Suppliers can only switch you to prepayment if there's a debt and the supplier has made reasonable efforts to come to a settlement.
Define reasonable.
Of the 27m domestic meter points in the UK 4m are prepayment so it's pretty common.
Prepayment tariffs are also subject to the price cap. Tariffs are higher than standard credit but not significantly. It's right, though, that not all suppliers are interested. There are a couple (Utilita and E) that specialise in this space.
Those 4m are going to be disproportionately poorer people, who are then faced with a higher cost. It's another case of Sam Vime's theory. It costs more to be poor than it costs to be rich.
J
As I've mentioned previously I don't work in supply so I only interject to add a bit of reason or the odd fact.
The definition of reasonable efforts to get a customer to pay debt is in the regulators hands. We're running into a period where bad debt on energy will get much, much worse but it's the suppliers that will bear the burden. As I've said before it's desperately thin margin market so this will make the sector even worse. I'm slightly surprised we've not seen more supplier failures but there's not many left.
Prior to the intervention on the 1st Oct the cap was as follows (assuming average usage) :-
Credit meter - £3,549
Prepay - £3,608
about a fiver a month......
The intervention capped everyone on a SVR at £2,500 (assuming average usage) - prepay and credit all pay the same.
Not sure what will happen come April.
