URGENT - Liberty 100 Smart Meter Problem

LeesArt

MWT said:

LeesArt said:

I am not saying that you did not need to change suppliers for 90 days, I meant that before smart meters you took reads and did not get a bill for 90 days.
You certainly never got cut off before you even moved in...

...Can you please explain why it is harder to switch away?

....A credit check may not be unusual but that does not make it right.

...I have been speaking to energy companies and it seems that the big 6 and 2 cheap vendors who I have called, only do a credit check if you do not pay a quarterly bill.  It is never a barrier to becoming a client (one told me), Scottish Power and Southern Electric were quite happy to have a quarterly pay on receipt of bill.  The cheap vendors preferred to have direct debit if you wanted their best tariffs.

Re the first point I guess we are going to have to agree to differ, switching and monthly billing have been around a lot longer than smart meters.

Getting 'cut-off' was certainly rare and frankly still is, but turning up and finding a pre-payment meter in place with no credit and no key has been going on as long as there has been pre-payment meters, so that side of this is not all that unusual, it is only the slowness in getting it sorted which is the problem and that is mostly down to a very poor supplier in form of Boost.

The difficulty in moving is that Boost only offer pre-payment so you can't get onto a credit account before you leave them so you are limited to those suppliers that will accept a pre-payment meter. Most do but not all.

Then once you've moved you have to get off of the pre-payment meter and onto a credit account through whatever process your new supplier has for that and this is where you are most likely to encounter the credit check.

So when picking a new supplier talk to them about the whole process and tell them exactly which type of meter she has because the new supplier is going to have to change it from pre-payment mode to credit mode and not all of them will find that easy...

If the HA can help in any way by arranging for her to switch to their usual supplier along with a change of meter mode then that might smooth the path..

Thank for your suggestions 
My issue is that this meter seems to have been switched to a Pre-Payment meter for no reason.
I have ascertained that it was a quarterly account with monthly direct debit
It went to HA who did nothing to change that
Some evil commission seeking bar steward then changed it to OVO who put it on Boost.
My niece has no bad credit but no credit record either.
I find this whole thing obscene.
Of course there have always been pre-payment meters and if you were unlucky enough to have a previous tenant who had one you were stuck with one, but that is not the case here.
I have moved more times than I can remember, I have always taken on a quarterly account and paid on receipt of bill then looked around for the best deal on that basis. 
OVO Boost seem to be the worst company to deal with, I have never come across such atrocious attitude, the OVO staff say "this should take 5 minutes to fix but I am not trained in Boost so let me transfer you" then after a 20 minute wait you get the operator from hell who has no interest to help. I have called them 5 times now, all with different staff my niece is not moving in until this is resolved, she may even lose the property.  We cannot give her this kind of stress.
The HA are trying to move it back to their void but the person who can do it is working from home or on furlough or whatever.
I have dealt with a South African call centre with another energy supplier and they were delightful, so this seems to be that they are following the directives of OVO Boost.
OVO Boost now on my lifetime ban list of companies to avoid at all costs.