Powergen incorrect meter readings

Gal

FTB83 wrote:

p.s. just seen from a previous post that you work for Powergen...

Doesn't mean that I have a biased view - If anything I know exactly where they make mistakes.

However as already pointed out its not powergen that read the meters. Its a seperate company that does it and regardless of what supplier your with the problem would arise as the reading would have been sent to any of them.

As for other comments on who I work for - Not everyone can be classed under the useless and unhelpful banner. But then that is the same for every company there are staff that know what there doing / friendly / helpful and there are others that don't. I work for E.on and not powergen - Although its easier to say powergen as more people know who they are.

In djohn2002uk I can understand why you have bad feeling and I am suprised that it took as long as it did to get it sorted. Although probably in your case I would imagine that they couldn't do anything once you had changed your supplier.

In the OPs case it was a human error and presuming that I am standing up for a company I work for is jumping the gun a bit since as it has now been pointed out the same mistake would have happened whatever supplier you were with, obviously means I am not 'protecting' powergen. Merely pointing out that you seem to think people can not make mistakes because they are trained to read meters. :rolleyes:

nenya

She's right - Powergen don't read the meters. It's read by the company who own and maintain the lines and meters in your area. Eg. I'm with Scottish Power but it will be an EDF meter reader who comes to read my meter.

**purplemoon**

I had many problems with meter reads before switching to Ebico earlier this year, but my problem was the opposite in that they were underestimating my usage and when I tried to input the real meter readings online they were rejected! However, I managed to sort out my final bill according to the right amount of electric I had used and duly paid it.

Several months later I recieved a cheque from Powergen for over £300 because they claim I have overpaid them as they have yet again decided to use their own readings instead of mine!!! I'm not sending it back though

BexTech

nenya wrote:

She's right - Powergen don't read the meters. It's read by the company who own and maintain the lines and meters in your area. Eg. I'm with Scottish Power but it will be an EDF meter reader who comes to read my meter.

There are meter read companies, that's all they do read meters, they read meters for gas, electric and water, the company that reads our meters, doesn't own all 3 services.

We have Accuread read the meters in this area, for Gas, Electricity and Water, now Accuread used to be a subsidiary of British Gas, not sure if they still are, but they don't own the water or Electricity company around here.

Accuread read both our electricity meter and gas meter at the same time, saves them time and money, so you can see it's not the electricity distribution company that reads the meters.

There was a compnay called MeterPlus (there may still be) now they were owned by Npower, and they used to read both Gas and Electricity, but a while back they lost contracts to read Gas to Accuread.

djohn2002uk

nenya wrote:

She's right - Powergen don't read the meters. It's read by the company who own and maintain the lines and meters in your area.

If that is correct in your area it is a rare occurance.
BexTech is right about Acuread and Siemens also hold or used to hold some contracts.
I think, nenya, that you are close to the mark in that the distributer in each area may well let the contract for their area and then charge the other companies per meter read, but days of the companies themselves employing meter readers is long gone

**purplemoon**

I do know that meter readers get paid for every meter they read, so it's quite possible that if they couldn't gain access they might have just made it up so they still get paid? When we had a pre-payment meter the guy still insisted on reading it and when I asked him why, as we didn't get bills, he said it's because he gets paid to read it

BexTech

**purplemoon** wrote:

I do know that meter readers get paid for every meter they read, so it's quite possible that if they couldn't gain access they might have just made it up so they still get paid? When we had a pre-payment meter the guy still insisted on reading it and when I asked him why, as we didn't get bills, he said it's because he gets paid to read it

Even when on Pre-payment you still need meters reading, this is because even though you are paying in advance, the rate on the meter may not match the rate you should be charged, usually at the end of every 12 months you should get a statement, sometimes you will have paid more, but due to the numerous price increases you usually find it's never quite enough, many people used to receive cheques back from British Gas and their local electricity supplier, now many people are asked to pay the difference, as the tokens haven't covered the actual cost.