Energy providers in England have till Tuesday to decide what course of action to take with regard to customers who may have had prepayment metres installed incorrectly.
According to Business Secretary Grant Shapps, energy providers need to put their customers back in the forefront, “at the end of this abhorrent behaviour.”
It comes after a number of reports about prepayment metres being installed forcibly in people’s homes.
Ofgem, a regulator, declared that it shares Mr Shapp’s shock at the information. According to reports, magistrates courts in England and Wales were advised to grant in bulk energy company requests to compel the installation of prepayment metres in people’s homes.
According to a leaked document, magistrates were told that it was “irrational” to refuse such warrants and that rules requiring them to question the applications were “disproportionate”.
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While The Times found debt agents for British Gas had broken into vulnerable people’s homes to fit meters.
On Friday, the energy regulator ordered all domestic energy firms to stop the forced installation of prepayment meters. In the wake of the revelations, Mr Shapps had told Ofgem to toughen up on suppliers, accusing the regulator of too quickly “having the wool pulled over their eyes” and taking what energy companies are telling them at face value.
“They need to also listen to customers to make sure this treatment of vulnerable consumers doesn’t happen again,” he said.
Ofgem said energy that firms are legally required to submit “an honest representation of the facts” and the regulator “required assessments to be signed off by their boards, adding that it would be a “grave matter for any licensee to provide misleading or purposefully inaccurate information”.
Further reviews would be carried out to “cross-examine what we have had reported to us with direct reports from customers and wider stakeholders, and potentially those involved in the delivery of services.”
Labour shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said Mr Shapps “sat on his hands” and failed to take action over the issue.
This story was adapted from BBC.
