Scottish Power faulty meter change

Sallywin

Hello, could anyone, please, tell me if prepay gas meter has to ran out of credit before it can be changed? I have an ancient meter, button of which became unresponsive, so I'm having trouble topping it up. I contacted Scottish Power to sort it out, but they refuse until I ran out of gas, which obviously, I don't want to. They claim it is for safety reasons, but when they tried to change it couple year ago, I can't remember 'running off gas' being a prerequisite to change a meter.

Last time engineer failed to unscrew it from pipes, tried to blame it on National grid. National grid came got pi**ed, for their time being wasted as it was clearly not their responsibility, but Scottish Power's. Basically SP gave up on that meter and told me to wait until it's dead, but it's still alive, only now buttons are giving up. I wonder if they are telling me porkies, to delay the difficult task. My understanding gas can be switched off, people without prepay meters don't wait until their gas runs out.

MWT

No, the gas does not have to 'run out' that is a very creative excuse, but that's all it is, there is no safety risk in changing a meter that still has credit on it, just shut off the gas and change the meter...

Any credit left on the meter should either be refunded or transferred to the new meter, which will be a smart meter so expect to have the electricity meter changed at the same time.

QrizB

I contacted Scottish Power to sort it out, but they refuse until I ran out of gas, which obviously, I don't want to.

As MWT says above, there's no need for the meter to run out before being changed. The only risk is that if SP can't recover your credit balance from the old meter, you'll lose it.

SP are fibbing to you.

Sallywin

Thank you. I shall start complaint procedure.

Brie

If I was in a really bad mood about this sort of thing I might consider cc'ing my MP, local councillor when I logged my complaint. Oh and the CEO of SP too of course.

imeach

It could be that Scottish Power have their wires crossed.

We and the DNO's get emergency call outs on prepay gas meters to do 'wind ons' which is when the customer has either lost or cannot use their card. We go out and use our cards to put varying amounts of credit on until they can get a new card sent out. But, we can only do this when there is no credit on the meter.

Could be they are confusing themselves, although quite often they send us even when there is credit, wasting everyone's time

Sallywin

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81958837#Comment_81958837

For now, I'll just email the Scottish power. I have no energy writing to so many. The chump, I had to chat with yesterday, sucked enough of my energy already. I had to repeat several times until it got through his thick skull that I'm seeking help with gas meter and not electricy one 🤦

Brie

Keep notes of everything. Each call, time, date, chump talked to and an outline of any idiotic thing they said.