Going Well Then.....

House_Martin

brewerdave wrote: »

@ housemartin - published does not mean some bloke pulling a figure out of thin air ,on a TV programme which no-one else seems to have seen:rotfl:

It is published.
Google "Criminal gangs hotwire power supplies to help cut bills, BBC reports "
.My story of the 7 out 20 houses fiddling is also quoted.Shocking figures, but this is what is happening in the streets of the UK, and mostly from the foreign owned big 4 who do not operate a proper RPU, because its cheaper to forget the fiddling and turn a blind eye to it all..Dundas Rd is not unusual.
Mark Andrews, the head of BG RPU did state on TV the figure of £30 a year added to "gas bills " .from energy theft.
In my experience electricity bypassing is far more popular than a gas meter bypass, probably 5 to 1 in favour of electric bypass,

System

House_Martin wrote: »

I ve cited the published source, many times over the years.. a BBC TV program by the head of British Gas Revenue Protection..but you choose not to believe him..It suits your agenda to downplay energy theft..Why would anyone believe a set of government figures.The government has nt the slightest idea what is going on in the terraced streets of the UK.
Heres a couple of anecdotes to ponder on . I have visited , in Hexthorpe Doncaster, THREE houses on the trot, and all three were bypassing electric or had destroyed the prepayment gas meter to get free gas..They were all Eastern Europeans.
BG RPU visited 20 houses in Dundas Road , Sheffield after a serious gas explosion which took the whole house down, and part of the neighbours by the way, and SEVEN out of the twenty were bypassing for free energy..
I only found two properties fiddling when I went down the same street reading meters for Scottish Power and BG on that occasion.
If you would like to see the results of a gas fiddle, google" Dundas Rd gas explosion closest views " its on Youtube .
The cause of the explosion was a gas meter bypass.

I am not down playing anything. All I am quoting from is the Government's audited assumptions on the amount of energy theft that smart meters will stop. They admit it is conservative but they also recognise that smart meters will not stop energy theft. If you disagree with the Government's figures, then write to your MP. Just remember that supplier that you keep anecdotally quoting from is the subject of another Ofgem investigation.

jackandcoke

Robisere wrote: »

As I have said before, I have no intention of having a smart meter at my home. It is NOT compulsory. With all the media attention given to failures in the system, from Switches causing meters to be inoperative, down to actual fires and damage, why would anyone even consider it? The whole scheme has been badly organised and planned without real thought.

You may have no intention but your supplier will as will all suppliers. Technically its not compulsory but there are ways around it. The obvious ones is that all suppliers will stop ordering heritage meters and will be looking to reduce heritage meter stock holding. What that means to the customers, is that when it comes time for their heritage meter to be exchanged due to re certification or fault, etc, suppliers will no longer have a heritage meter to replace it with so customers will only be offered a smart meter.

System

jackandcoke wrote: »

You may have no intention but your supplier will as will all suppliers. Technically its not compulsory but there are ways around it. The obvious ones is that all suppliers will stop ordering heritage meters and will be looking to reduce heritage meter stock holding. What that means to the customers, is that when it comes time for their heritage meter to be exchanged due to re certification or fault, etc, suppliers will no longer have a heritage meter to replace it with so customers will only be offered a smart meter.

Right and wrong. It is likely that all end-of-life meter changes will use meters which are smart meter-capable. However, under present Government policy, consumers will have the right to decline the communications hub/ or have a de-activated hub fitted which effectively makes the meter dumb. It follows that if the property changes hands, and the new occupants want a smart meter, then the update is a relatively simple exercise. Presumably, the reverse will apply if someone moves into a property that has a smart meter and wants it de-activated.

House_Martin

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25718447. The link highlights why smart meters are badly needed in areas such as this in Dundas Rd, Sheffield after someone bypassing the gas meter ended up blowing the house up and damaging neighbours property.
What is more important about this incident is that for the first time to my knowledge the Police got involved with it and with their help enabled the British Gas Revenue Protection officers to access the 20 neighbours properties,WITHOUT WARRANTs on that occasion. It shook even the hard bitten RPU men the extent of energy theft in a normal Northern terraced street in Sheffield.
In 2015 only 1500 in the UK were prosecuted and only 25 were in South Yorkshire..7 out 20 were caught that day and the 7 out of 20 were NOT prosecuted, as is the norm.
This revealed the shocking truth how widespread theft of energy actually is when 7 out of the 20 properties were found to be bypassing gas meters (5 ) and 2 properties were bypassing electric meters.
Dundas Rd Sheffield is typical and not unusual. I know many streets in Doncaster and Edlington where bypassing meters is the norm.
Smart meters will be a huge defence against the widespread meter tampering epidemic in the UK and should be encouraged by everyone.
Without a smart meter, a supplier is blind to the activity in any property.
.Even if they find a way round it, and its difficult with all the sensors and error codes built into the meter the supplier does know what the occupiers are claiming their usage is and they can be readily identified especially if the gas meter itself is removed.. The normal way of bypassing a prepayment gas meter is to firstly remove the meter completely..This is what had happened at Dundas Rd.
Smart meters will stop in a short time anyone who is thieving energy. With dumb meters it will go on for years and years before they are stopped.
Also they will cut down the larger loss of revenue from credit meter customers who continue to rack up big debts which end up never being repaid at all, even when a prepayment meter is force fitted at the property to collect the debts.

