Pre-Payment Electricity - What am i being charged?

danielinfo

Hi,

I recently just moved into a property with pre-payment gas and electric. I am in the process of moving the gas to Ebico which is all going through.

However, i have aquestion regarding my elec. I topped up £20 over a month ago and still have £12 and there is two of living in a two bed place. I am told the supplier is Southern Elec and when i check on the screens it says we are being charged 6.23 per kwh for elec but this seems actually quite cheap and its not quoted as this price on the southern website. So is this price correct?

Thanks,

Daniel

mute_posting

Probably not!

because it takes so long to update (pre-payment) meters when prices change they are often well out of date.

Some companies will ask for this to be paid back some wont bother (I believe).

If you stick on pre-payment, (and they want to claim back what you have been under charged for) they can set a weekly deduction when they set the new rates so the first £x of any credit you put in will be taken to pay the "debt".

In your situation as you have only just moved in, they should only back date this to when you took over the property and should chase the previous owner for the historical underpayments.

HTH

MP

BexTech

You will get a statement each year which will detail how much credit you have put on the meter (your payments) and then detail how much electricity you have used and the rate they charge. You will then either have a credit (which is what used to happen, due to the meter taking slightly more than the actual cost) or a debit and you will have to pay the difference.

Depending on meter some you have a separate card sent out with the new rates on, that you have to put in to update the meter, others are updated differently.

I take it you did take meter readings as soon as you moved in and phoned up the suppliers with the details?

SwanJon

There should also be a screen for standing charge - that might explain why the p/kWh is different if the website doesn't have one.
What type of meter is it? Do you have a key, a smartcard or do you buy paper tokens?

BexTech

SwanJon wrote: »

There should also be a screen for standing charge - that might explain why the p/kWh is different if the website doesn't have one.
What type of meter is it? Do you have a key, a smartcard or do you buy paper tokens?

Yeah, that's true, they usually have a daily charge.