Prepayment meter households have been urged to take action before missing out on help with their bills worth £400.
By June 30, eligible households will no longer be able to claim their vouchers from the Energy Bills Support Scheme, which paid £400 in six instalments. While direct debit customers received this discount automatically, prepayment meter customers were paid in vouchers.
The Claim Your Energy Voucher day is a final push to encourage households to claim the support after it was revealed £130 million is still available and remains unclaimed. In order to get the support, customers need to visit a post office or PayPoint with their vouchers and ID before the deadline.
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Energy minister Amanda Solloway said: “We’ve made huge strides in getting nearly £650 million from our Energy Bills Support Scheme out to prepayment meter customers, often in the homes that need it most. Today we are redoubling our efforts to reach anyone who still hasn’t claimed this help, and it’s fantastic to see so many join our final push to spread the word.
“Tell friends and family or anyone on a traditional prepayment meter to use their vouchers for up to £400 off bills before June 30 – there is still £130 million out there to claim.”
Latest figures show an all-time high of vouchers have been claimed so far with 83 per cent of prepayment users getting nearly £650 million under the scheme. The figures, published earlier this month, show that for the sixth month in a row London had the lowest redemption rate, with more than 650,000 vouchers still unused at the end of March.
Adam Scorer, chief executive at National Energy Action, said: “We urge anyone who hasn’t yet claimed their vouchers to do so before the June 30 deadline and if you have friends and family that may not have used their vouchers, spread the word. It may be the support that keeps their lights on, their oven cooking, their hot showers running, through the summer.
"It’s vital money at a time when it’s never been needed more.”
Matthew Cole, head of Fuel Bank Foundation, the national charity that provides emergency fuel vouchers to prepayment meter customers, said: “We’re really concerned that hundreds of thousands of people with traditional prepayment meters are going to miss out on this vital financial support. As part of our own campaigning on this issue, we found that other reasons why vouchers haven’t been redeemed included not receiving them, due to incorrect details or the person having moved house and their records haven’t been updated, or they lost or deleted the voucher.
“However, whatever the reason, we want to reassure people that if they haven’t claimed their voucher, there is still time to do so.”
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