Switching from Prepayment - Npower

dpo1987

Hi All


Just looking for some advice really - To cut a long story short...


My partner has lived in our house all her life, her mother passed away a number of years ago and when I called npower at the weekend to try and change our prepayment meter to a credit meter they advised that the account was still in my partners mothers name and I needed to change the account to my name to my name which is understandable. (All correspondence prior to this was addressed to "The Exors of .........." and with us being on a prepayment meter, we never had the need to call npower before.


The reason for my call was to change over from a prepayment meter to a credit meter as our house has recently had a full central heating and boiler install and we've noticed our gas bills are around £4.00 a day which seems high (we've upgraded from having a gas fire only).


After around 40 minutes, whilst the advisor was trying to book an appointment in for an Engineer to come and switch the meter, I was told that her colleague had told her that they couldn't do it for 3 months until we had some usage of the new account (under my name) to show no debt. I don't understand how there would be any debt on a prepayment meter, and also, our house has had it's gas supply with npower for years on my partners mothers account without any problems or issues.


Myself and my partner have no credit problems and would pass a credit check.


If anyone has come up against this and can provide some advice on how we can get around this and switch the prepayment meter out as soon as possible then that would be great.


On a side note, I was also told that I need to go to a shop and give them a new card code to get a new card - Every single shop I've been too have no cards in stock so we are still using the original card which still seems to work even though the advisor said they would stop it (If it did stop working then I don't know what we'd do as we still need Gas....)

CashStrapped

Sounds a bit bizarre if you ask me.

The only thing I can think of is that they are imposing some restriction. Possibly because of some history of debt with that address? It might be one of these procedural things and the staff are just following what the computer says. In this case, it is a "computer says no". They may want to assess your credit situation but why a quick credit check would not suffice I have no idea.

It could be that there is something on your credit file you are not aware of has flagged something up, triggering this procedure. It could be a simple mistake, it may not. Maybe consider doing a free credit check to ensure everything is in order. I did one a while back and got cashback for it.

I would just switch provider with the pre-pay. A company like EDF does not conduct any credit checks (not that should be an issue as you say) but it should mean they are far more amenable to swapping the meters out rather than make you jump through hoops.

If you do that, just ensure you switch to a tariff with no exit fees. This will enable you to switch to a cheaper tariff elsewhere once EDF have swapped the meters.

It makes it a bit harder for you, but it sounds like npower are going to make things difficult for some reason.

Electric meter swaps take about 2-3 weeks and Gas takes 3-4. You may also want to wait a short time ( a week or so) to ensure the new meters are registered on the national database before switching to the cheapest tariff.

I would also start monitoring your use in KWH. You say your bill in the last few days was £4. It has been super cold recently so that may not be that bad at all. You need to start monitoring your account in terms of actual use, in kwh. Not in terms of cost alone. Knowing your unit rates is important though.

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The alternative would be to trudge through a complaints procedure with Npower. I would not waste my time.

nPower

dpo1987 wrote: »

Hi All


Just looking for some advice really - To cut a long story short...


My partner has lived in our house all her life, her mother passed away a number of years ago and when I called npower at the weekend to try and change our prepayment meter to a credit meter they advised that the account was still in my partners mothers name and I needed to change the account to my name to my name which is understandable. (All correspondence prior to this was addressed to "The Exors of .........." and with us being on a prepayment meter, we never had the need to call npower before.


The reason for my call was to change over from a prepayment meter to a credit meter as our house has recently had a full central heating and boiler install and we've noticed our gas bills are around £4.00 a day which seems high (we've upgraded from having a gas fire only).


After around 40 minutes, whilst the advisor was trying to book an appointment in for an Engineer to come and switch the meter, I was told that her colleague had told her that they couldn't do it for 3 months until we had some usage of the new account (under my name) to show no debt. I don't understand how there would be any debt on a prepayment meter, and also, our house has had it's gas supply with npower for years on my partners mothers account without any problems or issues.


Myself and my partner have no credit problems and would pass a credit check.


If anyone has come up against this and can provide some advice on how we can get around this and switch the prepayment meter out as soon as possible then that would be great.


