Over stating usage

phillo365

Hi, not sure if this has been tried but I am on a fixed price deal with Scottish Power until March 2011 and am wondering about inflating my meter reads to take advantage of the current discounted price. Obviously with my current usage being high due to the weather it would be easier to diguise.
What are people's thoughts on this, surely it is no different from the electricity companies averaging out of bills. I can't see I am defrauding anyone as I am just paying in advance.

anotherbaldrick

I am with Scottish and Southern and I found that both Gas and Lecky had been underestimated on my current reading by 1000 units , so I input my reading sticking them up 2000.

Premier_2

phillo365 wrote: »

Hi, not sure if this has been tried but I am on a fixed price deal with Scottish Power until March 2011 and am wondering about inflating my meter reads to take advantage of the current discounted price. Obviously with my current usage being high due to the weather it would be easier to diguise.
What are people's thoughts on this, surely it is no different from the electricity companies averaging out of bills. I can't see I am defrauding anyone as I am just paying in advance.

There's enough moneysaving options on this site that should mean you don't have to resort to illegal measures such as fraud.

What happens when the meter man calls sometime in the next 3 months and discovers your fraudulent actions???

If you want to pay in advance, just send the supplier a few hundred quid ... but you will still be charged the appropriate rate for when you consume the energy which you clearly are attempting to otherwise not do by fraudulent means.

Edit: I guess when you walk out of Tesco with a load of goods that you have not attempted to pay for, you wouldn't consider that theft, but simply awaiting them to forward their invoice to you to settle. :cool:

anotherbaldrick

Premier wrote: »

There's enough moneysaving options on this site that should mean you don't have to resort to illegal measures such as fraud.

What happens when the meter man calls sometime in the next 3 months and discovers your fraudulent actions???

If you want to pay in advance, just send the supplier a few hundred quid ... but you will still be charged the appropriate rate for when you consume the energy which you clearly are attempting to otherwise not do by fraudulent means.

Edit: I guess when you walk out of Tesco with a load of goods that you have not attempted to pay for, you wouldn't consider that theft, but simply awaiting them to forward their invoice to you to settle. :cool:

As far as I am concerned it was the power company who were perpetrating sharp practice. They would have known from last years bills that they were deliberately billing me low.

stewie_griffin

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

As far as I am concerned it was the power company who were perpetrating sharp practice. They would have known from last years bills that they were deliberately billing me low.

Why would they deliberately bill you too low and therefore get less money from you. Surely if they were going to do anything then it would be overestimate. Their estimates will simply be based on historic usage and you have used more then that.

backfoot

phillo365 wrote: »

What are people's thoughts on this, surely it is no different from the electricity companies averaging out of bills. I can't see I am defrauding anyone as I am just paying in advance.

If you really feel that you aren't defrauding them, phone them up to ask if it's ok. :eek:

You know there's a difference between billing records and payment methods or you wouldn't have had the naughty idea.

Hooloovoo

Scottish Power currently have a specific tariff if you wish to pay a year or more in advance. You get 5% discount on current prices I believe.

phillo365

Thanks for the replies perhaps it is a dubious idea.My thoughts were more along the lines that I was buying in advance like some kind of Energy Commidity Trader and that by giving a higher reading I was gambling on the future price. Obviously the energy company are free to read the meter whenever they want to produce bills to suit themselves.Is it really any different from say buying postage stamps in advance of a price rise an idea encouraged on this site ?

t0rt0ise

Premier wrote: »

Edit: I guess when you walk out of Tesco with a load of goods that you have not attempted to pay for, you wouldn't consider that theft, but simply awaiting them to forward their invoice to you to settle. :cool:

That's not a good analogy. It's really like walking out of Tesco's with a dozen loaves of bread at today's price and sticking them in the freezer for later use.

backfoot

It clearly isn't ethical to deliberately overstate your consumption.

The reality is that you may well get away with it. If the companies choose for you to do the meter reading job for them then they will have to live with the fact that the unscrupulous may use the system to their benefit and that there may be errors.

Even if they did check and catch you what are they going to do?

anotherbaldrick

stewie_griffin wrote: »

Why would they deliberately bill you too low and therefore get less money from you. Surely if they were going to do anything then it would be overestimate. Their estimates will simply be based on historic usage and you have used more then that.

Because the prices have just been put up and the under assessment this quarter would go in next quarter at the higher rate costing me more . If they had used historic usage they would not have undershot by 2000 units.