Smart meters in the tory manifesto!!

FOREVER21 wrote: »

The fitting of smart meters has never been mandatory. For those who sing the praises of smart meter convince me why I should have one.

I give regular meter readings online each month and have never had an estimated bill for years, this must take 2 minutes max

I regularly change suppliers so my smart meter would quickly become dumb.

I am well aware that if I tun on my electric fire or turn on my immersion heater I will use more electric and I don't need a gadget to tell me this.

I never have had nor do I have any plans to illegally replace my gas meter.

My moto if it ain't broken don't fix it has stood me in good stead over the years.

I hope you did` nt think I was implying that anyone on here is a gas fiddler ! but is your neighbour ?..Gas meter substituting in my experience is mostly in the poorer areas..Not always though.The biggest fiddler I` ve ever been involved with was a large detached house with a tennis court and two new Mercs...was caught in the act of removing a link instead of the gas meter. .No prosecutions of course even though it stretched back to 2004., he repaid £6k, probably nowhere near what he had fiddled. He switched from BG to Utility Warehouse and again is refusing access to meter readers.Utility Warehouse will not do anything about it and he will of course refuse a smart gas meter.

OK Eachpenny I will accept that you did nt "run to the mods " even tho it was probably deserved, as it was my over the top reply to one of your posts which the mods highlighted..Yes its an anecdotal account from my Brother in Law who is a meter reader with my company..( I ve never known him to lie or bs about anything ) whos account I believe 100% that BG rang the customer whilst the gasman was there taking meter off to solder a pipe for new gas point fitting to enquire why the meter had been removed The account needs to be verified because it needs to be publicised.....I don t see why its so unbelievable tho as it would nt take too many employees tied up watching for various alarms which automatically come through with error codes built into smart gas meters..I know its early days with todays tragedy in London , but switching gas meters has led to many explosions/fires in houses over the years..Gas had been installed in those flats lately I believe
I certainly don t agree about it being safer to let them nick it than to engineer meters to make life hard for them to pack it in because the risk is greater. Its only because there is zero risk that so many do it.They are getting cheekier and braver too with me finding switched meters/reversed meters in outside boxes in front gardens in residential areas.. It was always being done in the central areas in the rental sections in inner towns and cities but now we are finding it in more affluent areas.
Since BG installed smart credit meters in electricity I have nt found any bypassed or suspicious ones in over 8 years since BG started installing them..They are now being used in prepayment meter mode and I expect that plenty more will be found eventually.. My colleague who has now left , worked for the Revenue Protection side for BG and Scottish Power on electricity (BG do the gas side ) and only reported 1 smart electric messed up with a dodgy link installed which the supplier knew about..My record is 8 bypasses in one week in the central terrace area of my town.BG started to give us a tenner each reward on electric meter fiddles only recently.They have always paid us £10 for domestic gas and £50 gas for a business gas fiddle.
I havent said its "unlawful " to object to smart meters on here, each to his own, but I would say it should be unlawful for Ebay to flog new and used gas meters as they have been doing for donkeys years.They even have been allowing the "fake " gas meter government anti tamper seals for sale for many years..£10 each ! please specify colour !
finally, the "engineer " was an apprentice plumber fitting the bathroom suite..Occupiers had obviously done a quick change on the gas meter that morning and not tightened unions up properly because I was due or because of the plumbers visit..The address was * Senior Rd Hexthorpe..No prosecutions, just a repay and that young lads life was minutes from either ending or getting badly injured..I rate that episode the highlight of my meter reading career..I could hear the gas hissing out inside deep in the corner of the pantry !