Emergency credit is a built‑in safety net on prepayment meters, its not a budgeting tool.
When your balance gets low and you can’t top up straight away, you can activate an additional credit of £5 to keep your supply on temporarily.
Key points: It’s available when your meter shows EC Available on the screen. You activate it on the meter by pressing the B button twice. Anything you use while on emergency credit is repaid automatically from your next top‑up. When emergency credit is used your meter will display EC Taken and the taken credit will be shown as a ‘Debt to Clear’.
Friendly credit is designed to stop people being disconnected at times when it’s hard or impossible to top up, like evenings or bank holidays.
How it works: If your credit runs out between 7pm and 7am, the meter won’t cut you off as long as you had at least 1p at 7pm. It keeps your supply on until 7am the next day, or until the end of a weekend/bank holiday period. It will kick in automatically and the credit taken will accumulate through the hours required - being repaid automatically from your next top-up.
When your balance gets low and you can’t top up straight away, you can activate an additional credit of £5 to keep your supply on temporarily.
Key points: It’s available when your meter shows EC Available on the screen. You activate it on the meter by pressing the B button twice. Anything you use while on emergency credit is repaid automatically from your next top‑up. When emergency credit is used your meter will display EC Taken and the taken credit will be shown as a ‘Debt to Clear’.
Friendly credit is designed to stop people being disconnected at times when it’s hard or impossible to top up, like evenings or bank holidays.
How it works: If your credit runs out between 7pm and 7am, the meter won’t cut you off as long as you had at least 1p at 7pm. It keeps your supply on until 7am the next day, or until the end of a weekend/bank holiday period. It will kick in automatically and the credit taken will accumulate through the hours required - being repaid automatically from your next top-up.