I am currently in the same situation, moving into my new house which has a prepayment meter next week. I've also been told that I was unable to have the meter changed as they are unable to do a credit check, once I informed them I have been a customer since 2008 so I shouldn't need a credit check they have now advised that it is company policy to keep customers on prepayment meters unless they have a disability preventing them from topping up.
I presume this is company policy because no other energy suppliers are taking on customers so they are able to take advantage of this and keep customers on higher tariffs.
That is a shocking reply that you've received @0804simon.
Citizen's Advice say:
If you’ve finished paying off debt
If you don’t want to be on prepayment anymore, your supplier must remove your old-style prepayment meter and give you an old-style credit meter or smart meter instead.
If that is true then as long as your account is not in debt then you should be able to insist on a credit meter. I suspect that by saying that they don't have credit checking facilities (which is laughable) they are hoping to use that as an excuse. In your case it seems that they have gone off script in their reply by mistake.
Apologies for the confusion. What my colleague meant is that EON Next can't do credit checks with an external credit check company like we used to with our sister company EON Energy as we don't yet have this set up. That being said, EON Next policy is we can only request prepayment meters to be changed presently if a customer has disabilities etc that prevent them from physically being able to top up unfortunately Simon. However, we should be able to do this soon as i've just found an update on our company digital notice board that says :- "Were waiting on remote switching functionality to become operational and live, the process will involve installing a smart pay as you go meter then remote switching to credit mode a few days later, theres no way we can install smart credit from classic prepayment without install smart pay as you go first as if we go straight tp smart credit it will be installed in "dummy" mode which means it will be a classic credit meter :slightly_smiling_face: no dates but i expect it should be around a couple of months before this is live and fully working as it stands" so we should be able to offer this soon but we don't yet have a time scale on this at the moment in concrete.
I understand completely your point absolutely Simon, unfortunately as i say it is a company policy at the moment that if a customer moves into a property with prepayment meters at the property we can only remove them for customer who physically have no way of topping up at a shop to top up the meter(s).
This is a disgraceful situation and need looking at by senior management.
@Beki_EONNext This really need to be looked at urgently.
In the meantime I recommend that anybody being denied a credit meter for no good reason should raise a formal complaint and if no credit meter ensues take it to the regulator. complain too to Martin Lewis. Raise the stakes.
Current Eon Next customer, ex EDF, Zog and Symbio. Don't think dual fuel saves money and don't like smart meters. Chronologically Gifted. If I offend let me know by private message, but I’ll continue to express my opinions nonetheless.
Hey @meldrewreborn and thank you so much for the tag.
Prepayment > credit meters is something that has been on my radar for a while and whilst I don't know much more than Pete, I would really love to get some answers for you all. I have asked the question and hopefully when the teams are back in next week I can ask the right people for support with this.
I just purchased my new family home, work is required on it so we will have an overlap where we stay at the old house until we can move in and then sell the old one, which will hopefully be about three months.
I have owned my old house since 2003 and have been with Eon since they took over NPower... note I am still an Eon customer on a credit smart meter and have never left a company owing a debt in my life! Actually, I currently have zero debts full stop.
The new house is also on Eon and has the dreaded prepay meters. Looking at the one tariff available to me on both meters I see that it is waaaay more than I pay at the old house.
Apparently, I can't have smart meters installed as they can't credit check me.... why do I need a credit check? You guys know me! Actually, you owe me money! I am in credit with you.
I was then told it's because I have already had the offer of smart meter upgrades on my account! (Having smart meters installed at the old house somehow blocks me having them at the new house). So it's recognised that I am the same person on your system.... but somehow my credit isn't known to be good?!
Come on, we all know how hard it is to switch right now, you are just taking advantage of people in this position, in these times where everyone is feeling less flush or completely broke it's pretty disgusting. Can you please advise when I can change my meters and why for real I can't change straight away?
I just purchased my new family home, work is required on it so we will have an overlap where we stay at the old house until we can move in and then sell the old one, which will hopefully be about three months.
I have owned my old house since 2003 and have been with Eon since they took over NPower... note I am still an Eon customer on a credit smart meter and have never left a company owing a debt in my life! Actually, I currently have zero debts full stop.
The new house is also on Eon and has the dreaded prepay meters. Looking at the one tariff available to me on both meters I see that it is waaaay more than I pay at the old house.
Apparently, I can't have smart meters installed as they can't credit check me.... why do I need a credit check? You guys know me! Actually, you owe me money! I am in credit with you.
I was then told it's because I have already had the offer of smart meter upgrades on my account! (Having smart meters installed at the old house somehow blocks me having them at the new house???!!!). So it's recognised that I am the same person on your system.... but somehow my credit isn't known to be good?!
Come on, we all know how hard it is to switch right now, you are just taking advantage of people in this position, in these times where everyone is feeling less flush or completely broke it's pretty disgusting.
Can you please advise when I can change my meters and why for real I can't change straight away?
Hey everyone,
I didn't want to go on leave without giving you an update with my internal investigations around this.
I've been speaking to lots of different departments and ultimately, at the moment, we are unable to change the meters due to the technology not being popped on the system yet.
I know that seems super pants, and not the best answer IMO, and so I am pushing further to get this changed as soon as possible.
I'm off on leave for a week or two, but if you've got any questions, the Community Team are here to help out in the interim.
I'll let you know if there is an update when I am back.
Hey everyone,
I didn't want to go on leave without giving you an update with my internal investigations around this.
I've been speaking to lots of different departments and ultimately, at the moment, we are unable to change the meters due to the technology not being popped on the system yet.
I know that seems super pants, and not the best answer IMO, and so I am pushing further to get this changed as soon as possible.
I'm off on leave for a week or two, but if you've got any questions, the Community Team are here to help out in the interim.
I'll let you know if there is an update when I am back.
Beki
That's the third reason that's been given, the only one that sounds remotely plausible was the second one 'company policy', which sounds like 'we don't want to'.
I can understand why a business might not want to do certain things, it's business after all, but it might be worth creating a Common Sense Department to come up with some logical and believable reasons.
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