Ovo secure smart meters

mbmonty

House_Martin wrote: »

How do you know what the percentage of customers are actually sending readings in at regular intervals. ? suppliers do not employ meter readers very often because that is expensive.
Everyone i know relies on a supplier estimate. They have busy lives and messing about looking at meters never gets done in 2017. They may do it diligently here on this energy forum, but "normal " people can`t be ar**d.
.People are lazy, the smart meter is nt lazy, it does the job we don`t really want to do.
You do not pay for the energy the smart meter uses.
Electric smart meter is mains powered before the meter.
Gas smart meter is battery powered.
The In House Display monitor which is optional and not a meter, uses approx 60 p a year ironically.
Most people stuff it in a cupboard or dustbin after a few weeks..I have !

THANK YOU for making my point for me

Yes I got the word lazy from reading other posts, it is the people that are lazy if they can't be bothered to read a meter.

I now call them DUMB meters which is far more accurate.

If most people stuff the unit in a cupboard or dustbin then the so called benefit of being more aware of energy being used is total ball hooks unless you count the fact that they will get monthly bills so feel the pain more often!

You suggest that you are a meter reader, so you will eventually be made redundant but have the Crapita gig and who knows maybe you fancy your luck working for other misery jobs like private car park notice issuer or pretend high court enforcement with the contempt you seem to have for householders.

For years Meter readers have not worked efficiently, I mean why not read the whole damn street if you are going to be there anyway. So of course they invent this programme, tell the politicians we need it and must pay for it.

When you talk about estimates that is the industry again, it lobbied to only have to read the meters at wider interval, so only twice a year I think. This allowed them to estimate the bill and then increase direct debit so they can run up billions in cash reserves. Then have 28 days notice to repay customers their own money. That is why I will never go on Direct Debit, no matter who the supplier.

I prefer to pay quarterly as it matches my cash flow of getting paid late, I moved to Solarplicity who told me I could continue to pay quarterly despite the fact that price comparison sites show them as paying monthly.

I chose that supplier because they had no standing charge and promised to be lower than the top six.

Now they have reneged on their promise and hiked the price of the tariff. This is what I find so disgusting, these companies can suggest they have values like "standing charges - we don't believe in them" then less than 3 months later they introduce 2 new tariffs with standing charges and hike the one remaining tariff which they seem to be phasing out. It just goes to show they cannot be trusted and are all as bad as each other.

So I guess I will move again, to be honest they are supposed to email me asking for a reading but that has not happened so time will tell. I was lucky not to order their LED's otherwise I would be facing a £30 hidden charge for leaving them.

As far as I am aware it was only them and Ebico who had no standing charge but with them dropping it then the pressure will be on Ebico to also drop it.

mbmonty

House_Martin wrote: »

I m certainly not "attacking " or "insulting " any poster on here, especially you, you have only been on the forum since December last year.
Why do you, what could be described as "attack ", the suppliers from working more efficiently with the use of smart meters ?.If they can increase their profits then surely that is a good thing.
Americans would all applaud that.
The more efficiently a supplier can run their business would mean they could offer cheaper tariffs.
They do not need to be employing huge staff numbers running call centres placating grumpy customers yelling down the phone line at them who do not understand their energy bills. Smart meters promise to end all the bickering from Joe Public so everyone would get an exact bill all the time and would never need to get in touch with any supplier with a billing problem.
Any call centre employee will tell you what a stressful job they have dealing with the UK public especially a public who thinks the supplier is diddling them
They need to run their businesses as profitably as possible just like any other business. If they don t they go to the wall like 3 suppliers have already in the UK recently.
I ve already stated that the customer pays for the in house display, which is not a meter. Simply unplug the thing if you want to save 60 p a year.
Please inform your relatives that they have to inform the supplier as soon as possible that their gas meter is nt working.
It is in everyones terms and conditions to inform the supplier if the meters become faulty.
a faulty meter could be a dangerous meter

Sorry my impression has only come from reading posts where you seem to insult members of the public as if they are all moronic.

I am perplexed, you insult consumers but then call bosses fat cats and in next breath defend the industry.

I value your input as you are on the front line so have experience of meters from India etc which is something none of us would know about. It seems that good advice would be to switch to the energy company with the best meter, get the meter then leave them. However, I just do not want or need this kit, I understand the energy companies want it and who could blame them.

I am all for proper commercial competition, I have been self employed or had my own companies almost all of my working life, did some hard jobs too when necessary.

The USA is hardly a great model, they owe trillions, not that I believe it is as big a problem as some economists say, it is the nature of an economy where they can make money out of thin air.

My feeling is that if this programme had just happened naturally they would not have needed their own comms network, they could have used 12 million BT hotspots for example. Without the time limit we might have seen more intelligent kit developed that really offered consumers tangible benefits, perhaps linked to apps.

I have seen a lot of articles in papers showing how the energy companies are punishing us, we had OFCOM say they had no reason to increase prices last year then a month later they are defending them. Now we see they punishing us for the price cap.

The gas meter that is not reading is on British Gas on a new build, the Electricity is up and running but Gas does not seem to be feeding into it. I have seen posts suggesting it can be layout of the property, they are on 1st floor, electric meter at one side of building while Gas Meters are on ground floor at front of building. It may be as simple as the batteries, I have encouraged them to call BG but they work long hours early morning to late at night, so it is not the biggest thing on their mind.

House_Martin

I m currently advising another forum member about a prepayment gas meter which has nt been recording usage for 6 years but the occupier is receiving a gas supply. Battery problem is the usual suspect with these, even with a fairly new meter if that is what is happening with your friends meter outside in the semi concealed box.
Just make sure they are looking at the correct meter. In new builds the meters get a plot number on the meter which may not match flat number. They could just be looking at a meter linked to a vacant flat.
I m a big smart meter fan and a big hater of the worlds worst smart meter , the Secure Liberty meters so i m caught in two minds.
Many of the occupiers who have these meters can t make head or tail about them with their pokey little keyboard and fast moving display. Some people of advanced years can t get down to read them and have given up on the complex in house display. They even have 8 digits on the electric meter and also show a Kvarh reading, which will baffle people and is nt needed in any domestic electric meter in the UK.
.Kvarh is only used in business meters which proves that these Indian meters are designed for small businesses only
Suppliers love them because they re cheap to buy. Eon gets a lot of criticism from me constantly for switching to fitting these last year and insulting their customer fitting these meters making them struggle or fail to give a quarterly reading if the meter is in dumb mode

Michaelw

House_Martin wrote: »

I

Many of the occupiers who have these meters can t make head or tail about them with their pokey little keyboard and fast moving display. Some people of advanced years can t get down to read them and have given up on the complex in house display.

The in home display is more useful in prepayment mode then credit is my experience.Complex Co2 is pointless,while it does tell you what your using its not real time and the gas meter takes time to update.Some of the readings are inacurate the weeks period.For topups the ways to pay amd the need to bend down on the streeet with a gas card are now done away with British Gas.

The whole idea of these is not to have to read the meter,even that is not true if a supplier change is made.I found there are some benefits as to ways to pay and read the credit left in the kitchen instead of having to go outside.