Meter Reading Scam ?.

System

RED_KEN wrote: »

Many thanks for your posts. I still think it could have been somebody working on commission only cold calling to sign you up for a new energy company. With the details of self plus the name of your current provider they can do this. If just one in 30 calls is a hit at £100 in commission, not bad for a days work.
Much better than the £80 a day apparently made by the beggars sitting outside Poundland in my home town.

You are with respect missing a key point. All suppliers are required to provide customers with written details of the tariff etc that they have signed up to. All contracts have a 'cooling off' period of 14 days. Losing suppliers tend to notify people that a transfer is in progress. I fail to see how just giving someone a meter reading could result in the transfer of a supply. As others have pointed out, if it was that easy to make £100 then there would hoards of people going round looking for information from external meter boxes.

RED_KEN

Its not just the meter reading they have got out of you . Its your name, address and the name of your current energy provider .Then comes the hard sell and before you know it you have agreed to a transfer. What you have to remember these cold callers tend to target the older generation.
How old is that for me ?, well old enough to remember the last proper snow we had in England, the winter of 1946/47
A friend of mine got caught out this way a few years ago. Before he knew it he was reduced to turning off his heating and living and sleeping in one room with just a single bar electric heater.
Truth was he was reluctant to own up to what he had done.

However

I've had phone calls too, on a couple of occasions. They didn't know my name, they didn't know my address; they didn't know the utility company. They just wanted a meter reading. I told them to get lost. I also did some research and hunted out that they are some sort of quasi-kosher third-party meter reading outfit. I was unaware of their name, I did not enter into any contract with them, nor did I give consent to my utility company for an unknown third-party to ask me for meter readings via an unsolicited phonecall. It may not be a scam but it's sharp practice - apparently they are supposed to physically eyeball the meter on behalf of the utility company but instead they phone up and gain their commission that way. I don't care whether that's true or not - these days data is valuable, so I'm repeatedly told in the media, so if someone wants info from me, they can jolly-well pay me handsomely for it (in advance) or get stuffed.