Genesis pre-pay power foul-up was in UK

Wanganui Genesis customers could not credit their machines for power at the weekend because the back-end computer vending system for InCharge is based in the United Kingdom.
Richard Gordon from Genesis Energy said the system was shut down for planned maintenance on Sunday from 11am to 3pm.
However, the maintenance took longer than expected and the system did not come back on until 6pm local time, he said.
"We had not notified our InCharge customers of this outage.
In the future we plan to notify InCharge customers of planned maintenance outages of the vending system."
Wanganui customers called the Chronicle on Sunday to say they had tried since Friday to credit their meters.
They were anxious that their power would be disconnected in line with company policy at 7am yesterday morning, but changed to 8am.
Some of the callers to the Chronicle did not own vehicles and one used her neighbour's telephone.
The machines are at Gonville, Video-Ezy and in Wanganui East.
Mr Gordon said the InCharge system was designed so that if customers could not top up their meters for any reason at the weekend, the meter would continue to supply electricity until 8am on Monday morning.
"Our call centre staff and vending agencies should be aware of this policy and we apologise if customers were led to believe otherwise."
He said Genesis was aware that the Monday 8am deadline for topping up meters could be inconvenient and they were working on signing up vending agencies which were open for longer hours.
However, customers could also top up InCharge by internet and phone if they have a same day direct debit or credit card details organised with Genesis.
"If customers don't have a direct debit account organised, we can still give them "emergency vends" over the phone as we did this morning for customers who were on the brink of losing power."
The outage on Friday and Saturday was unrelated to the Sunday maintenance shutdown. A link to the UK was down which meant no vending could be done through the Contact Centre or merchants.
Mr Gordon said the failed vends that occurred on Saturday succeeded on the next try.
Whanganui list MP Jill Pettis said she would like to hear from Genesis customers who continued to experience difficulties with the machines.
Mrs Pettis said three machines for Wanganui city was unsatisfactory and the company's level of customer service was not good enough.
Her call to the company ? and wait for half an hour before her call was answered ? yesterday morning was to seek assurances that there would be no financial penalties incurred by the customers.