electricity meter tokens. friend in trouble

kerrie01

my friend has just signed up with airtricity moving away from ESB.she has been using the electricity meter with about 20 years.even though she was buying meter cards all the time she says the esb are looking for 4000 euros in arrears.how can this be when the idea of using the meter was to avoid getting into debt in the first place ,shes worried about finding the money for it.any advice would be great thanks

carbsy

I find this hard to believe.Did she get a full breakdown of what the €4000 consisted of?

kerrie01

im not sure ill get back to her and find out the full facts,but i do know she does owe 4000 euros,she cant understand it either.

Ste.phen

Was the meter charging the cards at a far cheaper price per unit than the actual price of the electricity?

Davy

Ste.phen wrote: »

Was the meter charging the cards at a far cheaper price per unit than the actual price of the electricity?

Thats not how they work. The KWH rate is set in the meter, only changeable by networks staff. It needs to be changed every time a price review happens, possible that it wasnt changed and is at a lower rate, but i doubt it.

The more likely scenario is that the token meter has an emergency supply button, which when pressed gives an extra €2 or €4 so over time that could build up. I thought though when you did buy a new card that it took the money from that to cancel the €2 or €4. Ofcourse a token meter is normally fitted when a debt has already been run up.

kerrie01

i know she had an emergency button that she pressed when meter card ran out,but when a new card was put in it would immediately take what was owed out of it first.she probably will need to speak to esb directly to find out whats going on.

slx

Is it possible that they've installed a card meter, but somehow due to a clerical error have noted the units she has used as 'unbilled'.

She should make contact with :

ESB Customer Supply
Customer Complaints Facilitator
Bishop's Quay
Limerick

email: complaintfacilitator(insert at symbol)esb.ie

pred racer

Davy wrote: »

. Ofcourse a token meter is normally fitted when a debt has already been run up.

I'd imagine this is it.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Your friend should just phone ESB if she doesn't understand the debt. I just did with a general enquiry and it seems Token Meters are only installed when someone has a debt which need to be poaid off over a considerable period of time. Your friend has to know where the debt came from as she got the token meter installed and would have had plenty of correspondence before that happened.

kerrie01

thanks to all for taking time to answer.she still hasnt a clue whats going on so she will be paying them a visit.i know she owed a debt and thats why she got it put in but that was 20 years ago.the debt was paid off but where did 4000 euro debt:eek: come from is a different matter.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

kerrie01 wrote: »

thanks to all for taking time to answer.she still hasnt a clue whats going on so she will be paying them a visit.i know she owed a debt and thats why she got it put in but that was 20 years ago.the debt was paid off but where did 4000 euro debt:eek: come from is a different matter.

This will be interesting:
There is nowhere for her to visit. 1850372372 is the nearest thing available.
They didn't have token meters 20 years ago - try 15 maybe.
The €4000 can't have just suddenly appeared on the last bill. If it did then my God a simple phonecall will sort the matter out! Otherwise ahe has to have been aware of it before now.
If she has a token meter and no outstanding debt she should really get the meter removed as it may not be calibrated properly and she won't have the hassle of putting card in all the time. She could still pay towards future bills using the Easi pay scheme in Post Offices and shops. Just a thought.