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Pre-payment meter premium(annual)
BG = £89
EDF = £30
NPower = £71
EON = £65
Scottish Power =£63
Are pre-payment meter customers energy suppliers’ poorest customers?
Yes and Ofgem has acknowledged that pre-payment meter customers are energy suppliers’ poorest customers and yet it continues to allow suppliers to charge them the most for their energy.
How can suppliers remove the premium?
Suppliers should absorb the extra cost of pre-payment meters. They should charge pre-payment customers the same as their best quarterly bill prices.
How does this effect people in fuel poverty?
Any improvements in pre-payment meter prices would help over a million people in fuel poverty.
Can the energy market solve this problem?
Yes, the pre-payment premium does not exist in Northern Ireland. The market has shifted to benefit pre-payment customers. Their PPM customers get 2.5% discount off the standard rate and can buy top-ups over the telephone 24 hours a day.
Have any suppliers removed the premium?
Yes, Scottish Power charges pre-payment meter customer less for their energy than bill customers. EDF does not charge a premium for their electricity.
Are pre-payment meter customers energy suppliers’ poorest customers?
Yes and Ofgem has acknowledged that pre-payment meter customers are energy suppliers’ poorest customers and yet it continues to allow suppliers to charge them the most for their energy.
How can suppliers remove the premium?
Suppliers should absorb the extra cost of pre-payment meters. They should charge pre-payment customers the same as their best quarterly bill prices.
How does this effect people in fuel poverty?
Any improvements in pre-payment meter prices would help over a million people in fuel poverty.
Can the energy market solve this problem?
Yes, the pre-payment premium does not exist in Northern Ireland. The market has shifted to benefit pre-payment customers. Their PPM customers get 2.5% discount off the standard rate and can buy top-ups over the telephone 24 hours a day.
Have any suppliers removed the premium?
Yes, Scottish Power charges pre-payment meter customer less for their energy than bill customers. EDF does not charge a premium for their electricity.
article from
The Liverpool Times Prepayment utility meters.
Why are the poor of the UK being charged a higher rate of electric, gas and water than the middle class and rich?
“A Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in the West Midlands reported the case of a client, who lives on his own in local authority accommodation, has a low income, and suffers from chronic lung disease. The client wanted prepayment meters installed for his gas and electricity supply to help with budgeting but was unhappy about the fact that he would have to pay more to pay for his fuel in this way. The client considered that this is not fair for those on low income who are trying to budget and avoid debt.” CAB website
For a lot of poor people in the UK - we either purchase credit to ‘feed’ the gas or electric meter with a prepayment card or key or we freeze. You can ‘top up’ these keys at a variety of outlets, (garages, post offices, shops) all of whom earn a slice of the cash for ‘brokering’ a deal, acting as the middle agent between you and the power supply companies.For those better off financially, the benefits of direct debit mean that bills can be lowered by allowing the company to dip into your bank and take what they say you owe them. Those with more money pay a lower rate of tariff. Hence, someone in the suburbs surrounding Liverpool would be paying less to heat a small swimming pool or some giant tropical fish tank, than a pensioner in Kirkby feeding the prepayment meter just to keep alive when the cold spells hit us.
With prepayment meters, using ‘top up cards’ and now ‘top up keys’ – the cost of electric and gas is higher than the rates paid by customers who get quarterly bills through the post and higher than those who pay by direct debit. This means that the poorest are charged the highest rate through no real fault of our own. This is penalising the poor - in fact, it is killing us and make no mistake about it.
The CAB website carries figures that point to 3.5 million electricity and 2.2 million gas prepayment meters out of a total of 26 million electricity customers and 20 million gas customers. That’s a lot of people to rip off.
After all, the electric we pay for is the same that goes into every other home. There is one form of electric` supply for households – but an apartheid class system overrules the market which is easily manipulated just by a few rich people.
For pensioners who still pay the bills on these pre payment meters, it is an absolute outrage and you’d expect civil disorder to be on the horizon – like the poll tax rebellion or something similar. The police themselves will have to accept that laws can and must be broken if they lead to the premature deaths of our elderly and vulnerable.
The Old Prejudice, back in our faces!
Class distinction is just as evil as racial distinction but it seems to be almost accepted that it’s ok to be prejudiced against and to exploit the poor and vulnerable. This prejudice against the poor is part of the mindset of the rich upper classes here. It always has been.
Imagine, if you will that black people in the UK were all given electric keys which purchased electricity at a higher rate than white people, or if we announced that Jews were to surcharged extra for water or white people were levied an extra charge for the gas. The point I’m making is that exploiting anyone on the basic needs of life just because they are poor is just as evil and wicked as exploiting someone for being another skin tone. We’ve got to make that connection if we ever want to come to an understanding of what civil rights actually means.
