Scottish power prepayment meter not working

fenwick458

Recently bought a new house, it had prepayment meters fitted.
never needed the gas for months as there was no boiler, but last week it got fitted and we needed the heating on so that paint will dry as it's getting decorated.
first I topped the card up with £20 and as soon as I inserted it found it took 70% of the money for a debt, so I called up to try and get that sorted and I've probably been on hold for 2 hours per day since Tuesday...
Wednesday they said they would send a card to cancel the debt out, that arrived on Friday and I inserted it but it still wouldn't allow gas to turn on.
the letter said I would have to top it up so I tried that, put £10 on it and tried again, still wouldn't work
called them this morning and they said I needed an engineer visit and it would cost £150 as it was empty and nobody lived there. I tried to say that I had "just moved In" but she refused to believe that and was demanding payment.
so do I have to fake "moving in" to the property in order to get some gas on? is it possible to switch to another provider and get a normal meter fitted if I sign up to DD payments?

Keep_pedalling

Did you actually inform SP that you were the new owner? Even though you have not used any gas you will have run up a debt of around 28p a day for the standing charge.

https://web-content.scottishpower.co.uk/files/pdf/tariffs/landlord/prepayment.pdf

fenwick458

not until I needed to use gas no, I though the point of a prepayment meter was you pay when you want to use it? 
they did tell me that I should have phoned up  to submit meter readings when I got the house but they didn't say I owed an amount because of this?

Ectophile

A couple of legal points (see the Gas Act for details)...

1. If their meter is faulty, they are legally required to repair or replace it, unless you broke it.  See https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/44/schedule/2B  schedule 2B 3 (3).
   
2. Your contract for gas starts the moment you start using gas, or agree a contract with the supplier.  Before you use gas, you aren't a customer, so shouldn't pay any standing charge.  Shedule 2B 8 (1).  But good luck proving when you actually first took the supply.
   

fenwick458

Ectophile said:

A couple of legal points (see the Gas Act for details)...

1. If their meter is faulty, they are legally required to repair or replace it, unless you broke it.  See https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/44/schedule/2B  schedule 2B 3 (3).
   
2. Your contract for gas starts the moment you start using gas, or agree a contract with the supplier.  Before you use gas, you aren't a customer, so shouldn't pay any standing charge.  Shedule 2B 8 (1).  But good luck proving when you actually first took the supply.
   

I thought It'd be easier to just say I had moved in when I called in on Monday because they couldn't prove otherwise, but in the end I didn't even need to say that.
8:30 Monday I called Scottish power, finally got through about 9am. told the operative I had no gas there was an error on the meter.
they asked me If I would be in the property for the next 4 hours, and then remined me that if I was out when they came, or if there was no fault then I would be charged £147 (the same fee they told me on the first call) and I said "yes that's fine I'm definitely going to be in and I'm confident that there's no gas"
the gas engineer arrived at about 12pm and just put his card in and adjusted some settings in 2 minutes, then he left and the gas was on.
So I think the first operative I spoke to on Saturday just got it wrong. I asked a gas network engineer I know for advice he just said theres no way they can charge a customer for coming out and fixing THEIR meter, unless they prove I broke it and even then it's unlikely as that's hard to prove