-2 and no electric

[cheshirecatssmile]

My meter has just decided to do whatever it shouldn't do.
It's a prepayment. I have £3 left on my meter. Money on the key but keeps saying token excepted then doesn't take credit.
If it goes into emergency I won't be able to sort.
I've tweeted bg help and waiting till 9am for the helpline to open.
If it can't be sorted I'm in for a cold day.
It's -2 here.
Just wanted to vent.
And before anyone says it's your own fault for having a pre payment meter , we couldn't afford to have it replaced with a normal meter .

Don't be apologetic. One day isn't really acceptable in my opinion.

That really is shit
Is your meter connected to WiFi( some prepayment meters are)
If so, they would arrange a remote top up
Hope you and ddog manage to keep warm

It’ll get sorted so hang in there. Just a pain in the neck when it happens. X

When this happened to me, the energy company topped the meter up remotely. Thank god, because we were freezing! Hope you get sorted soon, OP.

Mainly because of the hassle of them fitting them. I also live in an old house which wifi really struggles with and have heard that can cause problems. I often swap supplies Plus I'm not convinced they won't be used by energy companies in the future to control things. I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories but it just doesn't sit right for me.

Sorry pressed send by mistake. I also swap supplier's (obviously not right now) and I'm sure they're not transferable?

@Plump82 the new ones are transferable I am pretty sure of it because I have one. Hate to tell you this but you are far more monitored with your prepayment meter than you think. I used to work for an energy company. Every time that key gets inserted into your meter it takes a snapshot of usage, time, if you have used your emergency etc then when you go to wherever you top it up that information then gets transferred to your supplier through the terminal in the shop. It also tells us what time you top up, where you top up etc. Those meters also tell us if someone it trying to tamper with the meter. And in one case of someone abusing their meter we cut them off remotely. Didn't even need a warrant.

The biggest control a smart meter has is the ability to change a credit customer into a prepayment customer. You pay more for your electric having a prepayment meter due to the infrastructure ie keys, terminals etc. I do understand your reluctance re signals which is a different thing altogether. I think some may work off radio signals though rather than wifi. Not sure, my meter was fitted a while ago.

Oh Im under no illusion about being monitored currently. And I don't have concerns about them seeing when I'm topping up etc. I just have a fear with all this talk of rationing electricity and planned outages that smart meters make it very easy to be controlled. I'm probably talking and thinking nonsense.

I also know we pay more and at first it was through laziness that we never changed to a direct debit plan when we first moved in here bit it actually really suits us having the key which is why we've never got round to changing.

@Plump82 no I do understand that fear. Although I would hope that they will target businesses first, those that do not need to have things running that are running them ie when businesses are closed rather than households. I set up some massive, eye watering direct debits for factories on business electricity supplies.

Prepayment meters do have more things go wrong with them, like this thread and the poor woman who had a debt applied incorrectly to her meter which is now eating any credit she puts on.

I hope the OP gets sorted really quickly. Electricity especially is essential.

As promised dog in her Xmas jumper

It's warmer in the house than outside

She'll be super cosy so get cuddling her!!

What a sweetie.. nice furry hot water bottle for you.
My Westie has his uses too

Morning
-5c it was like being back in the 80's as a child. Had ice on the inside of my windows!
Well that's it. No electricity. All gone.
Going to be a long wait.
I look like a sumo wrestler got that many layers 🥶

Can you check when someone is coming?

Between 1-5pm

I'm sure you're counting down every minute
Hopefully you'll be toasty tonight

Too right, just nipped out to get a hit breakfast from the bakery
It's warmer outside in the sun

Bg just phone 10 mins away 🙌🏻

All sorted the relief

Glad it's sorted 🙂

Glad it's sorted

I love the dog in the jumper

She is a bit cute. And she knows it

Morning
Just a quick question regarding smart meters
So fitted on Thursday thank god.
Chap said it would take 24 hours for the meter and the app to communicate.
The meter tells me how much credit I have, but the app doesn't
Can I still top up using the app?
How long before the meter matches the app?