A BIG energy supplier is wiping the debt on hundreds of customer accounts after a smart meter glitch left them with shock bills.
Boost Power will remove any debts applied to the accounts of customers affected by a prepayment meter glitch.
GettyBoost Power is wiping the debt of prepayment meter customers who were undercharged because of a smart meter glitch[/caption]
Ovo Energy, the owner of Boost Power, has told The Sun that it will no longer ask customers to pay the company back after being undercharged for their electricity usage.
The meter glitch landed some households on prepayment meters with debts of as much as £700.
Customers affected by the glitch won’t need to do anything and Boost will be in touch next week to confirm that any debt applied will be wiped from their accounts.
It comes after hundreds of customers received emails and letters last month from Boost which supplies around 200,000 homes, telling them they must pay back the cash after being incorrectly charged.
The message said: “Unfortunately, when our prices went up in October, your meter wasn’t updated due to a technical problem.
“This means that we were charging you less than we should have for a short period of time. We’re sorry about this.”
“You’ll need to pay the difference in price for energy you’ve used. But we’re reducing this amount by 10% to say sorry for the mistake.”
Customers on prepayment meters top up using a key, card or app for energy they use, rather than being billed later on.
They are often installed in low-income households to help manage their bills better.
Mother-of-two Suzanne Ekpenyong, 41 had been left furious after the energy company placed a £307 debt on her meter.
Suzanne who’s self-employed and lives in Woodford in East London told The Sun: “I was absolutely fuming to receive a letter in the post explaining that Boost has added a £300 debt to my meter because of their own mistake.”
The move meant that every time Suzanne tops up, £5 would be taken to pay off the debt.
However, like Suzanna and hundreds of others, these debts will now no longer be applied and customers won’t need to pay back what they owe.
Vulnerable customers and those who already had an existing debt of more than £500 with Boost had already had the debt waived.
But customers with less than £500 in debt were originally expected to repay what they owe due to the glitch.
Back-billing rules set out by the energy regulator Ofgem state that suppliers can charge households for gas or electricity used less than 12 months ago if they have not been correctly billed for it.
But Ovo’s decision to wipe the debts applied to Boost customers affected by the glitch has been made at the supplier’s own discretion.
The Sun revealed late last month that Boost Power will close later on this year.
All 200,000 customers will move over to Ovo Energy to ensure that they receive the same benefits offered to its existing customer base.
Boost’s customers do not need to do anything as their accounts will be migrated over to Ovo Energy automatically.
Ovo Energy was founded by Stephen Fitzpatrick in September 2009 and by 2017 provided energy tariffs to over 700,000 households.
In September 2017, the company launched Boost as a dedicated brand for its prepayment meter customers.
In November 2018, Ovo Energy acquired Spark Energy and in January 2020 it bought the domestic arm of SSE which catapulted the brand to become part of the “Big Six”.
Ovo Energy now supplies 4.5million households with gas and electricity across the UK.