Owing to previous difficulties, I am currently getting my Leccy on a meter, which is set to collect my debt at £3 per week.
A chap from Npower asked on friday to read the meter. As he was leaving he said he'd altered the meter to collect the debt at £8 per week.
After some research I find out that Npower bought out the YEB and want to collect their debts in in one year.
Irrespective of your personal circumstances, your debt will be called in at this time not the old YEB standard of £3 per week.
Yet another tax on being poor. As well as paying top dollar for being on a meter and prepaying. Any other business would give you a discount for prepaying.
Anyone else had this?

Originally posted by "3pce"

Owing to previous difficulties, I am currently getting my Leccy on a meter, which is set to collect my debt at £3 per week.
A chap from Npower asked on friday to read the meter. As he was leaving he said he'd altered the meter to collect the debt at £8 per week.
After some research I find out that Npower bought out the YEB and want to collect their debts in in one year.
Irrespective of your personal circumstances, your debt will be called in at this time not the old YEB standard of £3 per week.
Yet another tax on being poor. As well as paying top dollar for being on a meter and prepaying. Any other business would give you a discount for prepaying.
Anyone else had this?

I might be able to help as I used to work for YE. Is this a pre-payment meter we are talking about here or a token meter :?:

The honest answer is I don't know.
I buy white cards with a mag strip on in increments of a fiver.
Does that help decide what they are?

My son moved into a flat with the same metre and they after putting £10 on his card, as soon as he put the card in the metre it deducted £8.
So he got £2 worth of electric.
When i complained about this on his behalf cause I have a gob on me when i,m mad and they said £3 was for the cost of the metre and the other £5 went to pay off the arrears from the previous tennant.
Now maybe that could be happening in your case as they don't tell you what they are doing.
NPower did buy out YEB and i was a customer until they ripped me off for £40 and i changed to British gas and i have no problems with them nor do i pay any metre charge.
The answer is to move supplier.

That is because the emergency is set at £8 so your money put him £2 in credit and still left him £8 emergency.
This isn't my problem, the problem is I was repaying my debt at £3 a week to YEB but Npower have bough the lot and are reclaiming the debts they've bought over a year thus leaving me £8 per week

Well in that case i go back to the end of my posting and advice you to take a stance and ring them, if its not changed to what you request tell them you will change supplier from immediate affect.
They won't want to loose your custom.

Originally posted by "3pce"

The honest answer is I don't know.
I buy white cards with a mag strip on in increments of a fiver.
Does that help decide what they are?

Sounds like you are on a token acceptor. £8/week debt collection sounds a lot to me but then it depends how much you owe. That works out at £104 per quarter before you've used any electricity.

YE were taken over by nPower and I'm not sure of their policy but I would say that the amount collected should be manageable for you.

If you are having difficulty do contact them and explain and they should try to help you sort it out. Good luck

Well in that case i go back to the end of my posting and advice you to take a stance and ring them, if its not changed to what you request tell them you will change supplier from immediate affect.
They won't want to loose your custom.

I don't think you can do this on a token meter (white paper with magnetic strip). You need to be on a 'regular' meter to change supplier.

Anyway...

I recently moved house and my new house has a toekn meter (white paper with magnetic strip ) and I was spending about £10 a week on electricity (no debt to pay off) so phone up the npower asking and asked for the meter to be changed, because I've got a good credit score they could'nt say no.

Anyway I think that npower charge 6.5p per kw/h and in the first month used just over 150 kw/h which is about £10.00 far cheaper that the £40/£50 i was being ripped of for before. Also the amount of hastle in running off to the post office all the time must have cost me £10/£20 a month.

These token meter are an abosolute rip off. I'd advise anyone whose got one to get rid of it even if you have to put down a deposit, set up a monthly credit by direct debit, etc.

In my eyes these token meters are just another way in with the less well of in today's society are being exploited.

take the plug socket apart and bottle some electricity in case of an emergancy