Prepayment Meter funds dispute on changeover

tightasagnats

Hello folks,


Moved into new house last Sept, elec meter was a prepayment with British Gas. Switched it to Scottish Power (to be in line with the gas meter) and wanted both changed to credit meters. Gas all OK, now a credit meter.


Elec meter just changed over to a credit from prepay, had a £34.10 credit on it, which they have confirmed, and I'm being asked to pay £11 now - but I don't get how it can be owing. They only took it over a couple of months ago from BGas.


There was no debt with BGas and it's been topped up regularly during cold weather, used emergency once.


HELP! Could it be the unit rate set on the meter was wrong?


They don't seem to be able to answer this and many many emails and being on hold for hours is driving me mad. I'm going to switch the whole lot to another provider as soon as this is resolved.

FullForce

tightasagnats wrote: »

Hello folks,


Moved into new house last Sept, elec meter was a prepayment with British Gas. Switched it to Scottish Power (to be in line with the gas meter) and wanted both changed to credit meters. Gas all OK, now a credit meter.


Elec meter just changed over to a credit from prepay, had a £34.10 credit on it, which they have confirmed, and I'm being asked to pay £11 now - but I don't get how it can be owing. They only took it over a couple of months ago from BGas.


There was no debt with BGas and it's been topped up regularly during cold weather, used emergency once.


HELP! Could it be the unit rate set on the meter was wrong?


They don't seem to be able to answer this and many many emails and being on hold for hours is driving me mad. I'm going to switch the whole lot to another provider as soon as this is resolved.

Contact the supplier and ask for a fully itemised bill for any amount they claim you owe - you are entitled to it.

When you have one, if you still have any questions about it, please post a legible scan/image if it here (remove any personal info first)

tightasagnats

Thanks, I shall have a look now online and see if there's one on the account.

tightasagnats

Here's the bill:


https://nofile.io/f/GH8g7Xbjo2t/elec.png


What I don't understand is how there could be such a meter reading when using a prepayment meter, and why it would have £34.10 remaining on it, if I had used the units they claim?


I'll upload the final reading card left by the engineer also, they have used the last 5 digits he wrote down, not sure if that is correct.

House_Martin

You could have seen the tariff on the electric prepay meter.
It is displayed on one of the screens which can be seen with the key inserted.BG prepay rates are a little less than their standard/variable tariff
You may have had some small debt on the meter, I don`t mean standing charge debt which would be seen on screen"A " if there was anything owing.,but there are two other screens which display debt, and weekly repay amount on screens " S " and "T "
Someone switched to prepay meters can typically have between £3.50 and £16 a week to pay.
Standing charges of around £2 a week could also have been due for the period between you switching meters/suppliers

tightasagnats

There wasn't any debt, there was a huge debt of £1000's when I moved in (Sept) as the property was left empty for 6 years and we got that all sorted and reset to zero.


Surely the standing charges would have been taken off of the payment key top ups. Scottish Power only took the meter over in Jan, then April it was changed to credit meter.

tightasagnats

Here's the reading card:


https://nofile.io/f/7CApUEb3JB5/IMG_20180502_085548.jpg


1292 is what's on the bill, is that the same as 1.01292 on the card? (first digit on left is hard to make out, I think it's a 0 - could be a 2)

House_Martin

tightasagnats wrote: »

Here's the reading card:


https://nofile.io/f/7CApUEb3JB5/IMG_20180502_085548.jpg


1292 is what's on the bill, is that the same as 1.01292 on the card? (first digit on left is hard to make out, I think it's a 0 - could be a 2)

R1 -01292 means "Rate 1 ( to denote a single rate meter rather than eco 7 ) then the five digit reading. 01292 is the correct reading
.Looks like they owe you !

FullForce

tightasagnats wrote: »

Here's the bill:


https://nofile.io/f/GH8g7Xbjo2t/elec.png


What I don't understand is how there could be such a meter reading when using a prepayment meter, and why it would have £34.10 remaining on it, if I had used the units they claim?


I'll upload the final reading card left by the engineer also, they have used the last 5 digits he wrote down, not sure if that is correct.

Am I correct in saying that SP took over the account from BG on 24th Jan 2018?

Is it correct that you only ever paid SP a total of £50 for electric.

If so, how can you expect there to be a correct credit of almost £35 on the account? The standing charges alone for the period come to well over £20.

Did you ever get any refund from BG when you left them?
It appears the SP account starts at zero when you switched to them.
Perhaps any credit you saw referes to an overhang from your BG days?

FullForce

House_Martin wrote: »

...
.Looks like they owe you !

Looks to me like it's the OP that owes the money

Total cost of energy provided (inc standing charges & VAT): £61.19
Total amount OP has already paid: £50.00
Amount owed by OP: £11.19

tightasagnats

Yes SP took over in Jan.


There was some credit on the BG meter yes, not a great deal, less than £20. I was topping up like mad over winter - £80 a month or so, as I had guests using an electric heater. I actually topped up with SP more than £50, that was just one day in March that I put £50 on as the builders were coming and I wanted to make sure I didn't run out whilst on holiday with power tools etc. (£40 max so shop did £10 then £40) What it seems to me is that my previous top ups have not been recorded. In the event the builders hardly used any.


It's odd because there's another electricity account online with a 55p debt, I'll have a look at that. It's been a complete nightmare from start to finish.