Smart Meter - shall I take them, can I do that?

trinidadone

hello all,

last summer company A who supplied my electricity and gas contacted me, and said I could have a free smart meter for my electricity and gas.

A few months after, I contacted the company, and was advised, they would be in my area in January 2015, and would contact me back then to make an appointment.

In December my contract ended with company A. I compared via MoneySavingexpert, and agreed to change to company B

I made my first Direct Debit payment to company B yesterday, so I am assuming the switch has taken place.

Ironically company A kept to their promice, and offered me an appointment for the smart meters to be fitted.

Am I doing anything wrong by accpeting an appointment with Company A, to fit the meters, even though I have now left as a customer?

Carrot007

Yes, on the whole smart meters are not compatible between suppliers and would mean pointless outlay which we will all pay for!

And to make it worse the smart metyer fiters will be the last to know you have left your old supplier.

Do them a favour and tell em you are no longer supplied by X and all will be fine.

On the whole all a SM will do is make them get reads if you are not in. You can do this on the web,m so unless you are too lazy there is not much top gain.

Yes the display is nice but no it is unliekly to make you use less.

MeterMan

If you have your meters changed now that you have changed supplier, you will have to let them back in a day or two later to put the old meters back in.

You could create a nightmare for yourself.

[Deleted User]

Accept the smart meter and join the 21st century. All smart meters being fitted at the moment by all the suppliers I have seen are Landys and Gyrs in mk1 and 2 models. Eventually smart switching will be in place and suppliers will be able to switch seamlessly. The oddball refusniks, the type who reject anything new just for the sake of it, will be billed yearly metering costs of , at the moment approx £60 a year. Its utter madness to keep the ancient old metering system from the 1930 s in place. Smarts will be a real boon for prepayers ending the farce of topping up at shops and visually having to check the meters to see the remaining credit dwindling down.
Another massive plus factor to smarts will be the end of the professional renter, flitting from property to property every couple of years thieving thousands every year. Smarts can switch quickly from credit to prepay mode.
I m interested to hear that the OP was promised a free smart meter, as one of the big reasons the oddballs were refusing them was because of the extra costs.
Once a smart meter is in place, thats it, theres no swapping back to the old knackered ones. I ve had a smart for 3 years and moved supplier twice, OK , I ve lost all the excellent data from BG s original but as soon as BG get competive in their taiffs I ll be back to them in a flash. so for the time being its now just a "dumb " meter

SailorSam

Ssshhh sacsquacco, don't be encouraging everybody into the 21st centuary. If we all join you'll be talking yourself out of a job.

[Deleted User]

SailorSam wrote: »

Ssshhh sacsquacco, don't be encouraging everybody into the 21st centuary. If we all join you'll be talking yourself out of a job.

.Here at G4S, who ve grabbed all the meter reading contracts going, we re inundated with work and actually employing more people. I must have 15 different types of business and domestic suppliers on my handheld right now. We are reading for 4 of the big 6 cyclic suppliers . Even smarts get a looksee at every couple of years, and so far I havent found one smart meter illegally bypassed, unlike the 5 bypasses I found this week and last working in my rough area of central Doncaster. Thieving electric and gas is going through the roof in my area, but not as bad as the professional renters who getting through much more free energy than fiddling the meters. they just refuse to pay a bean until force fitting of prepays, then simply move. One last week I found she moved next door but one and carried on thieving, from an EDF rental to a Scot Power. Unfortunately I was reading for both suppliers and could forward her new address to EDF (3k owing ) ready for the Bailiffs to move in

C_Mababejive

reject the smart meter. You dont need them, they offer few benefits and are currently more trouble than they are worth.

Andy_WSM

C_Mababejive wrote: »

reject the smart meter. You dont need them, they offer few benefits and are currently more trouble than they are worth.

No benefits if they are not for their current supplier.

Until the suppliers get their act together and come up with a central data network they are a waste of money & effort - unless your old meters were due to be changed anyway.

It could be years before a central network is in place and available to all.

[Deleted User]

C_Mababejive wrote: »

reject the smart meter. You dont need them, they offer few benefits and are currently more trouble than they are worth.

Hang on mate, I must find at least one duff digital ampy meter a week, even the old analogues are forever going down. The Sangamo Weston just jams and stops, 3 of them in one street alone in S!!!!horpe two months ago. In the few years we ve been reading smarts I ve only had to see one which had gone down due to simcard failure. The Landys and Gry smart is better than all the cheapo £20 digital rubbish they re fitting now
The "leakage " of all the thieved energy whats going off now is incredible in the rough areas..and quickly getting worse and worse and surely we all will benefit in lower prices by containing the free energy bonanza. I ve just come off a spell of working in Central Doncaster, 5 bypassers and at least 50 refusals from likely suspects where nothing at all will be done about it has made me even more cynical of privatised energy market. 2 of my bypasses were from Spark energy who read and inspect a meter once every blue moon

Andy_WSM

sacsquacco wrote: »

surely we all will benefit in lower prices by containing the free energy bonanza.

If the utilities were still state owned I think you'd be correct, but they're not. They will just announce bigger profits. We will see no benefit at all!

[Deleted User]

Andy_WSM wrote: »

If the utilities were still state owned I think you'd be correct, but they're not. They will just announce bigger profits. We will see no benefit at all!

I also had a chat with the manager of a large JJB Sports type shop who said the same thing as me when it comes to uncontrolled blatent theft. His staff can do very little against the large amount of shop lifting because even when the druggie is caught virtually nothing is done about it except a lot of time consuming red tape leading to a community service which does nt even get served and then the Law....simply forgets about it..just like the energy market. We have an army of thieves and theres nothing any one can do about it except use the best technology to resist it.. In our case its smart meters, so people should accept them willingly and stop spreading daft rumours about costs and wifi thro the brain and disconnections,hacking etc