On a side note, I was also told that I need to go to a shop and give them a new card code to get a new card - Every single shop I've been too have no cards in stock so we are still using the original card which still seems to work even though the advisor said they would stop it (If it did stop working then I don't know what we'd do as we still need Gas....)

Hi dpo1987

We'll be happy to help with this if you can send us a message to the address showing on our profile.

Thanks

Jade :-)

House_Martin

Prepayment meters can have a lot of debt on them. My record I ve seen as a meter reader is a massive 9k ( on an Npower meter oddly enough ) and 2k or 3 k debt is quite common. These are obviously debts from former credit meters where the occupier is repaying the weekly debt.
Also a build up of unpaid standing charges can add up if no one has been crediting the meter.
OP check screens "S and T " on key prepay electric meters and screen 26 on the card gas meter for any debts on the meter. True debt does not show on the first screens of prepayment meters
All suppliers ( except EDF and Spark ) do credit history checks. Sounds like Npower look like replacing your meter pretty soon, and its free of charge.Scottish Power used to charge over £200 a meter until OFGEM banned the practice a few years ago.
I personally would fail most credit history checks. I ve never ever borrowed anything or even bought anything "on tick" and the two properties I ve owned have been bought for cash, never repaid anything to prove my credit worthiness so I m a bad risk in their eyes

WhoIsThat

dpo1987 wrote: »

Hi All


Just looking for some advice really - To cut a long story short...


My partner has lived in our house all her life, her mother passed away a number of years ago and when I called npower at the weekend to try and change our prepayment meter to a credit meter they advised that the account was still in my partners mothers name and I needed to change the account to my name to my name which is understandable. (All correspondence prior to this was addressed to "The Exors of .........." and with us being on a prepayment meter, we never had the need to call npower before.


The reason for my call was to change over from a prepayment meter to a credit meter as our house has recently had a full central heating and boiler install and we've noticed our gas bills are around £4.00 a day which seems high (we've upgraded from having a gas fire only).


After around 40 minutes, whilst the advisor was trying to book an appointment in for an Engineer to come and switch the meter, I was told that her colleague had told her that they couldn't do it for 3 months until we had some usage of the new account (under my name) to show no debt. I don't understand how there would be any debt on a prepayment meter, and also, our house has had it's gas supply with npower for years on my partners mothers account without any problems or issues.


Myself and my partner have no credit problems and would pass a credit check.


If anyone has come up against this and can provide some advice on how we can get around this and switch the prepayment meter out as soon as possible then that would be great.


On a side note, I was also told that I need to go to a shop and give them a new card code to get a new card - Every single shop I've been too have no cards in stock so we are still using the original card which still seems to work even though the advisor said they would stop it (If it did stop working then I don't know what we'd do as we still need Gas....)

Sounds like you got off lightly.

Typically nPower ask for 6-12 months
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/switch-prepaid-gas-electricity

Michaelw

House_Martin wrote: »

Prepayment meters can have a lot of debt on them. My record I ve seen as a meter reader is a massive 9k ( on an Npower meter oddly enough ) and 2k or 3 k debt is quite common. These are obviously debts from former credit meters where the occupier is repaying the weekly debt.
Also a build up of unpaid standing charges can add up if no one has been crediting the meter.
OP check screens "S and T " on key prepay electric meters and screen 26 on the card gas meter for any debts on the meter. True debt does not show on the first screens of prepayment meters
All suppliers ( except EDF and Spark ) do credit history checks. Sounds like Npower look like replacing your meter pretty soon, and its free of charge.Scottish Power used to charge over £200 a meter until OFGEM banned the practice a few years ago.
I personally would fail most credit history checks. I ve never ever borrowed anything or even bought anything "on tick" and the two properties I ve owned have been bought for cash, never repaid anything to prove my credit worthiness so I m a bad risk in their eyes

Be careful with the tariff cost it could actualy increase.Prepayment these days is a standard method of payment with todays fuel cost and credit can quickly escalate out of control.

Its not surprising suppliers are cautious.Passing a credit check doesn't mean someone can afford that method of payment.After passing a credit check with British Gas having the smart meter mode changed to credit the bill increased and it took many weeks to change back to prepayment mode.