Mdl Marina metered lead - scam?

[Refueler]

Quick question .... because of the word Scam used in the thread ...

I seem to remember when I lived in UK - no 3rd party was allowed to charge higher than official rate for electricity ? They could only add a fair charge for equipment / admin ?

Is that still the case ?

 

[PaulRainbow]

Quick question .... because of the word Scam used in the thread ...

I seem to remember when I lived in UK - no 3rd party was allowed to charge higher than official rate for electricity ? They could only add a fair charge for equipment / admin ?

Is that still the case ?

Still the case.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Whatever the pros & cons of the MDL system, every other company seems to provide some form of metering in the pillar - only MDL make you buy / rent your own. It's not like MDL are cheap.

As others have said, we just don't plug in & use onboard solar/wind.

I don't think that's accurate, certainly not on many of the marinas i work in. My marina charges £21 per quarter for the admin fee (double the MDL "scam")

There are, as you say, some marinas who meter at the pontoon, or have card slot meters. Those are great when you return from your trip to find the visitors have used all of you prepaid electricity, or racked a few quid up on the meter, that you have to pay for.

 

[Bilgediver]

Shotley marina have a deposit meter lead, refundable whenever you take it back, small quarterly admin fee with bill for units used. You don't have to have one, but unless you source a 4 pin plug you can't illicitly plug in your own into the bollard.

That is how it works for us in Edinburgh . Just pay for the units used and we provide the meter reading monthly. Wish I payed the same price per unit at home.

 

[Refueler]

There are, as you say, some marinas who meter at the pontoon, or have card slot meters. Those are great when you return from your trip to find the visitors have used all of you prepaid electricity, or racked a few quid up on the meter, that you have to pay for.

That was the risk ... with the communal slot system - you'd find no free socket - or meter was empty - or some tyke would unplug you to plug themselves in !
But averaged over the year - it seemed to work.

 

[RobF]

Does mdl refund once I leave?

You've bought a metered lead from them, which is now yours to keep. This means that you won't get a refund from them once you leave. You are of course welcome to use it at your next marina or sell it (as it's your property).

 

[Sandy]

Quick question .... because of the word Scam used in the thread ...

I seem to remember when I lived in UK - no 3rd party was allowed to charge higher than official rate for electricity ? They could only add a fair charge for equipment / admin ?

Is that still the case ?

Correct, but to make money from supplying electricity we are charged an admin fee. OK meters need to be read and the system checked yearly, but do the sums. 200 * 10 * 12 = £24,000. Assuming that you have a 200 berth marina that has 100% usage for 12 months a year. Personally, I'd prefer if they just added it to the annual fees.

 

[Rappey]

Those are great when you return from your trip to find the visitors have used all of you prepaid electricity,

The computerised system in one portsmouth marina has a central control unit on the pontoon. You use a pin code to turn your socket on. The moment the plug is removed the socket turns off so no one else can use it.
The office can see every meter remotely and log all readings. Sockets can also be turned on from the office but will only turn on if something is plugged in.
Every pair of sockets on the old system had their own built in meter which I think was read once a week. The only metered leads I saw were used by customers that I can only assume did not trust the marina to read correctly.
A very common dispute was that a boat got billed far more power than was used but it was more the case that boat owners had no idea just how much power their vessel was consuming.

 

[Rappey]

I can't really think of a more difficult place to provide electricity as it's often very wet and so many moving/flexing parts.
Sockets get melted due to badly wired plugs, or worse as boats motor away ,forgetting to unplug. The bollards can get damaged by the boats hitting them.
The cost of replacing worn through cables is very high.

 

[Mark26]

Does mdl refund once I leave?

Read your contract

 

[Lucy52]

The card meters here are read centrally, you load up the card, put the units on the meter and if you wish when you go out you can put unused units back onto the card so that there are none left on the meter. The admin cost is included in the berthing charge.

 

[Tranona]

In our club there is an annual charge of £25 designed to recover the cost of installing shorepower 4 years ago when the pontoons and walkways were replaced. Card for electricity and you can download back to card if you want. However few bother as visitor usage (and pilfering power) is rare.

 

[bedouin]

The computerised system in one portsmouth marina has a central control unit on the pontoon. You use a pin code to turn your socket on. The moment the plug is removed the socket turns off so no one else can use it.
The office can see every meter remotely and log all readings. Sockets can also be turned on from the office but will only turn on if something is plugged in.
Every pair of sockets on the old system had their own built in meter which I think was read once a week. The only metered leads I saw were used by customers that I can only assume did not trust the marina to read correctly.
A very common dispute was that a boat got billed far more power than was used but it was more the case that boat owners had no idea just how much power their vessel was consuming.

We had something similar in Chichester. You plugged in and then entered your code and that enabled the socket and started billing you. As soon as it was unplugged the power was removed so no chance of anyone else using electricity at your expense. It would even send you a warning when your boat was disconnected.

And they didn't charge you an "admin" fee for the privilege.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

We had something similar in Chichester. You plugged in and then entered your code and that enabled the socket and started billing you. As soon as it was unplugged the power was removed so no chance of anyone else using electricity at your expense. It would even send you a warning when your boat was disconnected.

And they didn't charge you an "admin" fee for the privilege.

That’s right we were there for a year or two. Premier no admin fee. Manage electricity in the app, all good.

 

[Tranona]

[QUOTE="bedouin, post: 7720511, member: 56"

And they didn't charge you an "admin" fee for the privilege.
[/QUOTE]

They would have added it into the berthing fees when the system was introduced. No such thing as a free lunch. So you would be paying whether you used the power or not.

 

[Stemar]

They would have added it into the berthing fees when the system was introduced. No such thing as a free lunch. So you would be paying whether you used the power or not.

A bit like "free postage", but plenty of people would rather pay £20 with free postage than £16 +£3 P&P

 

[Tranona]

I can see the sense in including admin charges in the berthing fees as it means everybody pays and you don't get people complaining about being scammed!

We discussed this in the club and decided that it was unfair to charge everybody when only a minority actually use the shorepower.

 

[Refueler]

The Card system ... remember cards at Newport ... in fact I may still have a couple tucked in the curtain runner on board from all those years ago.

Most places I go in Baltic now - if not free berthing - then you pay all in one price includes water and electric. As Marina where I am - you have all in one visitors price per night ... and all in one berth holders based per calendar month .... annual fee bit silly here really considering the ice !

 

[davidpbo]

Quick question .... because of the word Scam used in the thread ...

I seem to remember when I lived in UK - no 3rd party was allowed to charge higher than official rate for electricity ? They could only add a fair charge for equipment / admin ?

Is that still the case ?

Isn't that only for residential property?

 

[Tranona]

Isn't that only for residential property?

No that applies to marinas as well. The "scam" that started this was a marina that requires users to have a metered lead for which the user has to pay £125 refundable deposit, or provide their own metered lead. Given the price of such a lead is over £125 no "scam" exists, but the OP (and some others) seem to have difficulty understanding this.

It is also clear from this thread that marinas have different systems, but all have the common feature of charging electricity at cost, for which they need some method of measuring usage, and an admin charge for providing the service.