Man forced to move out of Scots home after pre-payment meter error doubles energy bills
11.02.2023 - 08:05
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
An SNP MP has called for action after a Glasgow resident was forced to move out his home due to a pre-payment meter error which more than doubled his energy costs. Glasgow Central MP Alison Thewliss asked the UK Government to help her constituent Justin Valmassoi who had been "ignored and let down" by his energy provider Utilita.
Valmassoi, 43, is moving out of his flat on Victoria Road in Glasgow as he cannot afford his increased energy costs. The Detroit-born chef has lived in the flat for four years and said his electricity bills were regularly between £100 and £150 a month. In October they rose to over £300 a month without him changing his habits.
Valmassoi previously had to shut down Nanika, his popular South-east Asian restaurant on Victoria Road, after its bills quadrupled from £250 to £1,000 a month.
He said: "I've lived here for four years. I sent them all the information I could, 48 months of electricity usage history. In the summer its about £100 to £115 a month and in the winter I've never paid more than £150.
"I do the same thing every single day. I'm such a creature of habit. So [my consumption] was the same for four years and then ever since October it's been £300 or more. [Utilita] said my consumption only went up by seven pence per kilowatt hour. So there's absolutely no way that it can double."
Valmassoi said he had first complained two months ago but the problem has not been sorted. As he is on a prepayment meter, he had to continue paying the higher tariff to stop his electricity from shutting off.
Valmassoi said that Utilita offered to send out an engineer to investigate the problem in the past week but he was already in the process of moving out.
He said: "They finally said that they were going to schedule
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