badmemory

Hengus wrote: »

In our central scenario we continue to assume that the roll-out of smart meters will reduce theft by 10%, which is also conservative given estimates that smart meters could reduce theft by 20-33% in previous consultation responses.

I know I have taken this out of context, but doesn't the whole thing look a bit like a sledge hammer taken to crack a nut, or not the magic bullet we have all been led to believe!

AndyPK

House_Martin wrote: »

Dont be overdramatic, the cause of the SMALL fire had not been fully established .Meter had been in the house over a year, maybe occupier had been fiddling with the meter,, like hundreds of thousands of occupiers do. who knows .
Utterly ridiculous coming out with rubbish like that..
Any new meter install, smart or regular can have a problem if the main tails are not tightened properly IF that was the cause of the small fire.
I have seen many meter fires over the years and every one of them was the result of theft of energy bypassing or attempting to bypass the meter

You make it sound like there was one instance. Reports are in double figures at least.

While I agree watchdog likes to exaggerate just to make a good TV programme its hard to ignore facts.

The gas meter fitter was still at one house when he caused a fire and admitted it! (well he couldn't deny it)

The problem is that the government is forcing roll out by a certain date. Suppliers are therefore having to recruit inexperienced people off the streets, and set them about changing many meters per day to meet targets. What with their lack of experience and rush they are in, they are going to leave some tails loose, or inadequacy secured.

At some point in the future the house will have a high elec demand , say shower and cooker/hob on at the same time and the loose tails will start to get warm at the terminals. Once that starts its down hill all the way. Still could take weeks/months from that point.

EDF are recruiting smart fitters in my area.

System

badmemory wrote: »

I know I have taken this out of context, but doesn't the whole thing look a bit like a sledge hammer taken to crack a nut, or not the magic bullet we have all been led to believe!

I am not sure that the Government has ever suggested that a reduction in energy theft is a key driver for smart metering. It is pushing the fact that consumers will no longer get estimated bills but, in truth, the real reason behind this initiative is the management of peak demand through the introduction of ToU tariffs. Reducing energy theft is something that we should all applaud but the truth is that thieves tend to be one step ahead of authorities.

Quote: Numerous Smart Metering companies are promoting Smart Metering as a means of Reducing Theft, while upon closer scrutiny the reductions are very limited. The Smart Meter can determine if there is tampering at the meter or if the meter is reversed (upside down) and it can measure substantial voltage drops (depending on model & Utility Infrastructure), but a service crew has to attend the area, further, the voltage drop has to be measured against something; namely a separate meter at the transformer. Further, the extreme costs associated with placing a separate meter at every transformer and associated installation, maintenance, and communication costs are prohibitive for any Utility.

The CEO and Founder of dTechs has extensive experience dealing with Organized Crime. He has instructed and lectured on this issue throughout North America and the United Kingdom. In his policing career he has observed over 700 electrical bypasses or tampering. In these 700 he has seen one inverted meter and approximately 30 meter tamperings where the criminal went into the back of the meter and jumped the meter posts. The remainder, 96% of electricity theft was obtained with a bypass prior to the meter, and thusly would not be detected by a Smart Meter. Whatever crime groups that are tampering with the meter (4%) would simply learn to switch to a full bypass. Unquote

House_Martin

Hengus wrote: »

I am not sure that the Government has ever suggested that a reduction in energy theft is a key driver for smart metering. It is pushing the fact that consumers will no longer get estimated bills but, in truth, the real reason behind this initiative is the management of peak demand through the introduction of ToU tariffs. Reducing energy theft is something that we should all applaud but the truth is that thieves tend to be one step ahead of authorities.

