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Hive help needed here....
I recently moved into a new apartment in December. Its incredibly cold in the place. When I viewed it I put this down to it just being empty and the heating not being on. Its electric only, it doesn't have central heating, just the electric wall heaters. The power provider is Scottish Power and is on a Pre Pay Meter. There is just me living in the flat, I'm out a lot during the day, so only use the power during the evening.
Over Xmas I guess I was in the flat I bit more, but still only heating up the room I was in. No heating is on over night. I don't really cook, so the oven isn't really used. I noticed over XMas that I was having to put £75 every 4 days onto the meter. Sometimes its been 3 days, sometimes 5 days, but since 24th December I have put on £235 and need to go and do it again today, so approximately £300 for two weeks of very conservative usage. The rate s 51p per KW/H.
I've looked at Scottish Power website and it seems to imply there is a price cap at 32p per KW/W. I've tried for the last 3 days to contact Scottish Power, however their phone contact centre ends the call as they are only dealing with emergencies. The webchat again ends the chat, it just goes in a loop sending me links to what I have already read. I completed understand I am not vulnerable, but surely the fact is Scottish Power should not have a business model where its customers are ignored unless they are in a vulnerable position. I don't understand how this is allowed to happen.
I don't have twitter, so not really sure how I am supposed contact them. The landlord has made it my problem, offering no assistance. But I can't afford to be paying £6/700 in electricity bills - and especially as I am carefully managing the power that I use. Its hard to explain how cold it is in the flat - I have one heater on at the moment as I need to try and dry my clothes, but the flat is freezing.
Sorry for the rant, just no idea what I'm supposed to do.
You should be getting the rebate applied to your prepay account. I do ( even tho the meter is not working and we have paid for no leccy for 4 years) £67 a month
Have you read the meter to confirm how many kWh you are actually using? Those wall heaters burn though a heck of a lot. Does the 51p include the standing charge?
thanks guys. I have no idea how to read the meter, there was no instructions with it. Here's some details from the meter:-
Screen A: £002.01 (which I think is saying I have £2.01 credit left on the meter - I topped it up last night but didn't take note of what was on it previously so could have been in the emergency amount, I'll top it up again today, so that's another £75)
Screen B just says 000000 and Screen C tells me the time.
Screen D: 05 01.23 Rate 1
Screen E: £00938 Accepted - which I think is what has been added to the meter?
Screen F: £003.77 Total Charge/Week
Screen G: Total 08803.42 kw/h
Screen H: 06947.34 Rate 1
Screen I: 050.52 Pence Per kW/h Rate 1
No idea what it all means, just seems to be crazy expensive.
When you moved in, did you get the meter reset/new key? If so, then ok, but if not you could be paying off a previous tenant or your landlord's debt.
If you can turn absolutely everything off for a couple of hours, or even all day while you are out, and make sure screen G doesn't climb, just to make sure there isn't something outside your flat wired through your meter.
No, I was given an existing key, I was given a meter reading but nothing was reset. I'm out later so will give it a go turning everything off and monitoring what happens to screen G.
I have read that I could be paying off pre-existing debt on the meter, but without being able to contact Scottish Power I have no way of confirming it.
I might be tempted to argue that it is an emergency - that's an outrageous amount to pay to not actually be that warm. If you don't pay it, it will be an emergency (either with hypothermia or frozen pipes), and if there's no way of contacting them by non emergency means then they could be said to have precipitated an emergency (ie, you've run out of money). They do have an email address too, you could try that? contactus@scottishpower.com
You should go through the new customer procedure with Scottish Power, ring them and choose the option for moving house rather than regular customer service, still a long wait but they will answer. Tell them you've just moved in and you're using previous customer's key.
They will register you as the actual customer and send you a new key in the post(or if one wasn't left they might tell you to collect one from a shop). You also get something called an RTI code. You take the key and code to your corner shop with a PayPoint and tell them to do a key reset with the RTI. Don't add cash to the new key yet. Take the key back to you meter and leave it in for 2 minutes or so. This clears any debt from the meter and sets the rates as agreed to what you are told in your sign up call/paperwork. Now you go back to the shop and add cash to the key and put it in the meter and you are all set as the new customer.
thanks for the help so far. I have finally gotten through to them and they are setting me up as a new customer. It takes 30 days, but they will be sending me a new key which I should get next week.
