With information received from Advice Direct Scotland that around one in five households with prepayment gas and electricity meters have not redeemed their energy rebate vouchers, Elena Whitham MSP encourages constituents of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley to ensure they redeem any vouchers received.
Issuing agent PayPoint have sent out hundreds of thousands of vouchers in November under the UK Government’s support scheme, but with the prepayment vouchers are only valid for 90 days – that means those issued in November have now expired.
Knowing that almost one in five households in Scotland use prepayment meters for their gas or electricity, whilst most households will have had £400 automatically taken off their electricity bills in six instalments, or will have the money added to their accounts – this is not the case for those traditional prepayment meters who need to redeem the vouchers to get the discount.
PayPoint said that 79% of customers have so far redeemed their December vouchers, which have a deadline of 8th March.
Customers who have not yet redeemed their January vouchers have until 9th April.
Advice Direct Scotland wants to make sure that households do not miss out and has urged Scots to:
Check unopened mail, in case the vouchers have been missed.
Check with energy suppliers, using contact details found on bills, statements, and official websites.
Contact energyadvice.scot if there are any difficulties getting through to suppliers or resolving issues. The team can be contacted on 0808 196 8660 (Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm), or through www.energyadvice.scot.
Elena Whitham MSP said:
It is vitally important that people who are on prepayment meters know that if they have received these vouchers they should redeem them so that their households do not miss out on this important entitlement. With fuel prices still eye wateringly high all and any assistance should be taken forward.
Importantly with these vouchers only being valid for three months, there will be vouchers from November now expired and any vouchers issued in December will need to be redeemed before the beginning of March.
It is really important for people to check any unopened mail, in case a voucher has been missed; or if you receive on line statements from your energy provider that you check your email junk folder just in case that important email with your voucher from PayPoint is sitting there.
If you are on a prepayment meter and haven’t received any vouchers at all I would urge you to follow Advice Direct Scotland’s advice and get in touch with their advisors or your energy supplier to get access to your energy vouchers.