Cape Town prepaid electricity woes

[K3NS31]

Hope someone can give me some info / help on this:

I bought R 200 worth of prepaid electricity via Easypay (mobile app) on Tuesday. Didn't take note of how many units I received.
Today, I run out of power - check the meter - it's showing zero!?
So I quickly buy another 200 bucks worth.
Then I realised I'd only gotten about 30 units. And the same on Tuesday.

So I queried it with Easypay, and they say it's the municipal rate, not them.

Which leaves me with 2 problems:
1. I have hardly any electricity and no guarantee that if I buy more I'll get what I pay for. I could pay R 1000 and only end up with a week's worth of electricity! In the meantime, I'm gonna be out of power in a day or 2.
2. I've just paid R400 for R100 worth of electricity. What the F!!!

Who should I speak to about this?

 

[diapason]

How much had you bought this month prior to your Tuesday purchase?

 

[K3NS31]

How much had you bought this month prior to your Tuesday purchase?

600 I think. (100 and 500) Which is probably a little above my normal usage, but not much.

 

[isie]

Hope someone can give me some info / help on this:

I bought R 200 worth of prepaid electricity via Easypay (mobile app) on Tuesday. Didn't take note of how many units I received.
Today, I run out of power - check the meter - it's showing zero!?
So I quickly buy another 200 bucks worth.
Then I realised I'd only gotten about 30 units. And the same on Tuesday.

So I queried it with Easypay, and they say it's the municipal rate, not them.

Which leaves me with 2 problems:
1. I have hardly any electricity and no guarantee that if I buy more I'll get what I pay for. I could pay R 1000 and only end up with a week's worth of electricity! In the meantime, I'm gonna be out of power in a day or 2.
2. I've just paid R400 for R100 worth of electricity. What the F!!!

Who should I speak to about this?

Prepaid Electricity is charged at a sliding scale that reset at the beginning of the month, each band is charged at a higher rate per unit that's excluding any levies and surcharges they may add on.
First thing Find out what your rate is?
What municipality are you under ?
You sound like you are on a higher band currently, i would not buy more then you need at this time. buy as little as possible until the new month

600 I think. (100 and 500) Which is probably a little above my normal usage, but not much.

600 unit or 600 Rand ?

 

[K3NS31]

Prepaid Electricity is charged at a sliding scale that reset at the beginning of the month, each band is charged at a higher rate per unit that's excluding any levies and surcharges they may add on.
First thing Find out what your rate is?
What municipality are you under ?
You sound like you are on a higher band currently, i would not buy more then you need at this time. buy as little as possible until the new month




600 unit or 600 Rand ?

R 600.

I get the whole per month sliding scale thing, but 4x the price can't be right! I'm probably around R 1000 / month now in winter, so it's not like I suddenly bought much more than usual this month.
I'll have to call the municipality tomorrow I guess.

 

[isie]

R 600.

I get the whole per month sliding scale thing, but 4x the price can't be right! I'm probably around R 1000 / month now in winter, so it's not like I suddenly bought much more than usual this month.
I'll have to call the municipality tomorrow I guess.

what municipality?

 

[richjdavies]

At those kind of rates you must be being charged a daily fee or something like that.

Need to know municipality to help

 

[isie]

I get topic says cape town, I can assume COCT but you could be on eskom direct as well.

 

[swakop_toe]

I'm on ESKOM direct, Burgundy Estate, last purchase the 3rd of August.
Eskom RCPT:CIGIC5A02259806 AmtElec: 750.00 U: 515.20kWh T(s) 3834-7409-3371-4348-4934.

R750.00 ÷ 515.20kWh = R1.45/kWh

You are saying you paying close to R4.00/kWh
That must be a mistake. Nowhere can it cost that much.

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

Something somewhere is wrong because that works out way higher than the highest tariff.

 

[WAslayer]

You owe rates and taxes to the CoCT..? They will tend to take half of what you pay for electricity to cover outstanding debt and the other half will get you electricity..

 

[XenitXTD]

First of all I think this rate we pay is ridiculous...

For 200 I get about 85units used to be 95... my usage has actually reduced but this is the effect of eskom... once upon a time 100 bucks could get you 97 units.