They can only set me up on the standard tariff for Pay As You Go Meters, sorry for being a bit clueless here, but they are quoting 53.63p and unit rate is 34.995p (including tax). This is over chat and not phone, I have asked them to explain what that means and also what other options I have - but its very difficult to chat to them as they are obviously very busy, its generally a single line response to my questions.
Yep, so once you get you new key and do an RTI reset, your standing charge which gets taken regardless of use is 53p/day, or £3.75/wk or about £16.25/mo, just the cost of being a customer before you use any juice.
Then 35p per kilowatt hour, a 1KW fan heater costs you 35p for every hour it's on. Time to go round and see where the power is getting used.
If you have night storage heaters which take power to heat overnight but then run out of heat by the time you return at tea time, I'd switch them off completely and use things with instant heat like panel heater, fan heater or (probably best) oil filled radiators.
Next, once you are established as the customer, shop around for cheaper supplier or tarriff, and switch to either standard meter or smart meter to open up cheaper options. When I took on a ScotPo place in the autumn they wouldn't change the meters until I had been on their books for a few weeks, but did it then without a hitch. They are applying the rebate directly as credit to the electric account.
midlifecrashes seems to have you well covered here - the big question for me would be can you get the extra you have been paying per unit back as you have been paying someone else's debt. Theoretically you should although if you didn't tell them you had moved in its partly your fault. The next question would be to make sure you get the government support of £400/yr for energy costs. The mechanism for paying this to prepayment meters seemed to depend on the type of meter (some could get it automatically others needed a voucher). Its paid for "normal" customers in 6 instalments so I assume similar for pre-payments. If you've not had any you want to make sure you get all of it (not just the ones from now on). If you did get it - and have just received it before the account change you want to make sure YOU get it on the new account rather than the old account holder.
Once sorted - what are these electric heaters? Are they storage heaters or just 'on demand' convector heaters that are wall mounted. If convectors (and with a prepayment setup I'm pretty sure they would be) it's not going to be great money wise. Are they in very sensible locations? Could you buy some cheap portable oil filled heaters that would be the same efficiency but you could put closer to where you sit?
After that, electric blankets (the ones for your bed or the ones you can wrap around you) to keep you warmer rather than trying to heat the whole room. Assume your hot water is on an immersion heater - how much is it on? If only you, you can probably limit that.
At least you are through the worst of it - the Christmas holiday when you are home a lot. By the summer your bills will drop dramatically so it's just managing the next few months. Lots of night rides to keep away from the house!
Screen A: £002.01 (which I think is saying I have £2.01 credit left on the meter – I topped it up last night but didn’t take note of what was on it previously so could have been in the emergency amount, I’ll top it up again today, so that’s another £75)
Screen B just says 000000 and Screen C tells me the time.
Screen D: 05 01.23 Rate 1
Screen E: £00938 Accepted – which I think is what has been added to the meter?
Screen F: £003.77 Total Charge/Week
Screen G: Total 08803.42 kw/h
Screen H: 06947.34 Rate 1
Screen I: 050.52 Pence Per kW/h Rate 1
If screen G it total and Screen H is Rate 1, are there more screens? I'd expect Rate 2 to appear and have the difference between 8803.42 and 6947.34 on it, this second rate will more then likely be for the Elec heaters. It would be worth finding out how to use them too, I think they are meant to charge over night and release heat slowly during the day, any use outside of this such as instant heat during a cold snap would eat money through a prepay meter.
I agree with the shop around comments and getting yourself a smart/credit meter installed.
This line also has my interest peaked to if there were more screens:
Screen F: £003.77 Total Charge/Week
when a debt is loaded to the meter it is paid back weekly. I recall one of the lowest rates which debt can be paid back was around this amount. Another screen would be called something such as total debt.