Pre Pay To Credit Meter

money-4-nothing

For a long long time we've always had a pre-pay meter when it came to our Gas and Electric.

From the meters where you inserted £1 coins, keys which you buy from the shops and for the past 10 years we've had a smart card meter.

We've been thinking for a while now to move over to a credit meter because the amount of credit we buy on a weekly basics is shocking. I estimate on a normal week we buy £10 on electric alone. The only thing putting me off moving to a credit meter is the charge I heard they make you pay for the new meter. I've heard figures ranging to £200 for the meter.

Anyway this morning I get a letter addressed to "THE OCCUPIER" from a company called e-on who say they are acting on behalf of Powergen to carry out essential work, they say the meter is now outside its certified life span and therefore requires changing. They also say theres no charge for this work.

I spent 15 minutes on hold this morning to Powergen to ask this following question, i'll try later.

BUT what are the odds of getting them to install a credit meter FREE of charge seeing that they are going to replace my prepay one anyway.

SwanJon

Not good.
I'm assuming Powergen is your supplier. Call them and ask them what they can do.
Different suppliers have different ways of managing the change, but if you've only ever paid by prepay they will probably want to credit check you.
They may then swap it for free.
There are a couple of threads covering how differnt companies do it, try searching the forums for prepay.

KTF

The previous owner of my place had pre-pay meters for both the gas and electric. When I moved in I phoned up BG and Southern Electric (who were the suppliers at the time) and asked them to change if to credit meters.

They did a credit check and swapped them out free of charge. I dont know if any companies actually charge you to swap them to be honest.

olly300

OP you may need to swap your prepay from Powergen to another supplier.

Doing a quick google search Powergen come up as the only company who have been difficult in swapping prepay meters to credit meters when the customer has a good credit rating.

I suggest you phone powergen up and ask them to swap. If they want to charge you or are difficult, then swap your prepay to another company. I know from personal experience EDF and Southern Energy have no problems swapping meters for free if you have a good credit rating.

Terrylw1

Hi,

Suppliers are fairly unaware if Recertfication as they have no real legal obligation to it.

This is a like for like change and they may not know about it so don't ring them to ask why it's happening. The process is for your safety and is legal.

If you get a credit meter fitted it will also serve the purpose.

Just a tip, Smartcard meters are unique in that they cna be converted to credit via the card. So, the next time you put money on the card, the Supplier has made an instruction to convert it and the card picks this up and makes the change when you insert it into the meter. You don't lose any credit either as it's stored on your account with your supplier so the latest credit just credits against your next bill.

They will probably credit check you, but it can be done this way. However, remember that on a recert a like for like is added under the same billing terms so don't convert before it's changed or it will need doing again if you catch my drift???