Smart Meter Pros & Cons?

GingerBob_3

aleph_0 wrote: »

I agree, someone who refuses access, and then fixes things before a warrant is obtained would be difficult to catch. However, smart meters help show up when the usage stops, and so timing and targeting the inspection based on this could be very useful.

If anyone is daft enough to get a "smart" meter, they can at least require that it doesn't do 30 min updates (not sure if you can require just daily or weekly or whatever). For basic home security you shouldn't be letting details of your real time usage be sent to a supplier. Even weekly is a bit dodgy; they could ascertain the house was empty on that basis. It's safer not to have one at all.

MeterMan

GingerBob wrote: »

If anyone is daft enough to get a "smart" meter, they can at least require that it doesn't do 30 min updates (not sure if you can require just daily or weekly or whatever). For basic home security you shouldn't be letting details of your real time usage be sent to a supplier. Even weekly is a bit dodgy; they could ascertain the house was empty on that basis. It's safer not to have one at all.

BG offer, half hourly, daily, or monthly.

Infact, I think its a legal requirement for all suppliers to offer the three data transmit options.

[Deleted User]

gasmanmartin wrote: »

Smart meters won't work. You don't need to tamper with the meter, you simply remove it.

If the supplier queries it, you just say i'm not using any gas/elec just now, away from home, working away - it's none of their business!
And as meters only legally need to be checked every 2 years it can be easily arranged for someone to refit them for inspection.

It won't stop energy fraud, it will only make bills higher!

Simply remove it ! its not that simple,its highly dangerous and against the law to be touching or tampering with any meters. They are not your property so you have to keep your hands off them. There is always an evidence trail which will trap you. The RPU blokes are highly trained and not much will get by them. OK , the electric or gasman may be fooled but they wont. Most of the electric meter tampering is done via an electric key prepay meter which, to be honest, is a piece of cake to bypass. Its so easy its asking to be bypassed. Every drug addict knows how to do it. The Electric smart meter is a different kettle of fish, very difficult to tamper and with a detector sending an alert soon as the lower cover is removed. Its so good I havent found one bypassed in the 5 years I have been checking them. So far they have nt been commissioned to work in prepay mode in my area which will be the acid test as to how well they defy the bypasser.

[Deleted User]

GingerBob wrote: »

How do they set up a "smart" gas meter, I wonder. There's no electricity supply near my gas meter, and they sure as hell aren't cabling anything up on my brickwork. Still, you can refuse one anyway. So no problem I suppose.

Electric smart sends read off every 30 mins, gas smart sends read to electric meter once a day, and then back to server/supplier. I havent found one gas smart meter tampered neither in the 5 years of checking them.. They work well and the industry is crying out for them to be deployed if only to limit the vast scale of bad debtors. Some people who rent a property with credit meters, it will make their eyes light up with joy as it means free energy for as long as it takes the suppliers to get their act together and get cracking with the warrants and locksmiths. It can be years. Just imagine how bad First Utility or Utility Warehouse will be in doing something quickly. I have seen a gas prepay with £9000 debt added to the meter ( Npower meter ). How many years free gas have the tenants had to reach that level, 5,6 or 7 years at least. Thats how bad some suppliers are. Its Ok for you Gingerbob with your ludditist view but I object to the suppliers loading me with the £60 a year extra to pay for fiddles and debtors. Lets get the smarts in as quickly as possible then anyone who has nt paid a bean in , say 6 months, gets switched off or onto prepay mode. A lot of the objectors to smarts will have ulterior motives in their refusals.. its because their free energy bonanza is over and they dont like it

gasmanmartin

sacsquacco wrote: »

Simply remove it ! its not that simple,its highly dangerous and against the law to be touching or tampering with any meters. They are not your property so you have to keep your hands off them. There is always an evidence trail which will trap you. The RPU blokes are highly trained and not much will get by them.

It is that simple. Speeding is also highly dangerous and against the law but people still do it, and there's not always an evidence trail. You can swap a smart gas for a standard meter as its the same fitment - big deal that the energy company detects no usage, that does not automatically suggest fraud as everyones circumstances are different. I investigate these sorts of things every day so i know exactly how it works.

