Prepayment meters – also known as ‘pay-as-you-go’ meters – are a common way to pay energy bills. You need a meter installed in your house, which you top up with credit bought at a local shop or online, usually with a key or a card. However, over the last few months there have been worrying stories over their use and how cost effective they are.
In the Times Story an undercover reporter found British Gas have been sending round debt collectors to break into people’s homes to fit PPMs, even though the individuals and families targeted were known to be financially vulnerable. This goes against Ofgem’s rules which state that forcing customers onto prepayment meters under a warrant should only ever “occur as a last resort” and should never occur when customers are in “very vulnerable situations.”
Thanks to the story making the headlines, British Gas immediately suspended the practice of force fitting prepayment meters and they were quickly followed by other energy firms as the Regulator Ofgem asked them all to suspend forcible installations as an urgent investigation was carried out.
It comes days after a BBC investigation revealed that courts have been waving through applications to install these meters without checking if the person involved was classed as vulnerable. Figures from the Ministry of Justice showed that 32,790 warrants to enter homes and forcibly install PPMs were issued in January this year alone. Magistrate Robin Cantrill-Fenwick last week quit the profession saying there was a lack of scrutiny which “is putting vulnerable households at risk.”
The outrage caused by the times expose stirred newly-appointed minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Grant Shapps to call out the bad practices of Energy firms and he gave them until midnight last night to report back on what action they will take and what compensation, if any, they will give victims of forced installations.
Dan White policy and campaigns officer at DR UK and one of the leads at the Disability Poverty Campaign said “Finally after months of groups like ours pushing for an investigation into the abuse of PPMs and the brutal attitudes of bailiffs the story has at last hit the mainstream. From the Energy companies to the bailiffs, to the courts, everyone involved is culpable and must be made to answer. We wait now to see what the outcome of Grant Shapps deadline for energy companies responses will be, but as Ofgem have only suspended forced installations we need to keep the pressure on ministers to make sure that ban is permanent, and that people are rightly compensated. The DPCG is planning its next steps, sadly this isn’t over yet.”
Help call for a ban on the installations of Prepayment meters, please write to your MP.