Pay as you go electricity and gas meter with SSE

Windy2257

A friend has a pay as you go meter with SSE and took your advice and put  £400 on prior to the price increase. The amount was not shown on her meter and she rang SSE to query  who advised that there was no benefit in paying early and that she had been misinformed. Can you please confirm if she will get the electricity and gas at the old price as it is very confusing. Otherwise she has wasted her money. 

GingerTim

Please see https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/martin-lewis--warning-the--top-up-prepay-meters-before-april--tr/ for MSE's update on this - essentially it's a bit of pot luck whether this loophole will work on electricity meters depending on your supplier, but it definitely won't work on a gas meter.

According to this page SSE won't provide a refund of the top-up, but no harm in asking. But your friend should be reassured that she hasn't wasted the money, it's still there to spend on energy.

GingerTim

See also Martin's latest video at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6337769/energy-prices-your-questions-answered-martins-latest-videos#latest

MWT

Windy2257 said:

Can you please confirm if she will get the electricity and gas at the old price as it is very confusing. Otherwise she has wasted her money. 

It is unlikely to work on the gas meter, but it is not 'wasted', it is just tied up until she uses it.

harlow1981

Hi, I've just come off of a live chat with SSE and they have confirmed that as long as your meters are pay as you go non smart meters, anything topped up on them before April 1st will not be subject to the price increase

 From April 1st the new tariffs will automatically apply. 

harlow1981

She also confirmed this would be the case with Gas and electric. I hope this is the case!

GingerTim

harlow1981 said:

Hi, I've just come off of a live chat with SSE and they have confirmed that as long as your meters are pay as you go non smart meters, anything topped up on them before April 1st will not be subject to the price increase

 From April 1st the new tariffs will automatically apply. 

I hope this isn't a case of an SSE agent being misinformed - it seems pretty clear from what OFGEM told MSE that it almost certainly won't work with any gas meter. I guess we'll soon find out!

3. It is unlikely to work for GAS with any supplier. We were told new technical information by the regulator on Tuesday 22 March, on the back of our Scottish Power complaint.

While all suppliers (barring Scottish Power and more recently E.on) had confirmed to us that the rate that applies is the rate on your last top-up, it seems there is a technical gremlin that means it won't in practice.

Gas meters are made by Siemens, and while they don't record what the date of usage is, the key or card that people use to top them up can be preloaded with both current and new prices in advance of 1 April. Which means that on 1 April, the rate the meter charges for gas can change even without them being topped up.

So it is very unlikely to work on gas meters – though Octopus has told us it isn't increasing its price for prepay customers until 21 April anyway, with the new rate info sent to the top-up keys or cards two to three weeks before that, so you may still be able to top up before then.