Powergen. Pay as you go bill. £150!!

[B3Nji]

OK need some advice.
We pay Powergen for out electric. We have a pay as you go thing going on. We take the top up card to a shop and put that in the meter. Its all good, like topping your phone up.

Anyway. Recently we have received a bill from them for £150! They told us that our meter is set up for 2004 metering. So they say we have to pay them the outstanding money.

They say they have been round and tried to change it in the day and have records. But we all work, and are never in on week days.

Surely they cant get away with this? Its like Currys knocking on your door and asking for more money for you TV because they changed you wrong?

We have had to pay it because they were threatening us with legal action. But over a period of a month.

Oh and we arnt on powergen any more, my mate told me we switched over to British gas a while back!

Any advice would help me out a lot.

[Ruthie P]

Hi B3Nji,

I am a little confused about your comment in relation to British Gas, are you saying you didn't want to transfer to them? How does your mate know you switched? If you don't want to be with british gas, ring them and tell them you never agreed to transfer, ring powergen and tell them it is an erroneous transfer too and they will take you back from british gas.

In relation to the different unit prices.... Powergen will have sent you letters asking for you to contact them to arrange a date to come out and recalibrate your meter onto the new prices. If they cannot get in touch with you via letter they will make appointments in the hope of catching someone in at the property when they go out. There is not a lot really you can do about the pricing now unfortunately. Didn't you receive any letters or phone calls to ask you for an appointment? I know from working there that they are meticulous in sending out these letters for this reason.

Hope this helps

Ruth

[B3Nji]

Originally Posted by Ruthie P

Hi B3Nji,

I am a little confused about your comment in relation to British Gas, are you saying you didn't want to transfer to them? How does your mate know you switched? If you don't want to be with british gas, ring them and tell them you never agreed to transfer, ring powergen and tell them it is an erroneous transfer too and they will take you back from british gas.

In relation to the different unit prices.... Powergen will have sent you letters asking for you to contact them to arrange a date to come out and recalibrate your meter onto the new prices. If they cannot get in touch with you via letter they will make appointments in the hope of catching someone in at the property when they go out. There is not a lot really you can do about the pricing now unfortunately. Didn't you receive any letters or phone calls to ask you for an appointment? I know from working there that they are meticulous in sending out these letters for this reason.

Hope this helps

Ruth

We wanted to switch to British Gas. Sorry for the confusion.
So are you saying we have to pay the money? There is nothing that we can do?
They have been trying to charge us from 2004. (When the price went up.) But we were not even living there then!

Thanks for your help.

[Ruthie P]

if you weren't living there then, when you moved in the meter should have been on the prices that were relevent back then. In effect, if you are being billed on 2004's prices and you weren't living there, you are getting prices which are cheaper.... have you rung them to find out when they opened your account (from which date) and if you still have them (they may be on a tenancy agreement) the readings to which you moved in to?

[davethorp]

Most card meters receive the new pricing information when you visit an outlet, the new prices are loaded onto the card as well as your credit and then the meter updates when the credit is loaded on. This is the case with most prepayment (if not all) suppliers.

So not sure why powergen have said the meter was on the wrong pricing as they should have updated it automatically through the card. there can sometimes be the odd discrepency but this is usally a matter of a few quid and normally is in your favour rather than the utility company (though british gas once said I'd overpaid £90 for my electric on prepayment... needless to say I didn't argue and let them send me a cheque)

[Ruthie P]

Not all meters can be updated via your card I am afraid dave, it depends what type of meter you have, there are variations on prepayment meters.

Do you have an update on this yet b3n?

Ruth