Hello, When moving into a property that already has Gas and Electric Prepayment Energy Meters / key "topped up installed. Can anyone advise how you would go about getting these removed so normal meters can be installed? Will the Energy company that you choose to go with on a price comparison fit new meters? And would this be free? Thanks

Hello fellow CAGers, I'm trying to help my Uncle here. He received a notice to apply for a warrant with a £300 debt. However, he paid the debt in full 2 days before the hearing. EON went ahead with the hearing and got a warrant. Two days later they (or their agents) created huge panic with my Aunt and Nieces when they used a locksmith to break into the house to fit a prepayment meter. The meter is on the outside of the house and easily accessible so there was no reason to break in. (I understand they may want to inspect appliances). My question is what can be done? The warrant was obtained illegally/immorally and the representative must have confirmed to the bench that the debt was outstanding and cannot have exercised due diligence to confirm that the debt was outstanding or they lied. A complaint was made to Eon a few weeks ago and they have not responded despite saying they will reply within 5 working days. I'm thinking a lot of wrongs here. No debt, warrant obtained illegally/dishonestly/negligently, tort, alarm and trespass. Thoughts on next course of action?

Hello All I made this SAR request to the Energy Ombudsman (E-O) as I wanted to see what Npower submitted to them as evidence to back up their response to my complaint with them. Npower are reknowned for saying they have done everything correctly but not substantiating anything with hard evidence. My questions are: 1) There are some emails between Npower and the E-O where the NPower's persons details (name number email etc) have been redacted. Is this permitted? Why? 2) The E-O hasn't sent me any evidence from Npower to substantiate their response to my complaint (but they did include the emails I sent them as evidence) . Should they withhold this from me in SAR request? As this was the purpose of me making the request in the first place. 3) Can I do anything about the above to get the info I was after in the first place? Many thanks in advance Jimbo

Back in 2014 I agreed a payment plan with British Gas for monthly payments of £40 and £30 for our gas and electric. This continued successfully until April when I asked (as I had missed the previous months payment) if I could increase payments to £50 each per month. I was told that I couldn't as my plans were cancelled as they had not received payments. I had also been told (I hadn't) that I needed to increase payments to £140 and £80 per month. I have an email stating that on 9.4.14 I owed £852.71 for gas and £466.49 electric. At this point it was too late and to try and resolve as BG made us have payment meters added. We agreed £5 per week for both utilities would be taken. Fast forward to January this year I thought I would ask if we could go back to direct debit payment credit meters. I emailed to request this. I have an email from 18/1/2016 which states "I confirm from our records there is no outstanding balance on your Gas or electricity accounts." I was told I would need a credit reference search done with experian and because I know my credit history is poor, I did not pursue this further. We are now selling our house today I emailed BG just to clarify there are still no amounts outstanding. I was therefore shocked to receive a reply saying that I owe £833.07 for gas! Our boiler was not working for a part of this year but even so I cannot believe in 2 years 5 months I have only paid off £19! Apart from the fact I was told in January there was no outstanding debt!! Am I within my rights to ask BG for a statement of account showing all payments made?

6-7 years ago, I had a problem with bills and had to have a prepayment meter fitted for Gsa and Electricity. I am now in a completely stable financial position and would like to get a better deal for my power. However Scottish power have done a credit check and asked for a deposit of £150 which I am not willing to pay. My CRB is not brilliant but there is only a couple of SBd accounts on it. I have had no difficulties with mobile contracts, with Sky or other minor checks. I really dont want to engage in this deposit thing but I still want to save money on my bills. Any suggestions

My wife arranged a direct debit with a utility company using my personal bank details without my knowledge. She must have done this over the phone using my debit card details. This eventually caused a debt that I wasn't aware of at the time. I have been landed with the debt despite me never having set up any direct debit with the utility company. Shouldn't my wife be liable or the utility company for taking direct debit instructions from a person other than the actual account holder? I think it's identity theft and I should not be held liable for the debt. I thought that unauthorised use of a person's bank details would have been compensated for by the bank or the utility company taking money under an unauthorised direct debit.

