Sadly it is expensive to be poor. Ideally help steps in before you can no longer afford electric.
I wonder how long it’ll be before people cotton on and start bypassing the meter.
Wasn’t there talk about having some social tariff giving a free amount of gas and electricity per day and helping folk out of this dreadful situation?
I feel sorry for anybody using those pre-pay meters. We had one until around 2010 (council house, took us years to finally get them to fit a modern non-pre-paid one) and I’m telling you they owe us about £10,000 for the decade we had that thing but we’ll never get it.
In winter we’d go to the shop, put £20 on the card (later changed to a plastic key), put it on the machine, have the heating on at about 16 degrees on the thermostat for 2 hours, and that 2 hours of heating had drained the £20 on the meter down to about £4. It was exactly the same in summer, but in summer you never have the heating on so £20 lasts all week.
It was costing us about £400 a month in winter months in gas just to have the heating on for a couple of hours a day so we didn’t freeze to death in the house. When we finally got a modern meter in and were paying by direct debit the bill went down to £24 a week, combined, for both gas and electricity. I tried to get it investigated but the company (after months of phone calls and letters) told us they worked it out and what they owed us was less than a tenner.
If I knew someone in this position, I’d be contacting a human rights lawyer on their behalf.
If access to the Internet is now considered a human right, warmth and comfort definitely should be.
Ahh tories helping with paltry tax cuts but no hope where it matter’s remember this on voting day
This is not right, utilities are not allowed to cut residential gas or electricity off, business yes but not residential.
The story is bullshit.
Honestly it’s criminal how prepaid metres are in such high tariffs.
Prepaid metres should provide a safety net for those in need with tariffs heavily regulated to match the cheapest available in the market – or even subsidised for qualify customers.
Hell why not a system that keeps houses at 18C free of charge then you only pay above and beyond that (I’m dreaming now)
And I hope each and everyone of them goes to vote at the next election .
It’s despicable to A) make energy prices unaffordable for so many B) charge more for prepaying meters C) have them in the first place.
Not an example of a civilised society IMO.
Ok, but my parents had to pay inheritance tax on my grandmother’s £4 million estate, so who is the real victim and priority here?
/s
I live in hmo and the house uses this meter. The home owner refuses to take any responsibility for the house, not repair even the staff are broken. 😞
It is totally awful experience.
I lived in a flat in a grotty part of East London for about a year (**never again it was like living in the third world**, I left London in the end). Of course, it came with one of these prepaid meters. It always seemed to drain like water from a sieve. When you’re inevitably sharing with others, it is even worse because who knows who is blasting the radiator in their room while you’re trying to be careful….tiffs inevitably developed. This is exploitation at its finest from whoever is responsible for installing them. I felt so worthless going to a shitty corner store to “top up” like a complete cretin that can’t be trusted.
They treat people like pigs and go laughing all the way to the bank, cackling and twirling their waxed moustaches.
In NI where prepayment meters are 45% of the market and considered normal, you don’t see any of this faux outrage.
Remember kids, if you don’t produce enough of what the overlords demand, you deserve to die.
Currently in a studio on a temporary basis, on a prepay, with 2 electric radiators. If you have them on all day it’s basically costing £10 a day.
Absolutely crazy. It was cheaper to heat our former 3 bed terraced house with gas central heating than this little flat.
Luckily for us in a couple of months we will be back in a house with central heating again. And hopefully the worst of the cold weather had passed. We will see.
The whole energy sector needs nationalising.
These companies are never going to give us cheap energy. They are literally bringing the country to its knees.
It’s not just consumers either. Businesses are suffering and going under because of high energy bills. Octoscam get around £50k per month from me now.
This is what politicians should be talking about. The reason they don’t is because they all aped into energy stocks. They don’t want prices to come down.
I aped in too, but I am normal person (not a parasite), so I don’t care if price dips or divis aren’t paid.
Ughh my new flat has one of these for gas. There is nothing quite like suddenly getting blasted with ice cold water mid shower.
I’ve been trying to get it removed, but OVO have just made it a fucking nightmare. 4 months and counting since I started trying to switch it to a credit meter….