The last great prejudice holding humanity back is the fact that human beings are priced out of basic existence rights and treated like cattle. The people on prepayment meters pay the highest rates and some have been left to freeze to death when the credit runs out. That’s certainly being priced out of basic existence rights.
Elderly people, double glazing and old electric appliances.
Many elderly who occupy council homes will not have reached the point of double glazing or modern central heating and other energy saving appliances. One notable fact is that you’ll still find ovens, fridges and TVs which are decades old – still going good in many homes in the UK. Whilst its good to see some electrical product manufactured in the U.K. in the 50s or 60s still working, bear in mind the power usage is uneconomical with old TV’s, fridges and freezers and washing machines. Many old folk also use electric fires, notorious for clocking up insane amounts. If you have no double glazing and your home has not been draught proofed, and the loft lagged – it’s unlikely that central heating will keep up with the real cold weather.
Even the choice of TV could put another £100 or so on your bill, going on the CNET charts which show how much power newer HDTV models use. Even on standby – these devices suck up power. No one seems to advise elderly people on the power consumption estimates of TVs or other appliances. Few salesmen seem to even include that in the sales patter, when it’s a deal maker if you reckon up the savings in electric.
How your power supplies are cut off in the brave new UK.
The prepayment meters will cut off your electric or gas the moment the last penny is used. The computerised ‘brain’ kicks in – instead of some worker who might be called to switch off the supply until you pay. He has to look you in the eye before leaving you to freeze or go hungry but the machines don’t give a damn one way or the other. For the very poorest with credit meters – this process of being cut off is now automatic for the people.
When the last penny is sucked up on a prepayment meter you then have the choice of pressing the ‘emergency’ credit button which gives you the grand sum of £4. This used to be £5 before privatisation – and you have to ask why the *******s took the £1 away. The sum of £4 should see you through to the next day – unless the next day is a holiday, or a weekend or your disabled or under some other set of circumstances which means you cannot get out.
Just leaving a small electric fire on will eat up the greater part of that £4 in a 24 hr period. After the £4 emergency credit has gone – your power supplies are out.
You can see exactly how much credit or money is left in the prepayment meters if your eagle eyed enough to read the dimly lit digital display - but amazingly, many of the meters themselves are situated in an awkward position for people to read and operate – often just at the height of a small curious toddler. Safety of the meters is also in question as I’ve seen live wiring merely covered over by some masking tape, when some cover for the wiring was missing. The process of privatisation has meant that money that used to get ploughed back into maintenance and safety is now in the pockets of private shareholders and chairmen on a million pound plus wages.
A normal power supply meter will not indicate how much money might vanish in a 24 hr period, unlike the prepayment meters. You can work out the rates of course, but few actually do so. Few people even query the bills and many pay at rates which are so numerous that you know people are being robbed left right and centre.
For another analogy – imagine if you will a café which charged a different rate for the English breakfast depending on your economic status! Imagine being asked “are you on low pay sir” and finding out that some GP in the corner was paying £1.50p less for his scoff. This is pretty much the situation we have.
The scam of the prepayment key.
People who lose the prepayment card or key - they won’t have N-Power or any other power company chaperone a replacement out to you by express courier. Remember that without your prepayment card or key, you cannot use any power.
As for trying to get through to report an emergency by telephone - this is pretty much a trial in itself with the ‘press 1 for this and press 2 for that. If you lose a key and phone up to see what happens next - you’ll be told that the new ‘top up keys’ cost £7 to replace.
The top up cards (basic plastic credit card) were cheap as dirt and also free to replace – so these new ‘fancy’ keys seem to be just another way to fleece the poorest. All of a sudden millions of people pay out £7 for replacement keys, so someone up there is cashing in on a basic scam that they have managed to incorporate into millions of new prepayment meters. Someone is scamming us big time – these keys cost pennies and it’s not the rich or middle class who will need them replacing. Someone has obviously set up this key making company to steal from the British. What’s new, we ask?
Below - the prepayment meter and the prepayment key. We need to name the people who are behind this.
Like mugs, we just assume that this ‘fancy’ key, made in the millions, is worth more than a few pennies. We don’t question the worth of the key and the people who made it certainly played on this English trait of begrudgingly paying over the odds. This new breed of meter is worse than the old coin meters, which you could at least smash open and feed the money back into, if you were actually freezing.
At least you could hit the poor mans jackpot with the old coin meter.
Below, lest we forget…
“Social Services could have been alerted to the plight of a south London couple found dead after their gas supply was cut off, information officials said.
British Gas told an inquest the Data Protection Act stopped them passing on information about George Bates, 89, and his wife Gertrude, 86, from Tooting.
Information Commissioner Richard Ross said if a significant risk to those involved would allow notification.
A verdict of death by natural causes was recorded on Monday.
The couple had been disconnected after a £140 bill went unpaid and they were found dead just weeks later.” (BBC 2002)
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