, into getting rid of the stupid prepayment meter which is nt at all suitable for him. I m confident you could lower his electric bill by at least £300 a year if only he would change his ways slightly.
There is nt much variation in prepayment meters because they are all expensive to run for any suppliers. They have been subsidised down to standard/variable rates when the true costs of running these meters are higher. There is even a profit to be paid to a corner shop for a top up. He has to get a credit meter installed then get switching away from SSE.
The only way to get prepayment tariffs lowered is for smart prepayment meters to get installed asap. These new meters are a massive upward step to the hopeless and outdated landys Gyrs/Actaris/Seimens/Itron etc manual meters. They are in widespread use now in Northern Ireland where the suppliers can see how cheap they are to run and so are offering cheaper tariffs than many credit meter rates.

Joyful

The cost is not all that will come into it though. He must be using a massive amount of electricity. Check also what type of meter he is on whether E7 or E10 as the latter may make it harder to switch suppliers. Try and help him reduce the amount he is using.