Quote: Numerous Smart Metering companies are promoting Smart Metering as a means of Reducing Theft, while upon closer scrutiny the reductions are very limited. The Smart Meter can determine if there is tampering at the meter or if the meter is reversed (upside down) and it can measure substantial voltage drops (depending on model & Utility Infrastructure), but a service crew has to attend the area, further, the voltage drop has to be measured against something; namely a separate meter at the transformer. Further, the extreme costs associated with placing a separate meter at every transformer and associated installation, maintenance, and communication costs are prohibitive for any Utility.

The CEO and Founder of dTechs has extensive experience dealing with Organized Crime. He has instructed and lectured on this issue throughout North America and the United Kingdom. In his policing career he has observed over 700 electrical bypasses or tampering. In these 700 he has seen one inverted meter and approximately 30 meter tamperings where the criminal went into the back of the meter and jumped the meter posts. The remainder, 96% of electricity theft was obtained with a bypass prior to the meter, and thusly would not be detected by a Smart Meter. Whatever crime groups that are tampering with the meter (4%) would simply learn to switch to a full bypass. Unquote

I have more experience than some Yank who you have dredged up after spending hours trawling the internet, but that is the only experience you have as an O.A.P You are good at spending hours going through endless pointless detail in your anti smart battle which you appear to be winning. Well done, you are helping the thieves..
By the way, over there , in the U.S. they take energy theft seriously and so there is much less meter tampering, because over there its a Federal offence , and will prosecute 100% of the time..I just hope you clicked on the link and read the section about seven out of twenty houses checked were bypassing..Very important ! This was probably the only time in the UK where a snapshot of meter tampering was disclosed..without warrants too.
Here in the liberal UK, they virtually never prosecute..Big difference..We pick up the tab so all is OK as far as the suppliers are concerned.
Electric meter tampering in the UK is approx 90% on electric prepayment meters purely for cost reduction, not cannabis growing. The big growers have expensive equipment to enable them to flood the whole property with £100ks worth of plants in all the rooms. And they can have a crop easily at three times ayear..We will not stop them but we will know that zero consumption is claimed for that property and would appear to be vacant..
The last cannabis farm I found was through initially listening for the vibrations of the extractor fans through the letter box.
The hard up prepay users simply need 6 inch of earth wire..Going in front of the incoming meter is difficult and obvious anyway to a casual meter reader even if hes not clued up.
Gas fiddles are nearly always on the prepayment meters and ALWAYS involves either wrecking the internals or substituting the meter.. It does nt matter from which era .Old analogue or digital Siemens type meters are all bodged in exactly the same way.
More and more we are finding middle income properties turning to substituting their gas meters with an E.B.ay bought one, or reversing their meters ( which leaves evidence ) . No fiddler in the UK ever turns the meter upside down, some do rarely tilt it still . The instant a smart gas meter is unscrewed, the supplier knows this has happened.. We are getting more gas fiddlers now "shopped " by the next door neighbour when they have seen them removing the gas meter in outside boxes.
I find it hard to understand why someone like you carries on defending the fiddlers constantly and going against smart meters for simplistic reasons which are not relevant to the normal fiddler.
They do not come on the Energy board for information or advice. Honest bill payers come on here only, not the scumbags I have to deal with.

House_Martin

AndyPK wrote: »

You make it sound like there was one instance. Reports are in double figures at least.

While I agree watchdog likes to exaggerate just to make a good TV programme its hard to ignore facts.

The gas meter fitter was still at one house when he caused a fire and admitted it! (well he couldn't deny it)

The problem is that the government is forcing roll out by a certain date. Suppliers are therefore having to recruit inexperienced people off the streets, and set them about changing many meters per day to meet targets. What with their lack of experience and rush they are in, they are going to leave some tails loose, or inadequacy secured.

At some point in the future the house will have a high elec demand , say shower and cooker/hob on at the same time and the loose tails will start to get warm at the terminals. Once that starts its down hill all the way. Still could take weeks/months from that point.

EDF are recruiting smart fitters in my area.

Inexperienced meter fitters have been used for decades fitting dumb meters.. They would have had exactly their fair share of electric meters fitted with tails not tightened solidly as the few examples you have highlighted. .
National Grid have been contracting out meter fitting work to the same sort of unskilled people just as the suppliers in the UK are now doing on the smart roll out.
Many smart meters after they are fitted I would expect to have received a follow up visit at some time for a quality control check. .
Smart meter fitters do not appear to be in a rush at all.I do not know of any teams offering a bonus.. G4S and Eon fitting teams who I am familiar with do not operate a bonus system and they take it as easy as possible knowing that when its all over they are on the dole.