My daughter moved to her present address 16months ago and inherited a prepayment meter for both gas and electric...... 6 months ago her husband died very suddenly and she is left with 7 children and very little income... She is on a benefit cap and is finding it very difficult to cover her utility costs as they are so very high on these prepayment meters... She wants to change to a credit meter and pay by direct debit . ..How difficult is this going to be for her..

first I will describe the problem, I am paying for gas by prepayment meter , the prepayment screen on the meter is blank and it will not except payment by the card, the meter gas reading still works and there is gas supplied even without payment via the card, it's been like this for at least two years. I recently transferred to another supplier for both gas and electricity. I was sent a final estimated bill for nearly two and a half thousand pounds from my former supplier, assuming that I will have to pay them something my questions are: 1 can they calculate an arbituary estimate which I must pay or should it be based on actual readings from meter, I have noticed on some of my previous statements that they indicate that I have submitted readings to them which I haven't done. 2 can I make them send me documentation of the period that they are charging for and the calculation of the fee for that period. 3 with the rules of them not being able to back charge beyond the last twelve months, how could they accuratly calculate how much was used during that period. 4 The point of being on a prepayment meter is not to get into debt, is part or all of the fault down to the former supplier and should they have to accept all or some of the the losses incurred 5 if I have to pay would they except payment by installments niyaman

Hi All, We are moving home at the end of next week and have begun the process of transferring utilities etc.. We have been customers of NPower for some 8 years and have always had a credit meter for both gas & electric which have been paid via monthly DD. Today we phoned NPower to notify them that we were moving and that we wished to remain customers of theirs. The property we have purchased is already supplied by NPower and presently has credit meters fitted so we expected no issues. NPower ran a credit check and have informed us that our only options are: a) Have prepayment meters fitted. b) Place a security deposit of £200 per fuel to be held for 12mths and continue to pay by direct debit. Admittedly our credit files are not squeaky clean (though clean enough to obtain a mortgage) but we do not see why after 8 years of customer loyalty we should have to either have prepayment meters fitted or pay a substantial security deposit. Although we could switch providers, we are concerned that the whole industry credit checks and we would essentially find ourselves in the same position. We are concerned that time is ticking fast as we are due to move into our new home next Friday, so we may not have time to sort prior to our move date, which raises another question.... This may sound stupid but we are first time buyers so please bear with us... the property we are moving into has working electricity and gas obviously not looking to defraud but is it the case that electricity/gas cannot be used until a provider is sorted? Any help/advice is greatly received.

Hello all, I had a debt with EDF which I have been struggling to pay, they did inform me that they were applying for a warrant to change the meter but heard nothing since until I came home today to discover they have been in my house whilst I was out and changed it. Surely they are supposed to tell me when they are coming so that I can choose to be there or not? I feel sick thinking they could have been looking through my things etc. Also my 15 year old daughter is often home alone and doesnt answer the door if shes on her own unless she knows who it is, so if they just let themselves in and she had happened to be home she would have been absolutely petrified. Are they really allowed to do this? I get disability benefits and they were told when I moved in that I am registered disabled

Please can anyone give me any advice on what I can do please I have a prepayment meter with British Gas and I haven't been able to afford to put any money in it. I am unemployed and was just about managing then I got a benefit sanction of over 6 months and in that time I've not had any gas because I can't afford it, but I have still been getting charged and I now owe over £87 in the meter. So I would have to pay that of first and then put more money in to actually get gas Can they do this, charge for gas when its not been used? Is there anyway of me getting my gas put back on as I hate having no hot water or heating and all this has been going on for so long now, I just want it sorted out Thank you for reading this

More than a million pre-payment gas customers have been overcharged because their meters are faulty, the industry has admitted. About 1.5 million meters have not been working properly since they were installed, some as long ago as 2007. The affected meters were set up incorrectly, meaning they miscalculate the price of gas and overcharge customers. Energy suppliers are contacting customers with the faulty meter settings to arrange a refund http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30214471

Never knew I could check my usage and topups online with Scottish power so signed up to the website. Checking my statements it shows I am in over 200 of credit after actual billings! Just encase it was a mistake I went back to a date I know my meter was read by someone. Again it shows the credit after actual billings! I can't even remember what I last received a statement but I know this has been on my account for atleast a year (i can't see back on website) and few quarter increases by a small amount Called up Scottish power, the guy told me it was due to me being on prepay and how my statements are produced. I get what he was trying to say and I know exactly how it works but I finally talked him round to taking meter readings over the phone and recalculating, guess what? over 200 in credit! He said I was right but they would have to investigate this and it takes around 3 weeks. How is this the case? My mother who is on direct debit gets her rebates back really easy and with no fuss. I used to pay by direct debit however the home I moved into few years back had prepay. Also should I get my hopes up? What's the chances of an error somewhere?

Hi, I am wanting to change from using prepayment meters for my gas and electric and going onto DD. British Gas have done a credit check on me and it failed, he told me to maybe check with Expedia to see if my credit file is wrong. I know it's right as I have a couple of CCJs. Am I now stuck on prepayment meters for ever, I wouldn't mind but they were already in the house when I moved in and when I asked for them to be removed they said there was a charge for removing them. I refused to pay it as I never had them installed. Topping up my gas is costing me about £40 week with British Gas and my electric is £20, it's crippling me. I've started to sit with candles on( which is nice ) and I have my gas on for 2 hours in the morning and the same on an evening. And help advice would be good, thanks in advance.