The main point i'm making is if someone is going to do it, they will. There is a way round both gas and electric smart meters and the new meters will have little impact in preventing fraud. These are still new so it will take time for folk to catch on. Yes the only reason suppliers thought these meters where a good idea is because you can shut them off remotely but unless there is an error or in very extreme circumstances, i doubt this will happen often.

The OP has nothing to fear from having them installed but i completely disagree with the total cost of the roll out which inevitably will be added to all our bills.

GingerBob_3

sacsquacco wrote: »

Electric smart sends read off every 30 mins, gas smart sends read to electric meter once a day, and then back to server/supplier. I havent found one gas smart meter tampered neither in the 5 years of checking them.. They work well and the industry is crying out for them to be deployed if only to limit the vast scale of bad debtors. Some people who rent a property with credit meters, it will make their eyes light up with joy as it means free energy for as long as it takes the suppliers to get their act together and get cracking with the warrants and locksmiths. It can be years. Just imagine how bad First Utility or Utility Warehouse will be in doing something quickly. I have seen a gas prepay with £9000 debt added to the meter ( Npower meter ). How many years free gas have the tenants had to reach that level, 5,6 or 7 years at least. Thats how bad some suppliers are. Its Ok for you Gingerbob with your ludditist view but I object to the suppliers loading me with the £60 a year extra to pay for fiddles and debtors. Lets get the smarts in as quickly as possible then anyone who has nt paid a bean in , say 6 months, gets switched off or onto prepay mode. A lot of the objectors to smarts will have ulterior motives in their refusals.. its because their free energy bonanza is over and they dont like it

:rotfl: It's £60 now is it? Yesterday it was £30. Well if you're happy with Uncle Tom Cobbley and all effectively knowing when your house is unoccupied, you go ahead and get them. And while you're about it, make sure you report every 30 mins, so it will then be that much easier to see what you're up to. Anyway, thankfully our legislators have seen sense, for once, and your Brave New World is not to be.

Anyway, this thread is being dominated by the pros and cons from the suppliers' point of view. Who cares about them. They are a thoroughly disreputable bunch who wouldn't pass on any savings anyway (apart from to the CEO et al.). From the point of view of the consumer, these things are of no benefit in my humble opinion. They are a classic case of a solution looking for a problem. Why "smart" meters? Because we can.

Think you bill's complicated now? Go for old smartie and see what complicated bills are really about - differential rates based on time of day, national consumption, weather, football results. Yes, you name it, they'll factor in something to adjust the rates.

[Deleted User]

gasmanmartin wrote: »

It is that simple. Speeding is also highly dangerous and against the law but people still do it, and there's not always an evidence trail. You can swap a smart gas for a standard meter as its the same fitment - big deal that the energy company detects no usage, that does not automatically suggest fraud as everyones circumstances are different. I investigate these sorts of things every day so i know exactly how it works.

The main point i'm making is if someone is going to do it, they will. There is a way round both gas and electric smart meters and the new meters will have little impact in preventing fraud. These are still new so it will take time for folk to catch on. Yes the only reason suppliers thought these meters where a good idea is because you can shut them off remotely but unless there is an error or in very extreme circumstances, i doubt this will happen often.

The OP has nothing to fear from having them installed but i completely disagree with the total cost of the roll out which inevitably will be added to all our bills.

Rubbish, the smarts will have a big impact on both gas and electric and bad debt fraud. I havent found ONE fiddled electric smart in 5 years, did you not read my earlier posts ? yet I easily found a bypassed electric prepay only yesterday. They are that easy to do a Roma Gipsy family had figured it out in 2 minutes. I read hundreds of thousands of meters, and I m in the best position to have a view on them. Yes of course you can substitute a gas meter and of course the electricians,plumbers, gas fitters etc have the knowledge to bypass but in the main the biggest fiddlers are always from the usual social strata groups like the long term unemployed, the home grower. The electric smart will pose a much bigger challenge than the key prepay meter. OK mr Gasmanmartin, you can swap or bridge your meter for many years, but think about this case from last year, a large house nr Doncaster in a posh village, with two top of range Mercs,tennis court, was caught by Brit Gas RPO in the act of swapping meters.. He d not paid any gas bill to speak of since 2005 and was made to pay back 19k which he did there and then by cheque. People are monitored according to their usage and house size and eventually get a visit. The 2 year inspection is a minimum. This thief had been refusing meter readers quite often. If I had my way, he would nt be facing repaying his theft but paying a visit to Leeds prison for a stay. Stealing £19k in any other scenario would be a Crown Court case

