prepayment meter advice please

reeree

im on a prepayment meter with powergen, my last statement said that i was £23 in credit so i tried to claim it as i always have before and in the past theyve always sent me a check, ive tried to claim this latest one back and they just gave me a load of gobbledegook, has anyone else had this happen. thanks in advance

kitchen_buff

You are paying well over the odds for card meter elecy and gas. get them to put in normal meter. No standing charge with powergen.

Plushchris

Kitchen buff is right, you are paying over the odds by paying by prepayment meter, but if you cant or dont want to change the meter you should consider changing to a different supplier, look for Ebico/Equipower & Equigas they are the cheapest supplier for prepayment meters.

Terrylw1

If your statement is billed to an estimate, it's not a credit until proved by a firm reading off the meter.

Whether you have a PP or credit meter, a Supplier will always want a firm reading to replace an estimate before refunding you anyway.

It's PP so, you put money in - you get power. You can only build up credit by overpaying. However, you still get the power later, you just don't buy nymore for a while.

I think you may be misunderstanding how your statements relate to your PP arrangement.

reeree

its not billed to an estimate, the meter man reads it then a few days later i get a statement telling me how much ive put in the meter, up until this time ive always been able to claim the amount that was in credit and they would send me a cheque for the full amount. but not this time for some reason, also my mother in law has the same trouble

Terrylw1

So, are you saying that you overpay and then request the excess credit back? I know some people have done that before and built up a lot which was worth having back.

However, if it's PP and the charges are set correctly and your statements are being produced correctly (which you clarified) then they have 2 options:

1) - give it you back to bring your credit back closer to zero
2) - hold onto it and tell you to not top up until it's gets closer to zero

I can only see them doing 1) if your credit is quite high and you request it because it would take you a long time to use it up.

Otherwise, if they keep doing it you then have to go and top up quicker.

It's one to discuss with them I guess. You could always speak to a manager.

If the charges are set correct, then there is no problem with the meter side.

So, I would imagine they are saying no thinking it will be better for you to save you topping up for a while. However, Suppliers love to hold onto money.

You could tell a manager that this is important to you and they may give it back.

However, they will also tell you to stop building up credits if you do it to request a refund later as it's a waste of their time in dealing with it.

My mum has a Smartpower meter and she leaves a credit higher than that on it. However, she just uses it up.

Does your credit on the meter tie up with the credit on the bill that you have requestd back? If not, you have a further problem. If it does, why don't you just use it and not top up for a bit???