Gas pre-payment meter

Pet50

Am in the process of buying a flat which has both gas & electricity pre-paid key meters. Can someone explain how people get into debt on these - from what I've read here!)? I thought you pre-paid and then used the key to top up?
Also, they are more expensive than being billed quarterly etc, so how easy is it to change to this method?
Thanks!

spiro

Pet50 wrote: »

Am in the process of buying a flat which has both gas & electricity pre-paid key meters. Can someone explain how people get into debt on these - from what I've read here!)? I thought you pre-paid and then used the key to top up?
Also, they are more expensive than being billed quarterly etc, so how easy is it to change to this method?
Thanks!

People either have debt on a prepayment meter because they built up a debt on a credit meter before having a prepayment meter fitted or some older prepayment meters could not be updated with tariff changes (price increases) remotely and therefore they were only paying the old price which means that when the annual statment is issued using the correct price what they have paid does not cover what they have used , hence the debt.