Switching info for anyone with a "Heatwise" Meter

richbishop

Hi All,

Just thought I'd share my experience of moving into a property with a "Heatwise" meter.

I joined the MSE British Gas Collective switch earlier in the year, and, was very happy with the tariff, and wanted to take it with me. Arranged the move with British Gas, but then after the move, received an email from them, and a letter from E-on explaining that I couldn't change supplier because I now had this special "Heatwise" meter.

I was told I had the choice of ONE tariff with E-on (which was around 50% higher than the BG Collective Fix), and all other suppliers basically refused to take me on because it came with 5 meter readings.

So... I didn't give up. I contacted a large number of energy suppliers on Twitter, and CCed E-on into each of the tweets. I also raised a complaint with E-on explaining that I felt this situation gave them a monopoly on my supply, and the were refusing my legal right to change supplier.

Today... I got a call from the E-on complaints team. They initially called to apologise that their system were broken at the minute, and they couldn't even sign me up to my choice of ONE tariff. During the call I suggested that all of these issues could be solved, if they just came to change the meter.

The lady who was helping with my complaint went off and found out that E-on do offer to change these meters. They're now coming out to switch it to a standard Economy 7 meter next week.

And now, I have just got off the phone to British Gas who have confirmed they'll honour the Collective Switch tariff I had before.

All of that, has just saved me an estimated £336/year by not accepting what I was first told on Saturday, which was "you don't have a choice because of your type of meter".

Hope that helps someone else!

Rich

stewie_griffin

I'm sure Malc will be on here later to post more information but E.ON are actually pro-actively replacing all of their Heatwise meters so it's very odd that it took them so long to offer you a meter exchange. It's likely the previous occupier would have had a letter about this but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it since they were moving out.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Good morning richbishop and welcome to the forum.

Hi stewie_griffin thank you for the reply.

I'm sorry this wasn't as simple as it should have been for you richbishop, we should have discussed a meter change in the first place, then it would have avoided a complaint, I think.

It is correct though, that there's only the one tariff from us with a heatwise meter, it's the same with the other complex meters, like E18 etc.

We have been contacting customers with these types of meters to offer to change the meter, the letters are going out in batches and we've got a team dealing with questions and issues our customers may have.

I'm pleased that you've got the complaint sorted out and we're starting the process of changing the meter for you. Sometimes when having this sort of meter change the customer may need an independent electrician just to check if there's any extra work with the wiring.

There's a few threads on here from people that have had a letter, so we've been able to post quite a lot of info.

I'm glad everything is going in the right direction now for you.

Thank you

Helena