New home supplied by Boost

Backlit5584

I’m buying a house and completing next week. I’ve noticed on the property information form that the current supplier is Boost. I hadn’t heard of them before but when I’ve googled they are prepayment only.

I don’t want prepayment. I’ve not had to deal with that since I was a student and I’m particularly worried about not being able to spread costs over what’s going to be an expensive winter!

The issue is, I don’t think suppliers are willing to take on new customers. So I have no idea how to get off it. Any ideas anyone?

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

This winter, and potentially for at least the next two years, prepayment is a bit cheaper than credit. If you can cope with it, you'll save.

If tyou really don''t want prepayment you can try switching to EDF or Octopus. Neither are accepting switches over the internet so you'll either have to phone EDF or phone, email or Twitter message Octopus.

If you have you have smart PAYG meters they should be able to switch them to credit mode over-the-air, but if you have traditional key & card prepayment meters it will require them tos end someone out to do a meter swap. A swap could take weeks or months, depending on how busy the meter installers are.

Backlit5584

Ah ok thanks that’s reassuring! If it’s cheaper, I can probably make it work. I normally hit zero on my energy accounts in about April/May so do use their credit across the winter. I do have some good credit in the property I’m leaving though so maybe if I add that straight on, I’d can build up a bit of a buffer.

Are you able to explain to me why it’s cheaper? I’ve tried to Google but I can’t find anything. I thought under the old caps it was same unit rate and higher standing charges.

[Deleted User]

It seems on the new cap it's higher standing charge but lower unit rate (for electricity at least).  I think it's slightly higher for both on gas though.

Overall, the £2500 average cap for direct debit seems to be a £2560 average cap for prepayment (compared to £2715 for cash/cheque/standing order).