Powergen and LCS

[langhar]

Hi,
I am having a bit of a problem with LCS, who are trying to collect an alledged debt for electricity supplied by Powergen.

I was renting a house in Leicester until Aug 2005 that had a card meter. I used to buy £10 worth of cards at a time and when the electricity went off i would pop to the shop and buy another £10. I only used the emergency button on a few occasions. When i moved out in 2005 there was nothing oweing on the meter (in fact there was still credit on it). I informed Powergen when i moved and told them my new address so they could start supplying my Electricity there. After about 6-8 weeks we changed our supplier and cleared any outstanding bills with Powergen.

The problem now is that LCS have been in touch last week to say that i owe £245 for electricity used in the house in Leicester between Aug 2004 and aug 2006 (but i moved out in Aug 2005) I phoned them to explain the house was on a card meter and that i wasn't living there for half the period stated in the letter but they said that even being on card meter i could still run up a debt and that i would have to prove to them when i moved out.

Are they right? Can you run a debt up if you are paying for electic cards as and when you need them?

Any advise would be great.
Langhar

[ozzywizard]

It is possible to run up a debt on a token electric meter, you have a meter that charges you x pence per unit and relies on little tokens to top them up to the value of x amount. Now you also have an account billing you the same as any other account that bills you for the units you use and also a standing charge. This account then deducts the payments you make through the token meter and if all being well the payments should equal the useage. Now here is a few problems were this system can go wrong.

1)The account is set at an higher rate than your meter charges you at, this can usually happen if after a price increase no one resets your meter to the correct prices but your account auto updates itself. So your meter charges you 10 pounds for 200 units used but your account bills you 15 pounds for the same 200 units.
2)The account has got estimated readings on so your meter bills you for 200 units but your meter has billed you for the actual 100 units you actually used.
3)You use a friends or family members card to purchase tokens for your meter, putting their account in credit as too many payments for what they have been billed on their account but your account gets no payments so builds up a debt.
4)Incorrect account start reads or dates, causing you to start the account with 100s of units to be billed for before you actually use any units or make any payments through your meter.
5)Same as 4 but the end reads.
6)Misdirected payments which is caused when using anothers suppliers card so you get billed by one company being in debt and another supplier has heaps of your payments but no account that has billed you.
7)Meter security and tampering etc. or chopping the cards to get double credit which I will not go into on a public forum.
Being billed on the wrong tarrif so your account bills you too much.
9)Having a debt set on your meter or any other setting on your meter that is not in line with your account.
10)Faulty meter.

[dx100uk]

well not unless they 'forgot' to maybe change the rate on the meter.
read that a few times on here.

but like you say, its a card meter, it cant run up any debt!
from what i see, powergen knew you had moved out, so why the charges?

why not have a word with powergen themselves
what do they say, they must have records

dx100uk

[ozzywizard]

Yeah, you need to phone Powergen first and get this issue dealt with them. Unless you been using a friends card etc it is their error not yours.