Written by John Kruse, one of the leading experts on Bailiff Law, this consumer friendly guide is essential reading for anyone who comes into contact with a bailiff.
The book is easy to understand and clearly explains the rights
a bailiff has, and also what they cannot do when collecting debts and repossessing goods etc.
I have prepayment meters in my house (they were here when we moved in) and I want to swap and like to know if anyone knows the best. Ive tried Uswitch but they dont allow prepayment schemes.
I have seen EBICo Ltd, which is a non profit company
Pre-payment meters are one of the most expensive form of electric & gas. Contact your present supplier and request that they change the meter to a credit meter. The current supplier has to give the meter operator a minimum of 10 working days notice. So if you contacted your supplier tonight, the metering should be changed sometime in the second week of June. The request that they send is on a D142.
Once that has happened, then you have a wide selection of suppliers to choose from. The cheapest is via direct debit. When using Uswitch select Direct debit to view the prcies available. I strongly recommend that you do not go for the dual fuel option, but rather choose a suplier for gas and a supplier for electric. Also if you go for this option, give them meter reads at leaast once every three months for more preferable every month otherwise your bill may be overestimated.
Im happy to keep with the prepay now I have it, and I the company I have found (see above) will deduct the standing charge from my bill, as they cant get around it any other way.
Most types of pre-payment meter were designed before the Government introduced the changes that resulted in customers being able to buy their gas and electricity from any supplier they chose. As a result, most pre-payment meters can charge customers one of only a few different energy (kWh) rates. Also these meters are unable to NOT charge a standing charge, as this possibility was never considered in the days when the system was designed. Thus, when we sign-up a customer who uses a pre-payment meter, the meter is set to charge at the nearest ‘standard’ rate available on the meter. We then credit the customer with the standing charge and the difference between the EQUIGAS or EQUIPOWER rate and the rate the meter is charging so as to ensure the same financial result (i.e. EQUIGAS or EQUIPOWER rate and no standing charge) for the customer.
Unfortunately, pre-payment meters are the property of Transco (for gas) or the local distribution company (for electricity) and not any of the supply companies (for the difference see the “Gas Market” and “Electricity Market” web pages) so there’s not much we can do about this at the moment, but we’ll keep trying.
Posts seem to have mixed themselves up somehow. The standing charge is there to pay for the service cable supplying the property, operating costs such as commission etc and appointing the meter operator, data collector and data aggregator. Sounds strange that they are able to refund this this unless the rates are higher thatn average. Using Uswitch do a search inputting DD and requesting no standing charge. That at least will give you some basis as to whether you want to change supplier. If memory serves me correctly most suppliers offer pre-payment however proabaly only Sottish power & british Gas will show up on Uswitch
I wouldn't use USwitch to compare, they only compare companies that pay them commission. You need to look for an Energywatch approved comparison service like EnergyLynx (sp?) and even then alot of them don't supply you with the rates for the pre-payment meters.
A couple of months back, when MSE said it was OK to start looking around the marketplace, i was going to change over to Powergen as three different comparison websites quoted me savings of between £200 and £500 a year (strange that none of them could agree on a saving somewhere close together!!). So i switched - which was hard for me as i am a distributor for Utility Warehouse Discount Club! Got the rates through, got a call from Powergen saying i would save about £160 a year - not quite the savings i was promised, but savings all the same.
Anyhow, i checked the rates. I put in the last 9 months worth of bills onto a spreadsheet. It was going to cost me about £75 MORE a year by switching over to them. I cancelled immediately.
My moral here is, DO NOT TRUST what the comparison sites or the energy companies tell you. Do the Maths yourself and make sure that you are going to save money.
Pre pay meters are a great way for utilcos to recover bad debts. Usually if the person who lived in the house had run up a large debt, the prepay meters would be installed to prevent having energy 'on credit.'
Additionally, the way they operate is that the ratings can be upped, so that you may pay for a tenners worth, but only get eight quid's worth of units. Again, this is to allow the companies to recoup their losses.
However, if this situation happened before you moved in, it is possible you may be on a higher rating, and actually paying off someone else's debts.
My suggestion would be to get your current supplier to come around and check what ratings you are on, and in all fairness, if it is set too high they will usually readjust the meter...
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All advice and opinions given by Spiceskull are personal, and are not endorsed by Consumer Action Group or Bank Action Group. Your decisions and actions are your own, and should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.
Barclaycard Student credit card £400 partial refund received, S.A.R - Open & Direct Finance- extortionate, cca to Rockwell debt collection they ran away, now with Bryan Carter, no cca 17/03/08 sent back to Open Pugsley v Littlwoods, have not received the signed credit agreement only quoting reg of 1983
Pugsley v Fashion World JD williams, 17/03 2008 Debt Managers returning file to JD williams as they could not supply the credit agreement Capital one MCOL Settled in full Smile lba settled in full advice is given informally and without liability and without prejudice.
I agree Neil... uswitch only use providers that earn them comission... I switched my gas and electric with a company called Who's Cheapest?... they saved me about £150 p.a. and it only took about 5 minutes to go through on their website... they compare every available supplier to you and find the cheapest one... I'd really recommend them... I'll put a link below to their site... hope this helps
I agree that most of the comparison engines are far from perfect, but it's the quickest way to compare all of the different energy companies side-by-side. It would be extremely time consuming to go to all of the energy providers and determine the cost for each one, then build a spreadsheet to see the results. Comparison websites let you do this all quickly, save some money and get back to doing things that are a little more fun.
Gas and Electric?
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Got the rates through, got a call from Powergen saying i would save about £160 a year - not quite the savings i was promised, but savings all the same.
Re: Gas and Electric?
