Cant understand this- Scottish Power

alwaysskint96

I received a statement from Scottish Power todat- I am on a gas pre-payment meter.

Now since Nov 2005 I have been paying £5 a week off a debt that was about £500

On the current statement it tells me that I am now £11 in credit- I rang SP to ask if they could stop taking the £5 a week as I was now in credit- she said that she would reset meter while I was on phone

She gave me instructions on pressing buttons to get to screen 24 of meter, then put ard in and press 3 times to get to screen 27

When i got there I read to her what the meter said and she then told me that I owed £738 I pinted out that I had been paying off the debt for over 2 years ands it was never that much in the first place- she said she woulds look into it- then promptly cut me off

What on earth is happening here??

adr0ck

no idea

but its Spanish Power now please

Terrylw1

That doesn't sounds right.

It could be that the prices on the meter are too low and don't map to your Kwh price on the statement.

It could also be that they have failed to recalibrate your meter for price increases. However. BGas scrapped recovering those fees.

Beyond that I'm not sure, if SwanJon's on you should get an answer as he seems to know more about these than most.

SwanJon

That sounds like a big mistake - the balance should always go down!
The gas meters are all 'intelligent', as opposed to the paper token meters that cause all the problems in electricity, so you should be on the right tariff.
If your statement shows £11 credit, I assume it is showing all your payments. Check the dates of the payments against the dates of the read - it should be close.
Check for no gaps in payments - especially if you have had a new card/meter reset.
Probably also worth checking the meter serial number on the statement matches the one on your meter.
If that is all Ok, and if you have been paying £5 a week (buying every week, my maths makes it about £575) the most likely reason is that too much debt has been sent to the meter.
They should be able to see this from their system (or someone there can if not the front line).
If your meter has never been reset (since it went in), you can ask them to download the data from it (a 'meter dump') and they can use this to see if too much has been sent. They won't like this, as it takes time and therefore money, but it will get a definative answer of everything that has gone onto and come off the meter.

What did it say on Screen 27? This is what the meter thinks your debt is.
Screens 25/26 show how much you were paying back each week. One or both should say £5.00
Screen 24 should say 70%.

They can send a message to the meter to stop it taking money and give you back anything extra it has taken.

alwaysskint96

Screen 24 said 70, screen 26 said £5.11 and screen 27 said £778.07!

They now have said that there is a mistake on the meter and they re sending a message to the card??? which should tell it to change the meter. According to them it can take up to 3 top ups for the message to read the card and i should top up each day until it does.

So what then would happen to the credit ( the debt payment is still being taken_ as if it was £11 on 21st Jan ( statement date) I will have paid another £15 odd on a debt I dont owe by the time it is sorted

SwanJon

The message to the card (which passes it to the meter) should pay you back anything extra that you have paid.
Remember that you pay in advance, so now you should always be in credit - the £11 was probably already on the meter to be used so it's not really a credit available to be refunded.
This can always be confusing with these meters - the read will be one day, the latest payment another, the styatement then takes time to reach you, by when you've used and bought more so it's already out of date.
Best just use it as a guide - once your meter is programmed correctly I'd trudt that more than a statement.

linuxsapien

just typical of these bigger companies to be so damn incompetant.. It took me long enough to get from a prepayment to credit meter, just so I could save some money. Those damn prepayments are the devil, and im sorry for anyone that has to use them, coz usually they are the ones paying more than they should, debt or not.

Id advise you to get proof that your account is in credit, by means of them sending you a statement and confirmation. Then the second you get that, go onto energyhelpline, change to another supplier and get a credit meter. Now being on credit meter doesnt mean you have to pay by direct debit, you can still use a card like I do, and I pay £5-10 a week, which usually is a comfortable amount at this time of year. It allows you to pay from £1 upwards though in case of difficult weeks (but do pay weekly, as they cannot say you aren't paying).

When you change to credit meters, some companies can charge you to change the meter, which is stupid in a way, but also understandable for their own insurance or something. I paid 100 notes to get changed to credit, but I did get that back after a year with interest. In the long run, you will save money and have peace of mind and also the power to swap and change as long as you are in credit

I hope this helps a wee bit.

Terrylw1

nutellajunkie wrote: »

When you change to credit meters, some companies can charge you to change the meter, which is stupid in a way, but also understandable for their own insurance or something. I paid 100 notes to get changed to credit, but I did get that back after a year with interest.

Thats a security deposit and if you want to get around it, change the meter and pay the deposit, then switch Suppliers and they have to pay it back when you settle the final bill. They ask because they then have some money towards any credit debt you may run up.

Some Suppliers also charge for the meter change on top of that.