I live in a property that has a prepayment meter, when I moved in the letting agent said that they have written to all my utility companies to let them know about my moving and gave me the prepayment cards (one key for electric for EDF and Gas card for Eon) EDF wrote to me about the electricity and all is fine with that but they then wrote to me to say that I owe them £25 for gas, I advised that it was a prepayment meter and they said they would look into it and get it resolved. Fast forward to today and its still on going but now I owe £200 apparently, I called them up and they assured me there was a lock on the account so no action would be taken while they keep looking into it. I spoke to the national gas grid (xoserve I think) who said the meter wasn't registered with any company. Can EDF still hold me to the debt, no supplier has been registered to this property so how can I be charged for gas I pre-pay for? Also can I go ahead and register with any company for gas without any recourse?

Do i have to pay for a prepayment meter to be installed for a debt recovery and current usage? My energy supplier spark told me i had to pay 140 pounds to have 2 prepayment meters fitted for collection of my debt and current usage, i am classed as vulnerable person and therefore got into debt and because of bedroom tax i am waiting to move but not getting any were thanks

just looking to see if anyone has had this problem or any idea why its happening. long story short for near enough 2 years if i have say 70p left of normal credit i like to stick the key in for the emergency to be added so it doesn't run out if i forget which is likely i have 2 small kids running about. for the first year i lived here when i did that it added the 70p to the £5 so the balance would have been £5.71. now whether it be 70p 20p or 83p when i put the emergency in *poof* is disappears and only gives me the £5. finally got them to agree to a meter change after complaining every week for nearly 2 years hoping to sort it. nope, had 94p just there put the key in to add the emergency so it didn't cut off when id be doing the school run in the morning and again its only showing the £5. my 94p disappeared into thin air. haven't changed tariff, no T&C changes from them i feel sick at how much they've got from me over all this time. i've already fired off an email to the CEO as im fed up of dealing with the lackies on the phone and twitter. sorry for rambling tell me this shouldn't be happening

moved into a flat last year which had a prepayment meter for electric and gas and the supplier was British Gas. I didn't know this at the time as the letting agents didn't tell me they were prepayment meters until I was switching suppliers. I assumed it was a credit meter like I'd always used. I still decided to switch from British Gas (aka BG) to Scottish Power (aka SP) which had been my supplier for my previous flats. I arranged for SP to take over the supply of Electric and Gas. After about a month they'd switched over and SP sent a new electric key and Gas Card. I topped up the electric and gas with the BG key and Card once for both utilities in that time before switchover - not realising meters and keys might have debt on them from a previous tenant (only recently found this fact out!). I was talked through how to enable the new key and card and whilst on the phone I gave my electric meter reading to a SP advisor- he said it would wipe the credit already on the meter but that'd be it. I then happily topped up throughout the time I lived there and moved out after using SP for 6 months. I gave them my final meter readings and new address expecting them to just send a letter and saying both accounts were now shut. Instead I started receiving bills for over £200 for electric and £25 for Gas! The bills said I owed these amounts after being at the flat for just TWO MONTHS. I thought there must be some mistake this is prepayment meters and I topped up regularly when I needed to, kept top up receipts and never went into emergency credit. I rang SP's prepayment dept twice and they kept admitting it must be a mistake and they'd sort it out. They also said they'd disregarded my start meter reading for Electric as BG had given their own and they were using that instead. The start reading was higher then my final reading which seems to be the problem despite my readings being accurate. SP kept sending bills (and then a final demand complete with threat of a 'credit default'), then their 'debt recovery dept' rang twice and I said prepayment dept were 'sorting it' just like they told me. They'd clearly not bothered as then I get a letter from an LCS debt recovery agency. I ring them up (foolishly) speak to a very aggressive woman who wants personal details. I luckily don't give any except D.O.B. to 'prove that I am the correct person they're meant to be talking to'. Wish I'd not given that now. I said it's in dispute. A 'admin fee' of nearly £30 was also added and she claimed LCS hadn't added it but SP. I've since made a complaint to SP and yet this LCS sent a 2nd letter 'recommending to our client that your account be considered for legal proceedings'. From reading the forums I know these are mostly empty threats but it still worries me. I don't feel this debt is mine. All I can think of is either the previous tenant had debt on the meter already and I just naively didn't realise or SP put up their energy prices and didn't adjust the meter. I've never owed anything in my life and never had a £200 bill for electricity. Please can people help me with the following questions: - Are SP legally obliged to update the meter with current prices before they ask for any money? - I don't know if the prepayment meter logs all start and end electric rates so they could go back through records and prove that the readings I gave were correct? - If there was a debt on the meter should both BG or SP have been legally obliged to tell me this? Or the letting agent? - Should I ring BG and ask if there was a previous debt on the meter or would they not tell me as I'm no longer at the property and was only technically a customer of theirs for a month before SP took over? - Did I legally take over any 'debt' by using the BG key once in the meter? And after I used the new SP key shouldn't that have reset the meter? Or would debt still be on the meter regardless of a new key and new supplier? - Are credit defaults as serious as they sound? Will these affect my credit rating in future? And are they difficult to get off a credit report once applied? Can both SP AND LCS put a default on me or just SP as they're the original 'creditor'? As you can see I really don't have a clue what to do and don't want to pay a debt I feel is unjustified and wrong (especially if someone else owes it and not me) and I don't want to go to court. Any advice on what to do and say or what to find out would be great. I need all the help I can get. And sorry I've typed a lot but I wanted to explain my problem thoroughly.

