Money saving expert Martin Lewis is doing as much as anyone in the UK to help consumers as the cost of living surges to unprecedented levels. The finance expert offers straightforward advice and tips on how to reduce bills as times get tougher for hardworking people.
Martin has since offered an apology to his followers over advice about gas and electricity meters. A few weeks ago, on ITV's Martin Lewis Money Show, he told viewers on pre-payment gas and electricity meters that they should add as much cheap credit as possible ahead of price changes being introduced on April 1.
Now that a number of large gas and electricity firms have clarified and changed their policies, Martin has withdrawn this advice, reports Yorkshire Live. Martin and his team of researchers have unearthed new information.
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Martin Lewis said: "WARNING. The ‘top up energy prepay meters before April tip’ WON'T likely now work for Eon or any gas customers and possibly more. New info has come to light contradicting what we were told earlier by firms and the regulator."
He went on to clarify on his site: "This 'max top-up tip' will NOT work with Scottish Power and E.on .
Both companies say it won't work. You will pay the new rates from 1 April even if you don't top up until later. Scottish Power has said it will simply claw back the money via the meter at that point, E.on hasn't specified how it'd get the money back.
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"The regulator has told us there is likely to be nothing in the licence conditions that prevents firms from doing this. So we must work on the assumption that it is correct.
"The 'max top-up tip' is likely to work for other major suppliers' ELECTRICITY meters . We had double confirmed with all other suppliers that the tip would work."
British Gas though has tweeted that the tip will work for its non-smart prepay customers. It is unlikely to work for gas with any supplier. This is new technical information told to by the regulator, on the back of our Scottish Power complaint. Martin then added an apology about the 'duff' information being given out.
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He said: "I'm really sorry about this. My team and I have been rigorously researching this. And we checked the answers from suppliers and the regulator before giving the information out. We checked again before I gave it out in my show, asking suppliers to confirm it was correct, and asking the regulator to give us confirmation in writing."
