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People who had prepayment meters forcibly installed in their homes are in line for compensation of up to £1,000 after energy companies signed up to pay £18.6m in debt cancellation and customer payments.
The announcement follows energy regulator Ofgem’s review of companies forcibly entering the homes of indebted, vulnerable customers to fit prepay meters to prevent them accruing further arrears.
Thousands of people were affected and are to receive the debt write-offs and, in some cases, payments from eight providers: Scottish Power, EDF, E.ON, Utility Warehouse, Good Energy, TruEnergy and Ecotricity.
At least 40,000 customers are due to receive the awards following the completion of one of Ofgem’s “most wide-reaching reviews”, which included more than 150,000 cases where meters were forcibly and also remotely installed without the billpayers’ permission.
Energy providers will pay £5.6m in compensation for the involuntary installation and issues like poor record-keeping and data quality. These issues meant customers didn’t get the support they needed.
A further £13m of energy debt will be cancelled.
Ofgem had already provided £55m in financial support, such as hardship payments and arrears write-offs to affected consumers.
There were only “limited” times – fewer than 1% of cases – when a prepayment meter was fitted under warrant when it wasn’t safe or reasonably practicable to do so, the review found, during the assessment period of 1 January 2022 to 31 January 2023.
Despite this, Ofgem said “one case is too many”.
Separate investigations into involuntary installations by British Gas, OVO and…
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