Switching from electricity pre-pay - council house

Pmarmalade

My Mum has a pre-pay meter for electricity and has lived in a council house (North Lanarkshire) for over a decade.

What are her rights with regards to switching out the pre-paid meter for a standard meter with monthly direct debit?

She has also had a few issues with catalogue repayments in the past (though sorted now), so I think this may have impacted her credit score. How strict are energy firms with credit acceptance?

House_Martin

She has the "right " to move to a much cheaper credit meter and should do that as soon as possible. My Mum was in exactly the same situation ( and with high priced catalogue purchasing along with othe debts ).
Suppliers have the right to check if she is a good credit risk and most do a credit history check.Some are tougher than others.BG s is quite strict.
EDF have the reputation for not even running a credit history check even though it says they do in their T and C s and if your Mum gets refused I would switch to them
. EDF moved my mum over to credit meters with no problems and pretty quickly too so if you have a problem with her present supplier I would do a switch to them.
Your Mums bills could easily lower at least 20% and remove the inconvenience of watching the credit does nt run out.
My problem was convincing my Mum to switch to a monthly or quarterly direct debit to achieve the big savings and this means giving the supplier an accurate yearly usage in kwhs . Its worth doing.

Smodlet

Depending on your mother's credit record, some suppliers require a deposit paid up front when switching from a prepayment meter. I don't know if some suppliers charge for changing the meter but House Martin will. He reads 'em for several providers. :cool:

House_Martin

Smodlet wrote: »

Depending on your mother's credit record, some suppliers require a deposit paid up front when switching from a prepayment meter. I don't know if some suppliers charge for changing the meter but House Martin will. He reads 'em for several providers. :cool:

They are not allowed to make outright charges now
. As you say they can ask for a bond or a deposit which is repayable
.Ofgem changed the rules a few years back, April 2014 I think
.Rip off Scottish Power used to charge over £200 per meter to exchange till they were stopped by Ofgems new rule which effectively kept SP prepay customers tied to the highest tariffs.
Personally I think its worth stumping up a small bond or deposit to get onto much cheaper overall yearly tariffs which could be £300 a year less for an average user