Scottish Power refusing to change prepayment meter

joys1

Hi all,

We’re after bit of advice. Recently moved into a property that has a Scottish Power prepayment meter. We would like to change this to a standard billing meter, however, SP is saying that due to coronavirus this is not possible without any timescales provided. This has been going on for some time now, and we’re forced to pay higher tariffs... Has anyone else run into this issue? Is it the same with all providers? 

Laura7jaros

Hi, i got exactly the same situation. Was trying to get rid of prepaid meter from end of may...
 I bought house and they was asking to get confirmation from previuos owner( who i think passed away) that there is no debts, sorry how can be debts on prepaid meter??? Anyway due to Covid excuse i cant get rid of it. Engineers can get smart meters in but not to sort prepaid meter...

MWT

Laura7jaros said:

... sorry how can be debts on prepaid meter???

Very easily as one of the ways people end up with a pre-payment meter is by failing to keep up with their payments on a credit meter.

The debt is then loaded onto the pre-payment meter and is paid off weekly alongside the current usage.

There are other ways it can happen as well, including using emergency credit and then not topping up the meter, or leaving the meter empty while daily standing charges accumulate...

UnclaimedEnergy

One option is to switch away to them to a supplier which will change it for you.

Ask around a few different suppliers to see if they'd change it to a credit (likely smart meter) - Most have started to install smart meters again since the lockdown.