The Great Smart Meter Con

lstar337

GingerBob wrote: »

They will only detect someone tampering with the meter. They won't detect meter bypassing, which I'm guessing is the major cause of loss.

They will detect the little-to-no usage and trigger an investigation. Most likely this will be limited to serial offenders, and a physical inspection will show a bypass and those people can be prosecuted.

Cardew

GingerBob wrote: »

They will only detect someone tampering with the meter. They won't detect meter bypassing, which I'm guessing is the major cause of loss.

Agreed that meter bypassing is the major issue.


However as said in my earlier post, a suspected culprit's property can now be remotely monitored and:

If an occupied property on a winter's evening is using little gas/electricity, they are candidates for investigation.

dollydiva

I've usually nowt good to say about BG, but the were very upfront about the higher cost in having a smart meter, albeit they said the costs involved would 'average out' over time

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

Uxb wrote: »

as ever you all miss the real objective...
It will allow real time short term tariff changes in the future
So the tariff might even vary several times during the day
If you want to use a lot of energy at peak time then the amount you use will be charged at a higher rates.
This will tend to even out energy use - which given that our supplies are sized for the peak can only be a good thing

And what do you imagine will happen when people move out of the multiple peak times and create 'new' peak times???

The whole things stinks.

MeterMan

There are tamper devices built into the meters. If the covers are removed the tamper device will send a message to BG to inform them of tampering.

If power is cut before the meter, there would be a break in the readings being sent back which would also flag up a potential issue.

[Deleted User]

ChilliKwok wrote: »

sacsquacco - please can you explain how smart meters are supposed to reduce instances of meter fiddling? If someone is bypassing the meter manually (eg. by taping off upstream or sharing feeds between two propeties) then they will still be able to do this with a smart meter. Meter fiddling is illegal - so why not just prosecute offenders? Why must normal law-abiding bill payers stump up for a national roll out of 'smart' meters? It has nothing to do with reducing theft. It's all about energy rationing via variable pricing - forcing people to use energy only when the wind blows or the sun shines rather than using it when *they* need it. Forcing people to pay more for an inferior service. Basically DECC has become infested by environmental activists and green vested interests who see it as their job to limit and ration energy usage. DECC needs to be shut down and the eco-loons kicked out ASAP.

As mentioned by Meterman, tampers at the meter itself will trigger error codes back to supplier ( in theory ). why dont they prosecute ? good question, the answer is probably down to money of course. Its cheaper not to go through the process of a court prosecution with attendant lawyers only to be thwarted by the defendant coming out with the usual excuse, eg "I didnt know it was a prepay I was waiting for a bill from supplier "or" I was nt aware it was bypassed I m a new occupier " Even if they ve not paid a penny in 3 years, thats the sort of thing they will plead. Cannabis growers are all bypassing, even they dont get prosecuted either for less than 14 plants per person or the large amounts of stolen energy ( approx £850 worth for the 12 weeks growing period.
Suppliers just bill them for a new meter and estimate the amount nicked and put it as debt on the new prepay if they happen to catch them. So words got round the rougher side of town now that its a doddle to fiddle and nothing much will be done about it if caught. BG RPU have told me that they "may " prosecute for 3 times caught fiddlers, so far none have gone through the magistrates court at Doncaster yet