Best Electric Supplier to swap Prepay to Credit Meter

MethodMon

I'm currently a Dual Fuel British Gas customer. I won't bore you with full story, just to say they've been a complete shambles trying to swap prepay electric to credit meter. I'm waiting for complaint to be addressed using resolver.

Does anyone have any experience switching to a new supplier and immediately swapping to a credit meter?

footyguy

MethodMon wrote: »

I'm currently a Dual Fuel British Gas customer. I won't bore you with full story, just to say they've been a complete shambles trying to swap prepay electric to credit meter. I'm waiting for complaint to be addressed using resolver.

Does anyone have any experience switching to a new supplier and immediately swapping to a credit meter?

Try this MSE article for your options

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/switch-prepaid-gas-electricity

MethodMon

So my options are:
EDF
E-on
ScottishPower
SSE

The question is which of these are lease likely to mess it all up like British Gas? Success or Horror stories welcome.

cifpower

EDF are the easiest.

Switch to a prepayment tariff with them. After 28 days, request a meter switch which is done free and with no credit check.

Then switch to whatever tariff or company you want.

GingerBob_3

cifpower wrote: »

EDF are the easiest.

Switch to a prepayment tariff with them. After 28 days, request a meter switch which is done free and with no credit check.

Then switch to whatever tariff or company you want.

Suggest you stay with EDF. They won't scupper your chances of credit by reporting malicious information the CRAs.

[Deleted User]

Eon are the only supplier I know to do credit checks on all new customers who have a credit meter, not a prepayment meter. EDF are the supplier who is stupid enough not to take credit checks too seriously.

footyguy

MethodMon wrote: »

So my options are:
EDF
E-on
ScottishPower
SSE

The question is which of these are lease likely to mess it all up like British Gas? Success or Horror stories welcome.

It would probably assist us in advising you further as to what you believe the root cause was that resulted in British Gas attempts concluding in "a complete shambles"

As you will have noticed from the link provided earlier, different companies have different acceptence criteria.

But once you have passed that, the process is quite staightforward and in the past, I've arranged such meter changes with Eon (for electricity) and BG (for gas) without any issues. (they were the suppliers at the time)

You simply book an appointment (which may not be for a few weeks time), ensure you are at the property for that appointment (because you need to be there even if the meters are accessible from outside, as they will need access to the property for safety reasons), hopefully the representative turns up as agreed (but that may not actually be the supplier - afair, Eon turned up for their meter change, but I think it was Siemens that turned up for BG to switch their meter)

Then they get the meter changed (and ask you to sign something to confirm the meter has been changed and accept the appropriate meter readings - another reason you need to be there)

Remember, it's only your current supplier that can arrange to get the meter changed, so if you don't want BG to do the work any more, you will first have to switch supplier (and that will take at least 17 days or may take up to 5 weeks alone). It could also cause more issues with resolving your complaint against BG if you attempt to switch supplier at this time.

MethodMon

footyguy wrote: »

It would probably assist us in advising you further as to what you believe the root cause was that resulted in British Gas attempts concluding in "a complete shambles"

As you will have noticed from the link provided earlier, different companies have different acceptence criteria.

But once you have passed that, the process is quite staightforward and in the past, I've arranged such meter changes with Eon (for electricity) and BG (for gas) without any issues. (they were the suppliers at the time)

You simply book an appointment (which may not be for a few weeks time), ensure you are at the property for that appointment (because you need to be there even if the meters are accessible from outside, as they will need access to the property for safety reasons), hopefully the representative turns up as agreed (but that may not actually be the supplier - afair, Eon turned up for their meter change, but I think it was Siemens that turned up for BG to switch their meter)

Then they get the meter changed (and ask you to sign something to confirm the meter has been changed and accept the appropriate meter readings - another reason you need to be there)

Remember, it's only your current supplier that can arrange to get the meter changed, so if you don't want BG to do the work any more, you will first have to switch supplier (and that will take at least 17 days or may take up to 5 weeks alone). It could also cause more issues with resolving your complaint against BG if you attempt to switch supplier at this time.

I don't know for sure what the problem is with British Gas. Their system seems to have a problem with my address, sometimes they can find it, sometimes I call and the Post Code comes up in a different part of the country, they had to lookup my address on Google Maps before and I got the impression this was not unusal. Anyway they had to do a manual credit check on me because their system couldn't take my address, this failed so I have to try again in 3 months time. My file is above average for the area, on electrol roll, no defaults etc.

I also don't see any evidence on Experian they ran a search so I assume they ran it on the wrong address. The email informing me I'd failed the Experian credit check also misspelt my first name Micheal instead of Michael but I doubt that alone would be causing all the problems.

My address works fine on every other system it's ever been tried on so I'm thinking EDF may be the best way forward. May take a while but can't be any worse than British Gas.

GingerBob_3

sacsquacco wrote: »

Eon are the only supplier I know to do credit checks on all new customers who have a credit meter, not a prepayment meter. EDF are the supplier who is stupid enough not to take credit checks too seriously.

Avoid Eon then. And if you move to a house where they are the incumbent, don't provide them with personal details or your previous address, just move to a supplier who won't hit you with a credit check, nor knacker your chances of getting real credit.