CAMPAIGNERS are demanding a “total ban” on forced moves to prepayment meters in response to reports British Gas has used debt collectors to “break into” vulnerable customers’ homes. 

Ofgem has launched an investigation into the energy giant, which has now suspended the practice until “at least the end of winter.” 

It came after the Times reported that debt agents working on behalf of British Gas used locksmiths to force their way into people’s homes to force-fit the meters, including customers with known vulnerabilities. 

An undercover reporter for the paper went with agents for Arvato Financial Solutions, a company used by British Gas to pursue debts, to the home of a single father with three children. 

Other alleged cases included a mother whose daughter is disabled and a woman described as having mobility problems, according to the Times. 

Business Secretary Grant Shapps said he was “horrified” by the findings. 

End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said: “It is time that the government stood up to energy firms and banned the forced installation of pre-payment meters and the forced switching of smart meters to pre-payment mode.

“We also now need a formal inquiry into the prepayment meters scandal and the role of the courts in enabling this practice.”

Citizens Advice head Dame Clare Moriarty told the BBC that the charity is seeing cases of disabled and elderly people left “sitting in the dark and the cold” after running out of credit following a force-fit of a prepayment energy metre into their homes.  

“That’s why we’re saying there needs to be a total ban on forced moves to prepayment meters until there are protections in place which mean that people can’t be fully cut off from electricity and gas,” she said.

British Gas owner Centrica has described the allegations as unacceptable.