SSE are making me tear my hair out!!

Petriix

You are absolutely free to use as much power as you like before sorting out the payment. That's why deemed contracts exist. It's a pain if the gas is on prepayment with a debt because you'll inevitably end up paying some of that debt, but there's nothing to stop you from topping it up and using the gas. I'm really not sure why you think it's a problem, unless the supply has been physically disconnected.

billy-the-kid_3

Sorry I may have spoken in riddles with this. There's a few points regards SSE's customer services actually......
1) The actual average waiting time of getting through to someone is just crazy.
2) When I finally got through to a 'kelly' she promised to send me a PAYG gas card out (within 3 working days) and explained this will wipe out the debt once inserted into meter......
3) from another call this advice was apparently totally wrong. There's more to the procedure and after 5 working days no sign of any card either.
4) 'Kelly' also arranged me to receive a call from the engineering side for them to ring to arrange an appointment to change the gas meter to a credit (pay by bills) meter. I've received no phone calls.
5) 'Kelly' also transferred me to the 'welcome team' to try and sort the electricity side out. After waiting around 20 mins finally a ringback option became available and so I pressed 1. A 'Chris' rang me back and whatever info he had was wrong. As he was arguing with me that 'there is an electric account for the address and it's also a PAYG meter. But it's not. 
(Unless the electric meter has been changed over twice)? But northern power grid say it's never been registered.

And on the note of using 'free electricity'. I honestly thought that's illegal. 
All I'm trying to do is setup a gas and electric account for my home so I can pay for what I use (like the next man) and I'm finding it soooo very difficult too.

niktheguru

Your situation is very unfortunate but you are also making it worse for yourself.
If the electricity is connected you should turn it on, take a meter reading from the day you turn it in (you have pictures of everything in move in date you said) and start getting your home in order. As you have proof of when you moved in and meter readings they cannot charge you for units you havent used.
Do all the things gerry suggested urgently. The weather is going to get colder in the coming  weeks so you really need the gas to prevent your pipes freezing further and potentially causing damage.
It really is frustrating when you dont feel you are getting anywhere with suppliers, but you need to get a complaint in writing to them ASAP so you can move on to the ombudsman in case sse don't sort this for you.
The alternative is to pay the debt on the gas after having sent written (email or post) letters to sse with the gas situation, then demanding the 70 quid debt is repaid, that way you'll at least be able to start using your home, but there's a possibility you may not see that 70 quid again. Depends how urgently you need to move in.
In the mean time keep calling them, you may just get a customer services person who can actually help. Good luck.

Gerry1

TL;DR: get some heat into the place urgently to avoid mega-problems and move in now.  Worry about the billing and bureaucracy afterwards.
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I'm a bit confused.  You stated that you can't physically use the gas and electricity, but then said that the boiler was chugging so you chose to switch the electricity off until gas was available.

If you don't have a card for the gas meter, chase the estate agent to get the card used by the previous owner.  Yes, it'll have debt on it, but use it until you get your own card or a credit meter, and you can chase the refunds later as part of your legitimate complaints, escalating to the ombudsman after six weeks.

The critically important thing at the moment is to get the CH working ASAP before damage is caused by dampness and burst pipes.  If necessary, use temporary electric heating in the meantime for frost protection and turn the water off at the stopcock until you move in.  If you don't have any heating at all you'll also have to drain the whole system, but that really is a last resort.

onthego

billy-the-kid_3 said:

Sorry I may have spoken in riddles with this. There's a few points regards SSE's customer services actually......
1) The actual average waiting time of getting through to someone is just crazy.
...
All I'm trying to do is setup a gas and electric account for my home so I can pay for what I use (like the next man) and I'm finding it soooo very difficult too.

Tell me about it.
My top tip, phone their automated payment line 0345 7045038, press # when it asks for your account number, you'll be put straight through to a human rather than being on hold for over an hour.
(However, not necessarily a human that can do anything useful.  I'm on my 4th attempt trying to get them to set up a simple direct debit and think it's probably going to be less trouble to switch supplier instead). 
Good luck!