Strange one - incorrect meter...please read

x__Indigo_x

Hi all
this is very long - im sorry!

i moved into my current e bedroom flat in may 2011 no gas all elec on economy 7.

at the point of moving in we were shown were all the important points are re water tap/ meters etc which was labelled with our flat number, at this point we signed up with scottish power. In april 2012 i moved to EDF blue price promise.

suddenly in june our elec meters seemed to be spinning round :mad: the night time usage was beyond reality. we have economy 7 heaters in the flat for heating but we have never even turned the on! we rely on hot water bottles/extra clothes. at night we would have the usual items - fridge , phone chargers and the boiler would automatically turn on during economy hours. so that was it.

we contacted EDF who basically said the meter readings sounded right... however we were monitoring our usage daily... and we still wernt happy.

we re contacted edf who offered us a 'check meter' which would cost £35 ...if there was afault found we would get the money back.. no fault no refund.

shortly after this we departed the flat for a week for christmas and switched off everything even the freezer/boiler and did a meter reading.

when i came back i took a meter reading and it had gone up the same amount per day as when we were living in the flat...even with virtually nothing on.

at this point someone in work suggested turning off the electric using the switch under the meter - i had no idea about this:o- which we did ..... and you guessed it our electric stayed on ... so i presume our labelled meter is not the meter that is connected to our flat..

EDF have agreed to send someone out in 2 weeks to find out which meter is ours....

my question is what if the meter that is ours hasnt been read for months and months - pre april... also if we have been reading the meters wrong all along will this mean that we need to contact our old supplier incase they owe us a refund/we owe them? Sorry the questions probably sound stupid but im worried. What they hit us with a huge bill :eek:

should i make a formal complaint ? as they have been out to read the meters and never noticed any fault...but is it there fault..

i dont know i hope people can understand my stress.

thanks xx

Pleaseadvise

So when you turned off 'your' switch, someone else lost all power to their flat? Someone who moved in last June, when your bills suddenly went up?

I hope you can get it worked out!

fed_up_and_stressed

Firstly you need them to ascertain if it is your meter and if there is a fault on your meter through them, which you are doing before you and they can then from the results and comparing these to reads they have on file (actual and customer reads) tell if any of these readings have been taken incorrectly.

Also just to point out legally suppliers only HAVE to take readings once every two years.

[Deleted User]

It is up to the occupier to determine who s meter is whos. In meter cupboards the occupiers should be responsible for correctly labelling the meters. You cant expect any supplier you happen to switch to over the years to be coming round doing load tests. Originally all the meters would have been with one supplier who would ve known, but with constant supplier switching and tenants with no idea about these things, this sort of thing is commonplace.

x__Indigo_x

Thanks for your replies apologies if I write random words as responding on my iPhone now.

Well it appears the Meters were incorrectly labelled from the year dot as they have always been labelled as my flat number which is signed by data server or something like that (name escapes me at the moment)

Yes I assume the electric went out momentarily in someone else's flat but we would never know whom!

The meter has been manually checked in last two years since I have lived here

I just hope it get sorted and we aren't hit with a MASSIVE bill :-( I can't see it happening as like I mentioned we are very frugal with our usage ..

fed_up_and_stressed

sacsquacco wrote: »

It is up to the occupier to determine who s meter is whos. In meter cupboards the occupiers should be responsible for correctly labelling the meters. You cant expect any supplier you happen to switch to over the years to be coming round doing load tests. Originally all the meters would have been with one supplier who would ve known, but with constant supplier switching and tenants with no idea about these things, this sort of thing is commonplace.

Agreed, but the tenant is in this situation now and needs help to resolve it moving forward.

Constant switching is a headache because it is hard to ascertain if an issue is billing related to a meter issue or a tarriff. What sometimes happens is people jump around suppliers not realising MOP's read meters a minimum of 2 years. People ignore requests from new suppliers for customer reads so they get estimated opening reads

...then a few months later when an actual read or customer read is given they complain the new supplier is dearer than they thought and blame the suppliers when possibly a lot of the energy was used (and therefore should have been paid for to the old supplier.

x__Indigo_x

sacsquacco wrote: »

It is up to the occupier to determine who s meter is whos. In meter cupboards the occupiers should be responsible for correctly labelling the meters. You cant expect any supplier you happen to switch to over the years to be coming round doing load tests. Originally all the meters would have been with one supplier who would ve known, but with constant supplier switching and tenants with no idea about these things, this sort of thing is commonplace.

The occupies meaning us you mean? We rent . The agency showed us "our" Meter & indicated the meter with the number of our flat and gave us the meter serial numbers which match said meter, all other meters are labelled with other flat numbers ..however we noted that some people have had the same issue as there is some writing and signatures on other meters like " not flat 4 this is defiantly flat 1 as confirmed by x" then again others say things like "not 6 as labelled"


I feel so silly but I just took there word for it. Why wouldn't I

x__Indigo_x

fed_up_and_stressed wrote: »

Agreed, but the tenant is in this situation now and needs help to resolve it moving forward.


...then a few months later when an actual read or customer read is given they complain the new supplier is dearer than they thought and blame the suppliers when possibly a lot of the energy was used (and therefore should have been paid for to the old supplier.

Just to clear this up we have submitted lots of actual reads over time as don't like using estimates

[Deleted User]

yes x indigo, I see that all the time in communal meter cupboards, some have crossed out flat numbers as you say just to confuse even more, originally they may have been installed by the distribution companys as plot numbers having no bearing on the actual flat numbers. I have a block of flats I visit which have had approx 10 years of messed up bills as tenants come and go. The only people who can reliably say whos meter is whos is the tenant who can do a load test. Meters also get frequent changes to prepay and back to credit meters . I always find it strange that the suppliers dont give just a little written information to incoming account holders about these things in communal meter cupboards.
If the meter readers have also been messing it up you should expect some sort of reduction in your bill

fed_up_and_stressed

Whilst quoting me you have chopped some quite important bits out of my post... I was referring to multiple changes of supply As mentioned by the poster who is a meter reader.... Not referring directly to your situation.

Have you confirmed via phone to the supplier that your customer reads correlate to the actual reads taken by the meter operators as this can obviously in some cases show if one party is reading the wrong meter ?

Obviously as i have mentioned when you get backd the information as to the responsibility query i.e. which flat is supplied by which meter ..then you will know if it is you meter or not... But your title post is a total misnomer ... It is not an incorrect meter issue...it looks as though you are just unsure which meter actually supplies your property. Meter accuracy issues are actually quite uncommon as there isnt a lot to go wrong with them (i previously worked in the industry a lonnnng time).

Horseunderwater

Are there many flats in the block? If not get all tenants/owners together and find out which one belongs to which flat and stick a label on each one. Somebody will have been getting really low bills and someone else will have been getting really high bills and so on. Once you all know which one belongs to which one - you should then be able to contact the relevant companies and sort the matter out. It needs to be done as a whole block together in my opinion, because if one is wrong then out there is at least another that is also wrong. It may be that most of them are correct - but tackle it you must.