Electric Ireland: Customers without electricity due to top-up issues

Electric Ireland has apologised to customers in Northern Ireland over a fault with keypad top-ups.

It said an error had occurred which had capped some meters at a £10 credit limit.

Many customers have said they have been without electricity for more than 24 hours as a result of the issues.

The fault has affected top-ups purchased between midnight on 30 August until 13:23 BST on 31 August, the company said.

The company is Northern Ireland's third largest electricity supplier, with around 100,000 customers.

"We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and will provide updates when they are available," Electric Ireland said.

"We will re-issue cancelled top-ups as soon as possible. Our initial priority is to fix all meters affected."

The supplier has issued some guidance for keypad customers affected by the fault.

Electric Ireland customer Donna Gallagher from Belleek in County Fermanagh has been without electricity since 12:00 BST on Friday.

"It's an absolute disgrace," Ms Gallagher told BBC News NI.

"[Electric Ireland] keep telling me that a new code will be regenerated since yesterday. I have three kids and nowhere to go."

She said the family aren't coping well without electricity.

"You know yourself [with] kids and phones and tablets, the youngest is eight and doesn't understand," she said.

Ms Gallagher said she has had to dispose of food from three freezers and is now "out so much money on getting takeaways to feed the kids".

"It's not looking like it's going to be on till later in the week," she added.

Electric Ireland had advised keypad customers with a meter balance of less than £5 to purchase a top-up of only that value.

"Please purchase a top up of ONLY £5, this will provide you with a new 40-digit code," the company said on its website. "This will resolve the problem with your meter. You will be able to top up as normal afterwards."

However, for some customers, this method did not work.

"I had a phone call from Electric Ireland earlier and [they] told me to top up £5, so I did and it was rejected again," Stephanie Watkins told BBC News NI.

"I received another phone call there from them and she said because I topped up another £5 I can't get another code until tomorrow as it needs 24 hours to expire.

"Complete mess if you ask me."

Ms Watkins has been without electricity since 15:00 BST on Friday and has children, and exotic animals, that rely on electricity.

"I slept in the living room with my children last night with our phone torches and candles," she added.

She has also thrown out multiple bags of food, having completed a food shop on Thursday, and is now having to eat takeaways.

Annie Carey, who lives in Mallusk in County Antrim, told BBC News NI she had been without electricity since 19:00 BST on Thursday.

"They've £120 of our money, but the code that they gave us can't be used in the meter and they can't seem to fix the issue where the codes are all being rejected," Ms Carey said.

"So people are running out of money on their meters, they go to top up their meter and they're taking their money, but the code you get in return, the meters aren't able to accept it."

She added: "Everything in our house runs on electric, so we've lost everything in our fridge, we've lost everything in our freezer.

"Me and my husband both work from home, we weren't able to work on Friday.

"My business is based online, so I had to go over to the neighbour to borrow electric from them to be able to run my business."

Ms Carey said she had been on the phone for four hours with the company, but they could not tell her when the issue was likely to be resolved.

"There's nothing on their social media to say 'hey we know this is affecting customers, this is what we're doing to resolve it'," she said.

"People are commenting what they're hearing when they phone up and everyone is hearing a different story."

She added: "We've two young children and we cant even put them in the bath at night.

"It's like all the normal little things and you can't do them."