GingerBob_3

sacsquacco wrote: »

Rubbish, the smarts will have a big impact on both gas and electric and bad debt fraud. I havent found ONE fiddled electric smart in 5 years, did you not read my earlier posts ? yet I easily found a bypassed electric prepay only yesterday. They are that easy to do a Roma Gipsy family had figured it out in 2 minutes. I read hundreds of thousands of meters, and I m in the best position to have a view on them. Yes of course you can substitute a gas meter and of course the electricians,plumbers, gas fitters etc have the knowledge to bypass but in the main the biggest fiddlers are always from the usual social strata groups like the long term unemployed, the home grower. The electric smart will pose a much bigger challenge than the key prepay meter. OK mr Gasmanmartin, you can swap or bridge your meter for many years, but think about this case from last year, a large house nr Doncaster in a posh village, with two top of range Mercs,tennis court, was caught by Brit Gas RPO in the act of swapping meters.. He d not paid any gas bill to speak of since 2005 and was made to pay back 19k which he did there and then by cheque. People are monitored according to their usage and house size and eventually get a visit. The 2 year inspection is a minimum. This thief had been refusing meter readers quite often. If I had my way, he would nt be facing repaying his theft but paying a visit to Leeds prison for a stay. Stealing £19k in any other scenario would be a Crown Court case

Boring. In the overall scheme of things energy fraud is minor. I don't care. I'm not interested. However, I am interested in getting a good deal from the £billion swindlers, the utility companies. Smart meters won't help me do that, and they'll compromise my privacy to boot, so you can stick 'em.

[Deleted User]

GingerBob wrote: »

:rotfl: It's £60 now is it? Yesterday it was £30. Well if you're happy with Uncle Tom Cobbley and all effectively knowing when your house is unoccupied, you go ahead and get them. And while you're about it, make sure you report every 30 mins, so it will then be that much easier to see what you're up to. Anyway, thankfully our legislators have seen sense, for once, and your Brave New World is not to be.

Anyway, this thread is being dominated by the pros and cons from the suppliers' point of view. Who cares about them. They are a thoroughly disreputable bunch who wouldn't pass on any savings anyway (apart from to the CEO et al.). From the point of view of the consumer, these things are of no benefit in my humble opinion. They are a classic case of a solution looking for a problem. Why "smart" meters? Because we can.

Think you bill's complicated now? Go for old smartie and see what complicated bills are really about - differential rates based on time of day, national consumption, weather, football results. Yes, you name it, they'll factor in something to adjust the rates.

Gingerbob you are approaching rampant paranoia levels now. so now "uncle tom cobbly and all " will know when your house is unoccupied. How you come to that conclusion is baffling. I personally could nt care less if the electric company know when I come home and put the kettle on. Thats one of the other benefits ,that smarts will let the power stations keep tabs on demand. Oh and by the way, £30 a year for fiddling, over another £30 for the bad debtors = £60.. That figure is creeping up and up.It will be a £100 a year each pretty soon. and dont forget Gingerbob, your refusal to accept a smart will be met, eventually with approx £60 a year meter billing costs. You will be forcing the suppliers to keep expensive meter reading contracts, so you will pay the costs by your refusal to accept new technology

gasmanmartin

sacsquacco wrote: »

did you not read my earlier posts ?

Yes i did and frankly i can't be bothered getting into an argument. You are a meter reader and i work in revenue protection for one of the big 6 - i know what goes on out there.
You keep talking about the people you catch. I keep talking about the people who don't get caught

yet I easily found a bypassed electric prepay only yesterday

Unlucky having to work a Saturday, i feel for you :beer: