PayPoint goes down nationwide leaving Brits without electricity and gas

PAYPOINT services have been restored after going down for much of Saturday leaving many Brits without gas and electricity.

People with pre-payment meters use PayPoint to pay for their energy, topping up their account online or in shops.

PayPoint services in shops went down and customers were also left unable to top up online, affecting tens of thousands of people.

PayPoint told customers on Twitter that it was experiencing technical difficulties and it didn't know when the issue would be fixed but has since said the issue is resolved.

One customer tweeted: "I'm down to my last £1 on my electric. Hope it's sorted soon!"

Another said: "I got 38p left on my electric. @PayPoint is down. Most of my electric is off apart from the TV."

The company apologised for the inconvenience but many people have been left frustrated they can't pay for their energy.

A PayPoint spokesperson said: “We have been working hard throughout the day to resolve an issue that meant certain transactions could not be processed via our network.

"The majority of prepayment gas and electricity customers were not impacted by this.

"We’re pleased to report that services are now back to normal and again apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.”

Energy company SSE which offers prepayment meter top ups through PayPoint earlier apologised to customers affected.

Npower and Octopus Energy are also among the energy companies which use PayPoint for pre-payment meters.

There are roughly 5.9million Brits who have pre-payment energy meters, according to USwitch.

Instead of being billed regularly, or paying monthly by direct debit, a meter requires customers to buy credit and add it to their account before they can use it.

Paypoint's payments systems feeds more than 300 companies - from utility companies, retailers and transport firms to mobile phone providers, local and national government.

It is used on 50,000 stores across UK and Romania, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, The Co-operative Group, Booker, McColl’s, Nisa, Costcutter and thousands of independent retailers.