Excessive credit on a pre-payment account

Howdy @AlexY ,

If you’re on PAYG, you should NOT be submitting manual meter readings - they’re done automatically whenever you top-up.

Based on your meter type, the Single Source of Truth will be the meter itself, please disregard anything else. I would advise against taking refunds right now.

Prepayment Accounts don't normally have credit agreements or credit checks performed against them. Experian might not know anything about this.

All credit must be sent straight to the meter - there's nowhere else it can be stored other than the key/card.

Thanks guys. It’s totally baffled me as it’s not logical. I submitted a manual reading because Martin Lewis said people should because of the impending price drop…I just wanted to make sure I would be paying the lower rate as of tomorrow. I do qualify & have jumped through the hoops required for the Warm Home Discount. I saw that added to the balance on the meter. They must have made a mistake…

You spoke to the wrong team - that was the Pay Monthly team. You may need to get this fixed, so I will flag for advice in case you damaged your account somehow.

Once again, Martin Lewis has given bad advice - Prepayment Customers should not be jamming up their supplier on “Meter Reading Day” because the meter readings are submitted automatically anyway - and the meter itself already knows exactly what usage to charge at what rate… It just deals with the change in the background at the exact date/time it is programmed to flip the rates over.

As for Martin Lewis? I don’t suppose this was the same Martin Lewis who caught tens of thousands of Prepayment Customers off-guard with his “Prepayment Meter Hack” by any chance? You know, the one where you could supposedly “beat the price increase” by stuffing your meter full of credit before the price went up? When in actual fact, a tiny bit of research would have revealed that the manufacturers and suppliers had considered - and blocked - that trick anyway by pre-loading the new rates over a month prior to the “hack” being announced?

Social Engineering - especially from those with high influence - is a powerful and dangerous attack vector. Martin and his team were careless and arguably negligent with that incident, which caused thousands of people to drain their bank balances because they just blindly believed him - and ignored my warnings that it wouldn’t work.

And besides, suppliers would have had the option to apply a debt to claw back the stolen credit anyway - it would have been possible mass-fraud and mass abstraction of electricity/gas after all if it had worked. The rules are clear - the new rates start on the date of the rate update itself, NOT when you last made a payment/next make a payment.

You shouldn’t just blindly trust him just because he’s Martin Lewis - it’s ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL you do your own research too and never trust one person implicitly or explicitly. I work in IT and Cybersecurity, so I’m very well trained in how to pull off a Social Engineering Attack and doing so would allow me to do whatever I want to a victim. I, however, don’t use it for that purpose. I have legitimate and lawful reasons for knowing these things and use them for only a few purposes:

• To protect myself and ensure my safety - I can detect any attempt to social engineer me and block it from working
• To protect others - whether that be my users at places I’m the IT Administrator for, forum users here or people I meet, I care a lot about keeping folks safe
• To educate and raise awareness - this is intended to help others know what to watch for and how to avoid becoming a victim themselves

While I could use my advanced skills and influence on the OVO Forum for… Unlawful purposes… I chose the right path and use them for good rather than evil. But being careless with that power is exactly what burned Martin Lewis back in 2022 and he’s risking the same mistakes again - because he’s still at it even though he’s already been warned about it.

I myself have to use extreme caution - my influence and trust on this very Forum is insanely strong and powerful. One slip from me and I could fall into the same trap myself. It’s just that unlike Martin Lewis, I have the advanced knowledge and skills to not only pull off a social engineering attack - but also to help me avoid accidentally pulling one off too. That power is what I teach here - I don’t want you to just trust me. In fact, you shouldn’t trust me at all if you get what I mean. I’m just a random guy on the internet and you’ll probably never meet me! :)

Thanks for the lengthy advice. The email was entitled ‘Your Pay As You Go Account (******)’

I wouldn’t blame Martin Lewis. He probably said at some point for PAYG customers not to submit. I would guess I missed that part…

Perhaps, but at the same time… He repeated the exact same mistakes multiple times afterwards. It kinda grinds for me when someone so powerful fails to learn...

Your help with determining that I am (still!) a bit of a numpty is much appreciated 😑 (I have to admit I am not entirely surprised but I would like to say I have evolved somewhat) I appreciate the time you have taken to respond to my question. 

Hey @AlexY 

I’m glad to see Blastoise186 was able to help you out with this question. They’ve been spot on with their advice. 

If you’ve ever got any other questions, always feel free to pop back to the Forum.🙂