I have noticed that depending on where you are you pay differently not municipal linked as COCT covers a wide area and all areas dont share the same rate.

Visited people in plattekloof which also fall under COCT and they get between 20 and 30 units for 200.

Know colleagues from areas such as elsies river etc and they get 450 - 500 units for 500 rand. Its really unfair that just because you make a decision to live in a better area you have to pay a premium. I have reduced my electricity usage but I pay 800 a month for under 400 units and the more I reduce the more eskom price goes up it just stays the same you pay more for less.

I even switched to gas stove recently and it helped but my gains are being eroded by eskom increases... In some cases municipalities use this to balance their books. Because apparenly we are all just cash cows for their inefficiencies.

 

[K3NS31]

At those kind of rates you must be being charged a daily fee or something like that.

Need to know municipality to help

I get topic says cape town, I can assume COCT but you could be on eskom direct as well.

I'm not sure tbh. I think it's COCT. If I check a recent Checkers invoice, it says "Elec Mun Prepaid"
And both my Checkers receipt and my Easypay Mobile receipt say: "Cape Town Homeuser"
Then there's another sequence of characters - "SGC....."
And the Checkers receipt also lists a "municipal charge" line item (which was zero at the time).

Thanks for all the help so far.

 

[K3NS31]

I'm on ESKOM direct, Burgundy Estate, last purchase the 3rd of August.
Eskom RCPT:CIGIC5A02259806 AmtElec: 750.00 U: 515.20kWh T(s) 3834-7409-3371-4348-4934.

R750.00 ÷ 515.20kWh = R1.45/kWh

You are saying you paying close to R4.00/kWh
That must be a mistake. Nowhere can it cost that much.

Exactly my thoughts. The weird thing is, the Easypay invoice says I'm paying R1,75.
It shows a breakdown of:
Vended amount = R50.
Null (0%) = R142
and the rest is VAT.

 

[Praemon]

My electricity pricing has also gone through the roof, although not as bad as yours. For R500 I get 218.3 kWh, which works out to R2.29/kWh. And that's the normal rate at the beginning of the month. I use to use around R700 a month, now I'm nearing R1,400 a month (double!)

 

[K3NS31]

You owe rates and taxes to the CoCT..? They will tend to take half of what you pay for electricity to cover outstanding debt and the other half will get you electricity..

Just called them - it was this. The rates bills go to my wife's email so I wasn't aware.
Apparently, when the amount owed on rates reaches an arbitrary number, they add a portion of it to your prepaid bill.
They don't inform you and it doesn't show on the rates statement.
According to the woman at the call centre, there's no way to check that an amount has been added, or what the amount is. Even she had to add the statement amount to the "prepaid" amount to give me my total owed.
What a useless, stupid, annoying system.

Anyway, thanks for the help all, and hopefully this info will help someone else in future.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

R400 at the start of month gets me 233 units, on eskom in kraaifontein. This includes the citiq prepaid submeter price.

Prices changes after 600 units.

 

[akescpt]

Hope someone can give me some info / help on this:

I bought R 200 worth of prepaid electricity via Easypay (mobile app) on Tuesday. Didn't take note of how many units I received.
Today, I run out of power - check the meter - it's showing zero!?
So I quickly buy another 200 bucks worth.
Then I realised I'd only gotten about 30 units. And the same on Tuesday.

So I queried it with Easypay, and they say it's the municipal rate, not them.

Which leaves me with 2 problems:
1. I have hardly any electricity and no guarantee that if I buy more I'll get what I pay for. I could pay R 1000 and only end up with a week's worth of electricity! In the meantime, I'm gonna be out of power in a day or 2.
2. I've just paid R400 for R100 worth of electricity. What the F!!!

Who should I speak to about this?

what does the receipt say? take a pic.

 

[akescpt]

R400 at the start of month gets me 233 units, on eskom in kraaifontein. This includes the citiq prepaid submeter price.

Prices changes after 600 units.

that is bloody nice. straight from eskom obviously.

 

[K3NS31]

what does the receipt say? take a pic.

thanks, I got it sorted - see post 16