New flat has prepay gas meter

razor1965

My DIL has just bought her first flat. Upon moving in she finds her gas meter is a prepay one where you have to top up at shops. The supplier is Eon whereas the electric meter is credit with British gas. Does she have a right to get this replaced with a credit meter and potentially benefit from a direct debit /dual fuel discount? She called Eon who apparently said 'we're not changing any at the moment'. Is that it then? Credit check won't be an issue otherwise she wouldn't have got a mortgage.

Also, she has found gas is 67 quid in debit. No idea how that works. Eon sent her a card which she understood would clear the debt but it just 'ate' the ten quid credit she had put on. She still has no gas and therefore no hot water. 

Thanks

Ally_E.

Yes, request a credit meter. We had the same situation in our previous property and the supplier replaced prepay meters with credit within a month. 

razor1965

She called Eon and they said no

stewie_griffin

You might want to wait until E.ON (finally) announce what their prices will be from 01/10 as prepayment may work out cheaper. Also I don’t think any suppliers offer dual fuel discount anymore.

razor1965

And what about the debt accrued by the previous owner? 

macman

If she was sent a new card then any debt should be wiped from the meter, so ask the supplier.
To get a credit meter, try Octopus or EDF, they're the only suppliers supposedly accepting new customers.

QrizB

razor1965 said:

Also, she has found gas is 67 quid in debit. No idea how that works. Eon sent her a card which she understood would clear the debt but it just 'ate' the ten quid credit she had put on.

Are you certain about this?

There are people who are more familiar with card meters than I am, but I don't think they are ever meant to take your entire top-up to pay off debt. The meter should only take part of it for debt, and leave the rest to use.

pochase

How long was she in the flat when she topped up the £10.

Potentially that could be the standing charge that was deducted.

razor1965

See, I didn't even know there was still a standing charge for PAYG meters. 

macman

There is a standing charge on every tariff, whether credit or PPM. So how many days has she been there? Assuming a gas s/c of about 27p, then a £10 top up would be used up in 37 days, with no gas usage at all.
Get her to check what the current debt shown on the meter is now. If it's still around £57, then she needs to go back to the supplier, because the debt hasn't been wiped. If it's somewhere nearer zero, then it's probably the standing charge since occupying the property.

newlywed

Could also be the “emergency credit”. When the meter runs out and you put the card in with no extra top up on it, it will ask if you want to use emergency credit (ours is £5).  When you next top up it will immediately pay 5hat emergency credit back… so if you top up with £10 the £5 will go to pay the emergency back you used and then you will only have £5 towards sc and gas

of course the £5 emergency credit now lasts less and less time, so I wonder if they will adjust that at all.