18 comments
Sadly it is expensive to be poor. Ideally help steps in before you can no longer afford electric.
I wonder how long it’ll be before people cotton on and start bypassing the meter.
Wasn’t there talk about having some social tariff giving a free amount of gas and electricity per day and helping folk out of this dreadful situation?
I feel sorry for anybody using those pre-pay meters. We had one until around 2010 (council house, took us years to finally get them to fit a modern non-pre-paid one) and I’m telling you they owe us about £10,000 for the decade we had that thing but we’ll never get it.
In winter we’d go to the shop, put £20 on the card (later changed to a plastic key), put it on the machine, have the heating on at about 16 degrees on the thermostat for 2 hours, and that 2 hours of heating had drained the £20 on the meter down to about £4. It was exactly the same in summer, but in summer you never have the heating on so £20 lasts all week.
It was costing us about £400 a month in winter months in gas just to have the heating on for a couple of hours a day so we didn’t freeze to death in the house. When we finally got a modern meter in and were paying by direct debit the bill went down to £24 a week, combined, for both gas and electricity. I tried to get it investigated but the company (after months of phone calls and letters) told us they worked it out and what they owed us was less than a tenner.
If I knew someone in this position, I’d be contacting a human rights lawyer on their behalf.
If access to the Internet is now considered a human right, warmth and comfort definitely should be.
Ahh tories helping with paltry tax cuts but no hope where it matter’s remember this on voting day
This is not right, utilities are not allowed to cut residential gas or electricity off, business yes but not residential.
The story is bullshit.
Honestly it’s criminal how prepaid metres are in such high tariffs.
Prepaid metres should provide a safety net for those in need with tariffs heavily regulated to match the cheapest available in the market – or even subsidised for qualify customers.
Hell why not a system that keeps houses at 18C free of charge then you only pay above and beyond that (I’m dreaming now)
And I hope each and everyone of them goes to vote at the next election .
It’s despicable to A) make energy prices unaffordable for so many B) charge more for prepaying meters C) have them in the first place.
Not an example of a civilised society IMO.
Ok, but my parents had to pay inheritance tax on my grandmother’s £4 million estate, so who is the real victim and priority here?
/s
I live in hmo and the house uses this meter. The home owner refuses to take any responsibility for the house, not repair even the staff are broken. 😞
It is totally awful experience.
I lived in a flat in a grotty part of East London for about a year (**never again it was like living in the third world**, I left London in the end). Of course, it came with one of these prepaid meters. It always seemed to drain like water from a sieve. When you’re inevitably sharing with others, it is even worse because who knows who is blasting the radiator in their room while you’re trying to be careful….tiffs inevitably developed. This is exploitation at its finest from whoever is responsible for installing them. I felt so worthless going to a shitty corner store to “top up” like a complete cretin that can’t be trusted.
They treat people like pigs and go laughing all the way to the bank, cackling and twirling their waxed moustaches.
In NI where prepayment meters are 45% of the market and considered normal, you don’t see any of this faux outrage.
Remember kids, if you don’t produce enough of what the overlords demand, you deserve to die.
Currently in a studio on a temporary basis, on a prepay, with 2 electric radiators. If you have them on all day it’s basically costing £10 a day.
Absolutely crazy. It was cheaper to heat our former 3 bed terraced house with gas central heating than this little flat.
Luckily for us in a couple of months we will be back in a house with central heating again. And hopefully the worst of the cold weather had passed. We will see.
The whole energy sector needs nationalising.
These companies are never going to give us cheap energy. They are literally bringing the country to its knees.
It’s not just consumers either. Businesses are suffering and going under because of high energy bills. Octoscam get around £50k per month from me now.
This is what politicians should be talking about. The reason they don’t is because they all aped into energy stocks. They don’t want prices to come down.
I aped in too, but I am normal person (not a parasite), so I don’t care if price dips or divis aren’t paid.
Ughh my new flat has one of these for gas. There is nothing quite like suddenly getting blasted with ice cold water mid shower.
I’ve been trying to get it removed, but OVO have just made it a fucking nightmare. 4 months and counting since I started trying to switch it to a credit meter….