I've had some issues with my Scottish Power prepayment key so went online to order a new one. I decided to look at my statement. When my landlord had the prepayment meters installed I was given the option of transferring my outstanding bills to the meters (both gas and electric), I opted to do that. Both outstanding balances were cleared over a year ago. My statement says that my gas is in credit by £124 and my electric is in credit by £360 ( after actual readings). When I tried to top up my account the key reported a fault and the money never credited to my meter. I have spoken to a 'customer service' advisor, I finally got through after 3 days of trying and she said regarding the credit that its not actually credit and that it will be recalculated when I get my next statement. I am confused as to why any credit would show up, and the fact that I am only paying for my gas and electric as its being used. Am I being informed correctly? is this money I could get refunded? Thanks in advance.

Hello, My landlord has informed me that Npower will be attending some time next week to fit a prepayment meter. However, where the current meter is, I have no access to. I live in a farmhouse ajacent to a farm and the meter is in a buildiing on the actual farm (which doesnt belong to me) which is on private ground an has a gate with a lock on it. How am I supposed to access it to put credit on it? Are they allowed to do this? Can I request that the meter be moved to the house? Thanks.

EDF say I built up a debt of around £2.5K with them. This was despite my direct debit having been in place - they simply failed to collect the agreed amount for over a year whilst I was abroad. They say they notified me of this in emails, but they did not - I only started getting emails a few months ago when they realised their error. Basically they stopped billing me after changing to a smart meter, they must have got their records confused. I was exasperated by their conduct towards me, which included lies about having emailed me and not taking my code complaint seriously (I was requesting a bill revision to exclude debt more than 1 year old), so I decided to switch supplier. In April, I was accepted by Ovo and have been with them for several months now. Despite having written several times to EDF to point this out (and even having it confirmed by email) they continue to send letters threatening installation of a prepayment meter via a warrant. Can they obtain such a warrant? Do they have to let me know, is there a court hearing which I can attend? Can they install a prepayment meter at a property where they are no longer the supplier?

I currently have two prepayment meters with Southern Electric (gas/elec). As I seem to be paying over the odds compared to normal meters with direct debit (eg, paying 13.99p per unit for elec, and the gas has a daily standing charge), I'd like to come off these meters. SE have quoted me a total of £100 to change the meters, and mentioned I would first have to go through a credit check. Has anyone been able to get this fee waived by SE? I've heard other companies have offered to remove the units for free (as long as you stick to a contract).

Hi everyone, My partner and I currently have a back log of approximately £300 with nPower that they are chasing us for. We are on a standard meter and get billed every 3 months by post. My partner is a full time student and I am the major wage earner. In July of this year I was diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder and have been signed off work with a significantly reduced income since then. We want to pay but cannot afford the £300, nPower are next to useless at helping on the phone. Does anyone please have any advice as to how we could approach this matter? Thank you all for your time and help/suggestions you make. Kind regards, timetoshine

Although Eon have lowered p/kwh ,unit rates,they have scrapped the Annual Threshold of 2680 kwh in which customers saw unit rates once this was achieved fall from 8.436p/kwh to 3.67p/kwh inc vat. Under the revised E.on EnergyPlan with prepayment the old 8.436p/kwh is replaced with a sole unit rate of 4.256p/kwh inc vat. However,there is now a daily standing charge of 27.395p per day !

Ok I know they cant cut me off in winter if I have children. Can they however forcefully install a meter (via the courts and a lock smith) that I cant afford to use? (effectively cutting me off) Because they wont just instal a normal meter I will have to pay off part of my 4000 pound debt and pay for what I normally use and im on benefits at the moment and in serious financial difficulty/debt and I cant afford to eat let alone pay my bills! The electricity company is E-On they are on the verge of taking the case to court to apply for the rights to force me to install the meter/ to try and disconnect me.