I think my BG pre pay electric meter is faulty!

dekaspace

Had a few issues with it since I moved in, i.e not activated emergency between hours of 10pm and 8am as it should if I had no credit in, or credit had run out but I hadnt turned on the £5 emergency.

I have been away for 6 weeks and my standing charge is £1.80, when I came back last Saturday afternoon it was 14.50 in debt(so nothing worked and everything was turned off at mains and trip switches set to off anyway) which was correct as I was a few quid in arrears when I left.

I topped up £20 and was £5.52 in credit(give or take 1-4p) then went away again without even turning anything on, came back last night to find myself £5.52 in debt(so £10 exact to penny in 6 nights) which is strange.

I took out key as I leave it in all the time, popped it back in and it said £5.00 (and had a letter E solid next to it and not flashing)

I then went out for 3 hours came back and it had gone down to £3.71(again nothing was turned on, even trip swtiches) went to bed with everything still off and checked meter 12 hours later, it has gone down to £2.69

I notice that when it shows the amount, it then flickers to another screen saying "charge 6", then when I took key out and put it back in, it said "charge 7" then when I did it again "charge 8" and took off another 36p at same time!

Any ideas what is happening? I am using my laptop now so the trip switches are still off so no electric is coming into property and I get free wifi from my neighbour.

dekaspace

I now have £1.50 left and its at "charge 11" but I did spent 25 minutes in shower.

dekaspace

Now at Charge 11 and 63p left though I now have lights and big pc on and fridge.

Tupperware_Queen

you need to ring BG and get them to come and check it

PNPSUKNET

It may also be a consumer unit fault, it still draws powersometimes even when the trips are off

dekaspace

Ok, it seems to be either a faulty wire(more likely) or my neighbour is stealing electric(improbable but not impossible)

Reasoning for both is when I topped up last, I had a energy monitor clipped onto the black wire connecting to the big meter fuse, and I knocked it over when putting key in and I am sure I heard a very very minor pop in meter when I kept testing it.

Other theory is my downstairs neighbour is sponging my electric as one time before he told me he could fiddle with my meter to get free electricity, and he works on boats so is often away for a week or two at a time and he has just left one job so was in the house for the exact number of days I had an issue, then as soon as he went away for 2 days the usage dropped to literally zero, then he comes back for the night and according to my energy monitor I had quite a few random spikes of like usage at 200watts then spiking to 4 killowatts for a few minutes or more(at the same time as he played music)