Feeding the meter

More than half a million people struggling with debt have forcibly had prepay gas and electricity meters installed by their energy suppliers, a BBC investigation has found.

 
Figures reveal that the practice, in which energy companies obtain court orders to install the meters, has grown drastically since 2009, peaking in 2014 with 111,000 PPMs installed by force.

 
Those struggling to pay off debts—already some of the most vulnerable people—are pushed further into debt using PPMs. The Citizens Advice Bureau contends that it costs up to £80 more a year using meters compared to direct debit.

 
Kaylee Abbott is one such person who’s struggling to keep up with her bills. A single mother from North Yorkshire who lives on benefits, Abbott had run up £700 in debt on energy bills and now must contend with both a prepay gas and electricity meter. In addition to paying for her current bills, the meters take out about £4 a week to pay off her debts.

 
She now struggles to have enough gas and electricity to cook food for her four-year-old and keep her home warm, she told the BBC.

 
“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “I just want it paid off so I’m better off and when I’m topping it up it’s all mine and I’m not running out as quick.”

 
Two Londoners struggling with low income work and unemployment told The Mirror a similar story.

 
“I had my gas cut off six years ago,” Karen Williams said. “My electricity is a pre-payment meter which often runs out before I get paid. I go days every month with no light, heat or hot food.”

 
John Lipnicki, who had become unemployed and struggled to pay his energy bills, said that he was often left without gas for cooking.

 
He explained that even after he managed to pay of his energy bill debt, however, the prepay meter’s tendency to overcharge means he lives in constant fear of running out of money before his next pay day.

 
“I paid off the gas debt, and even got a refund for ‘over charging,’” he said. “Electricity also was paid off, again with an apology for over-charging. I fear the same thing happening and not being able to live on the reduced income.”

 
Forcibly installed

 
News of forcibly installed prepay meters on the country’s most vulnerable comes as the energy regulator Ofgem caved into the energy industry, saying that it would no longer publish reports of the companies’ profit margins, as well as estimates of how much a consumer could expect to pay over the next 12 months.

 
The reports’ purpose was to empower consumers to shop around for better deals. But after pressure from energy companies, Ofgem will now leave consumers further in the dark.

 
Unite head of community Liane Groves condemned the forced installation of energy meters, explaining how they add to the growing scourge of fuel poverty.

 
“Energy meters hide fuel poverty because people aren’t cut off by these unscrupulous companies, she said. “People cut themselves off which means the problem goes unreported and unchallenged.

 
“This disgusting practice is all the more galling when you consider that the big energy firms are trousering record profits, even as the wholesale price of energy plummets,” noted Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner.

 
Indeed, as UniteLive reported earlier this year, profits since 2009 have skyrocketed, while a report found that the poorest 10 per cent saw their gas and electricity bills balloon by more than 50 per cent in the last five years. This has happened against a backdrop in which wholesale prices have gone down by 20 per cent.

 
Turner went on to argue that forcibly installed prepay meters was simply business as usual for energy firms.

 
“It’s only the latest example of on-going and obscene practices employed by big energy firms to squeeze ever greater profits from those least able to pay,” he said. “Heating and eating are human rights not competing choices. It’s time we brought energy back under public ownership.”