Beware Smart Meters

[Canary42]

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/smart-meter-cut-off-prepayment-meter-switch-by-stealth-warn-campaigners-142534893.html

[goodgoalie]

Absolutely. I've always resisted having one fitted for exactly this sort thing - they don't even have to send anyone out to adjust it to make it into a pre-payment one. Beware indeed!

[Zacs-Master]

The headline is completely misleading. They’re not being cut off, they’re being switched to pre-payment plans. This isn’t good either but it’s not the same thing.

[ladybirder]

That is really worrying but I can't see where it says which companies are doing it. I am desperate for Smart Meters to be fitted in my home but not if they switch me to repayment. I'm with British Gas, I wonder if they are doing it.

[Old_Geezer]

It matters little what they are doing, the fact is by getting one installed, among other issues, this giving them remote control of your supply is a major error on the part of the customer. And they have all been warned umpteen times.

[Hopkirk]

Zacs, even the BBC called it disconnection by another name. If you can't pay to top up, you are cut off.

[Hopkirk]

LB, I'm with British Gas. My smart meter has never worked properly. They aren't interested.
They are incentivised to get them fitted, and no more.

[ladybirder]

As I have a disability and a long term health condition there will be merry hell to play if they stick me on a pre-payment meter. I have already overpaid them by £270 this year and have never owed them money so that shouldn't be a problem.

I just can't continue reading my gas meter as it is in my back garden, in a hole below ground level, covered in muck and spiders' webs. I can't get at it and have to get others to do it for me by dangling a mobile phone into the hole and attempting to keep it still in front of the meter's figures. It takes 2 - 3 sometimes more attempts before we can actually make out the reading. Complete PITA.
BG promised they would send someone round to read it for me but that was over a year ago and it hasn't happened.

That's the main reason I want Smart meters.

[Hymie]

If I don’t pay my electricity bill, eventually my supplier will disconnect me – but to do that, they first have to enter my house. With a smart meter they can do that at the push of a button.

To all you mugs who believed the propaganda of the advantages of having a smart meter – besides putting you on pre-payment, those advantages include your energy supplier being able to disconnect you at will, and they can (and soon will) charge you dynamic pricing for energy you usage – charging you more for peak time energy.

And should your smart meter go wrong and disconnect you – if you think your supplier is going to rush round and fix it, your thinking is wrong.

Why anyone would have a smart meter fitted is a mystery to me.

[ladybirder]

Well I've explained why I prefer one.

[ladybirder]

Sorry, should have put "would" prefer one.

[barry1010]

That report doesn't say that anyone has been cut off. It is not in the companies interests to cut anyone off and whatever sort of meter you have every company has to abide by a strict set of rules before doing so.
The Ofgem report of people having no power for days or weeks isn't clear. Are they without power because their smart meter has been cut off or because they can't afford to top up their pre-payment meter? If it's the latter, that has always been happening,

From the link: "But Citizens Advice has predicted that 450,000 people could be forced onto a prepayment plan this winter - with 180,000 of them expected to be remote switches via a smart meter". So more people without smart meters are going to be forced on to pre-payment meters.

The heading of this thread should be: "Beware not paying your fuel bills"

[davebro]

If you pay your bills there should be no problems. As for messing you about I don't see that they would be allowed to do stuff to folks with smart meters that they can't also do with others.

[barry1010]

It is not a problem for energy companies to get a warrant to turn your meters off - the magistrates never refuse.
It is a problem and distressing to arrive home and find your home has been forcibly entered.
It is never a surprise to the householder that the energy has been switched off, whether remotely or at the physical meter. It is a long drawn-out process with countless red letters and warnings.

One very real advantage of smart meters. If there are generalised power cuts to save fuel as is threatened for this winter, those who are on the vulnerable register because their life depends on their electrically powered breathing aids will never be disconnected even if their neighbours are.

[ichkeria]

I’ve said this before: if we’d had smart meters all along and it was decided to phase in a system where people came to your house to inspect your meter, and you had to send in readings yourself, there’d be uproar

[youngmafbog]

I'm with Hymie.

Anyone who doesnt think these things wont be abused in the future should give their head a wobble.

[Spicerack]

Whenever anybody keeps emphasising how FREE, that's right, totally FREE something is, beware. Well that's my motto, others are at liberty
to think otherwise.

[youngmafbog]

Too ruddy right Spice, there is no such thing a s free lunch. Unless you arrive in a dinghy of course.

[goodgoalie]

These infernal devices are NOT free. The total cost of the nationwide rollout of smart meters is over £11 billion - paid for by higher bills for you and me.

[davebro]

yes - even if you don't have you've helped pay for mine!

[Old_Geezer]

It should be the supplier's responsibility to read their meter. Granted if you weren't in when they called and, it's inside the house, it's reasonable to ask you to let them know the reading; but the way things have gone the companies seem allowed to pass on responsibilities that are clearly theirs and dump them onto the customer. It's shameful.