Meter does not work during the day

david4sarah

We moved in to our current house in November 2003. We have been on British Gas since then. However, the meter reading for the electricity during the day has not gone up at all. This means that we have not paid anything for electricity for daytime use. It does still record our nighttime usage and currently we pay about £11 a month.
I'm concerned that one day British gas will suss this out and back charge us to November 2003 based on estimates.
I really do not want to inform BG as I do not look after the meter, plus I don't want to fork out a shed load of money.

What is the best thing to do and could BG back charge for past meter readings.
Thanks
David

lovelyjubbly

Hi David, I'm not trying to be funny but are you sure you don't have two meters? we have one for daytime use and one for night time use as we are on economy seven, even if you are not on economy seven the previous occupier may have been and would have had two meters. .....just a thought because I cant understand a meter only going around at night!

lily_the_pink

You could change suppliers then inform them.

david4sarah

We have one meter but this has two dials in it. The one during the day doesn't move at all. Is it my responsibility to inform the electricity provider that the meter is obviously faulty?

john_kent

We had isseus when a meter was chanegd and the meter reading from the old one was wrong. We ended up with a £3900 bill for a quater. After an age of arguing with them , they wrote of our bill. This was because they cannot bill an estoimate unles sthey know a start point and will be taking and end point in the future to iron out the descrepencies

funkymonkey

i have this problem - my ecconomy seven time switch has broken - so the needle on m meter constantly points to night time and has done since i moved in - informed powergen straight away but after four appointments where i have sat in all day - their elecritian hasnt shown up. so thats a month now of low only - but as i informed powergen straight away - i will be charged low rate only as once informed it is their problem - according to their phone staff and an ex manager for powergen i know.

if i was you i would move supplyers then inform the new supplier that your meter has broken and they will send someone out to fix it.

pawpurrs

I know some one who pays no gas or elec, as hes never had a bill since the day he moved in over 15 years ago!

smartie1976

ok, think about this logically. If the meter has shown no consumption, that's what you'll be charged for - no consumption. A friend of mine had the same problem - meter stuck on the same read since she moved in. Eventually she told them, and they can only bill for what is known consumption.

This is purely an ethical decision for you as to whether to tell BG or not. However, likely as not they'll cotton on soon enough when someone starts to compare the two readings and sees one isn't moving, so if I were you I'd tell them because if they do catch you this is fraud (as you do actually know that the meter is not working properly and still choose to use the elec and not inform BG).

If you inform them and they do nothing about it that's a whole different issue, and is the suppliers fault for not taking any action.
We (BG) are in the process of migrating all out accounts to a new system, and it's possible this will get picked up in the migration (you may flag as having abnormal consumption - I don't know, this isn't my department.)