If you have not vended regularly over the summer months you may owe the meter for missed standing charges or missed weekly debt recovery amounts.
Please ensure you leave the key/card inserted within the meter at your previous property, so that the new occupier can provide us with start readings when they move in.
You can order a electricity Key/Gas Card:
If your meter won’t accept the electricity key or your gas card, we need to first determine the problem:
You can order a replacement key or Gas card:
Emergency credit aims to help make sure your energy supply isn't cut off in an emergency – for example if you're ill or otherwise unable to buy credit. There is £5 of emergency credit built into every prepayment meter.
Emergency credit always has to be repaid. To return the meter balance to normal, you must repay any amount of emergency credit used plus top up your meter with enough credit to cover the cost of the energy you use, plus the fixed charge and any payments you are making towards previous debt. Once you run out of emergency credit, your supply may be temporarily disconnected until you top up your meter.
With our pay as you go payment method, you can pay for YourEnergy as you use it, instead of running up monthly or quarterly bills. This could help budgeting and making staying in control of YourEnergy easier. You can read about this in the payment method section of our website.
We can replace your meter under certain circumstances. These include:
If you are struggling to use your prepayment meter due to your particular circumstances (for example, a vulnerability), we can help you and arrange to have your meter changed. Please call us to discuss this.
If you ask us to remove the prepayment meter for another reason, we’ll ask some questions to determine the suitability of a credit meter for your circumstances. This will involve a credit check and, depending on the outcome of that check, we may request a security deposit (usually £150 per fuel) before we can arrange to replace your meter. The security deposit will be repaid when you have made all payments for your energy bills on time over a year. We’ll ask you to confirm any address you’ve lived at during the last three years and we’ll also need up to date meter readings and any balance outstanding on your meter so we can provide you with your account balance.You should also call us to discuss your options.
If you need help to read your meter and balance please see our Meter Reading Guide.
Electricity price changes may take up to three instances of topping up your card and inserting it in the meter before the price change registers on your key meter. From that point you will then pay the updated price for your energy.
Gas prices will be updated automatically the next time you top up your card and insert it in your meter.
If you haven’t put enough credit on your meter and are away, then your energy may temporary go off. The emergency credit built into your meter will not start automatically and needs someone present to activate it.
Therefore, if you are able to, you should top up your meter with enough credit to ensure the energy supply remains on. That includes enough credit to cover your weekly fixed charge plus a bit extra to cover any appliances that will be left on such as fridges and freezers.
If you are in hospital or unable to do this, you can ask a representative to contact us as soon as possible and we will try to help. We’ll then make sure you have supply as soon as you come home.
We may ask you for a security deposit to cover the possibility of any future unpaid bills. The deposit amount is £150. This will be refunded to you, with interest, after 12 months if you've paid all your bills on time. If you do not keep up with your bill payments we may ask to re-install your prepayment meter and use the security deposit to cover any outstanding balance before refunding the remainder to you with any interest accrued.
If you decide to leave ScottishPower within 12 months, we'll refund you the money, including interest incurred to date, or deduct the deposit and interest accrued from any balance that may be outstanding. We pay interest on your security deposit at Barclays base rate, and take off tax at the standard rate.
We send you an annual statement to show your energy usage for the year. This is for your information and shows your current account balance. If your account shows a credit balance and you would like a credit balance refund please Contact Us.
We will need to make sure that any credit amount on your bill is genuine before releasing it to you and is not simply due to credit that you have put on the meter which has not yet been used.
There are a few things that we will need, to ensure that your account is closed correctly. That’s why, when you contact us to close your account, we recommend that you are at the property and able to read the meter. On the call we’ll be able to talk you through everything step by step.
You will normally need to provide the following information
For more information please see our Moving Home section
If you have a debt on your meter and are finding it hard to pay, please Contact us as soon as possible.
Our Customer Service team want to help and can talk you through all the options available to you. We can also refer you to external sources for further advice such as the National Debt Line.
Occasionally your pay as you go meter may develop an error code, you can find out what the error code displayed means and what to do here: Prepayment meter error codes
It’s very easy, just take your key or gas card to your nearest Post Office or Paypoint outlet:
You can top up by any amount from as little as £1 for Gas and £5 for Electricity. Any additional credit can only be added in whole pounds, up to a maximum of £49 per transaction.
Always ask for a receipt, check it says ‘Key Credit Successful’ or ‘Credit Accepted’ and keep it safe. Only use your card or key in your own meter, you can’t use it in any other one.
Remember, your home continues to use electricity – and credit – while you are out of the house, so the credit shown on your meter may be less than you expect when you return after being away from the property.
Be safe! Don’t use your key if it’s damp – and don’t touch the meter with wet hands.
We hope you are happy with ScottishPower as your supplier. However, if you are currently repaying a debt through your prepayment meter and want to switch supplier, you may be able to transfer your debt to your new supplier. You can switch your electricity or gas supplier with a debt of £500 or less. This allows you to take your debt with you and you will repay the debt to the new supplier instead. Your new supplier should tell you about this when you apply to switch to them.
This process shouldn’t affect the amount of time that it takes to switch your supplier and it should take between 6 to 8 weeks to complete the transfer of the debt. It also shouldn’t result in any additional debt to you, assuming you continue to pay as you should.
When preparing a final bill, prepayment meters are the same as other meter types.
We need a final meter reading to accurately measure the amount of energy used which allows us to arrive at a correct account balance and then issue a final bill.
The final bill will detail any outstanding debit or credit balance that needs to be paid. If you are in credit you are able to get a credit balance refund. More details about credit balance refunds can be found here.
As a ‘pay as you go’ customer, there are a number of reasons why your final account balance shows a debt:
You can have a debt on your account even though you pay for your energy as you go because:
If you are struggling to pay then please Contact Us and we can discuss your options for repayment of your debt
Updated by ScottishPower | 8 Jan 19
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