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Thread: I would love to know what you pay for prepaid electricity/

  1. #11
    Gold Member Houses4Rent's Avatar
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    Hm, I do not think so. As far as I know a landlord wil unlikley install thir own meter. They will ask a company to do that. They supply the meter and manage the selling of units too. The landlord does not set the price per unit. As far as I know nobody is allowed to charge more than the council rate. So how can a landlord suck poeple dry? Besides if tenants pay much more for power than elsewhere why should they stay? This might result in vacancy which sucks the landlord dry.

    Is it not easier to obtain the info you are looking for the council's websites?
    Houses4Rent
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  2. #12
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    Marc. The same people that own The Old Timber Yard also own CitiQ (The prepaid metering system)

    I am looking at it with the following in mind:
    1. I pay R 1.64 at home vs R2.74 at the business Park.
    2. The landlord has 100% control over the metering system and the the rate per tenant (I spent many years in corporate IT so I know that it is easy to mangage - a lot simpler than managing the IT infrastructure for credit card system)
    3. You say that nobody is allowed to charge more than the council rate, they don't, technically, they simply load on admin fees.
    4. Tenants don't know that they are paying so much more because payments are made in very small amounts (i.e. the proverbial frog in a boiling pot)
    5. Tenants don't just can a 3 year lease because they are unknowingly paying R1 more per unit of electricity.

    I am of the opinion that 3rd party prepaid electricity is one of the best scams out there at the moment. I think that people are slowly being bled dry and that an investigation should be done into the the legal framework of the industry. We need to know how much money the metering company makes and how much profit the landlord stands to make from using the system. I do not for one minute believe that landlords will bat an eye if they had the ability to make some money in this way.

  3. #13
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    I quote off the website

    https://www.citiqprepaid.co.za/faq/

    What does prepaid electricity cost me?

    The electricity price charged covers the cost of electricity that the municipality charges plus the costs involved in providing prepaid electricity tokens.
    Included in the price is a fee charged by Citiq which covers the costs of all the services provided by Citiq including: the systems to generate the secure tokens, management of collections and distribution of funds back to landlords or managing agents, query call centre support and assisting landlords and managing agents in recovering the electricity consumption. In addition, the costs associated with the specific payment method used is included in the all-in cost.
    Those costs are for the tenants account and the company DOES NOT say how much those costs are.

    In this case the landlord and the prepaid metering company is the same entity therefore the landlord and the metering company get to charge whatever they want.

  4. #14
    Gold Member Houses4Rent's Avatar
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    Adrian, you seem to mainly talk about business, not residential? Residential leases are usually annualy, maybe 2 years max as the CPA does not easilily allow longer leases than 2y. I cannot comment on business rentals/pre-paid electricity as I have no experience.
    The admin fees are paid by the owner as far as I know, not the tenant. I never really dug into the details as I do not have pre-paid in my home. Its too complex trying to understand it just for fun. Sometimes our tenants do complain though that after moving in they are paying more that they used to pay. Of course this is most likely due to change in occupancy, different geysers, consumer behaviour etc and not necessarily the unit price per KWh. If that goes the other way i.e. paying less than before, we will never hear about such "complaints".
    Houses4Rent
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Houses4Rent View Post
    The admin fees are paid by the owner as far as I know, not the tenant.
    Even if it is, where does that money come from?

    Reality is where I've seen private prepaid meters installed, the owner isn't even asking about mark-up rates for recharges. They're just interested in the installed cost of putting in a prepaid meter - quite simply because they aren't paying for top-ups.

    Adrian, looking at my rates in Durban it seems light industry pays more than residential.
    Last edited by Dave A; 19-Sep-16 at 07:28 AM. Reason: fixed typo

  6. #16
    Gold Member Houses4Rent's Avatar
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    The electricity providers sell electricity in bulk to those pre-paid meter people at lwer prices than the end consumer pays which is not more other people pay. They then live from the variance between those two prices. That was an explanation I heard many years ago.
    Houses4Rent
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  7. #17
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    I think that this industry needs to be investigated and I also think that all the tenants have to be informed up front as to what they will be paying for electricity.

    I want to know whether the industry is regulated and what those regulations are. Those prepaid meters are way to much like rigged one arm bandits for my liking.

  8. #18
    Gold Member Houses4Rent's Avatar
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    As I said, I think the tenants do not pay more per unit than post paid clients do as its not alloed to charge more. But I am not 100% sure. Let us know of the outcome of your investigation please.
    Houses4Rent
    "We treat your investment as we treat our own"
    marc@houses4rent.co.za www.houses4rent.co.za
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    Global Residential Property Investor / Specialized Letting Agent & Property Manager

  9. #19
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    I'm in Maitland area
    I Pay R50 for 16.4 kwh that would last just over half of the day,
    someone told me I'm on high consumption
    I don't understand this, we used to get 32 kwh for R50 and even free units every month
    We even stopped using the stove, oven, microwave, toaster and have the geiser on for only 2 hours a day
    using gas for two weeks now, but sill it doesn't come down
    This is cracy. I spent about R700 a week on my prepaid

  10. #20
    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    The other culprit here is your fridge and/or freezer. They consume between 7Kw and 10Kw a day, depending on the weather.

    We are buying the wrong fridges. We must get fridges designed for ambients of 40 degrees, or alternatively pack polystyrene around the sides, to reduce the losses to the surrounding areas.
    Also ensure that the grill on the back of the fridge is clean, and that there is sufficient distance between the coil and the wall to allow for the convection cooling of the coil. This helps with the efficiency of the heat transfer to the surrounding area.
    Victor - Knowledge is a blessing or a curse, your current circumstances make you decide!
    Solar pumping, Solar Geyser & Solar Security lighting solutions - www.microsolve.co.za

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