Help needed reading an electric meter

[Deleted User]

not_fooling_now wrote: »

Are you a land loard or a gas elecy enginer?
dose that bypassing thing happen the same with pay as you go meters?

I m meter reader. Most of it happens with prepays. 9 out of 10 domestic fiddles are prepays. The old ones because smart prepays are much harder to breach.
With a business meter, its the takeaways who do the most fiddling and I include chippys !

AndyCF

Houbara wrote: »

I m meter reader. Most of it happens with prepays. 9 out of 10 domestic fiddles are prepays. The old ones because smart prepays are much harder to breach.
With a business meter, its the takeaways who do the most fiddling and I include chippys !

Agree its been made a bit more difficult (I'll not go into one thing you're probably aware of) with Smarts. Its certainly not something I've seen online anyway I'll put it that way And no I'd never try it and yes I pay

I am slightly surprised about takeaways/chippies though, I assumed most of their 'heating' stuff was gas not electric ? But I've not looked into commercial fryers (friers?) and suchlike. Then again unless you meant them erm 'tweaking' the gas one.

[Deleted User]

AndyCF wrote: »

Agree its been made a bit more difficult (I'll not go into one thing you're probably aware of) with Smarts. Its certainly not something I've seen online anyway I'll put it that way And no I'd never try it and yes I pay

I am slightly surprised about takeaways/chippies though, I assumed most of their 'heating' stuff was gas not electric ? But I've not looked into commercial fryers (friers?) and suchlike. Then again unless you meant them erm 'tweaking' the gas one.

Takeaways are huge fiddlers. BG RPU concentrate their investigations mainly to those establishments. Many of them ruthlessly fiddle both meters. I have discovered quite a few in my time which has resulted in big repayments. Note I say repay, because they very rarely end up in court for theft. Once discovered the RPU will simply issue a repayment plan.
Not really much of a deterrent to theft.
The BBC showed it in action a few years ago when they had a 30 min prog following a couple of RPU men on the job.. The fiddling takeaway shop who was caught even had the cheek to ask for discount..RPU check payment history of takeaways and concentrate on those paying very low amounts
There are a few different ways they can cut down their large gas bills. The latest fiddle is quite sophisticated and needs an expert to pull it off who will charge a reasonable price for his services

AndyCF

Given the high prices these places (food) charge, you'd expect them to pay tbh.

The discount cheek does not surprise me, they really should of said "well when was the last time you gave someone a discount when they asked about it when they ordered xyz from you ?" , the reality would likely be "never!"

I think I've been fractionally spoilt as years back a few miles away we had a really decent chipshop that used quality bits and really good oil/fat. It was expensive but I'd never had anything quite so good. Compared to the local ones you can really taste the difference aka *yuk* , using cheap rubbish no doubt or not changing the oil often enough. Said decent place closed a few years now and its too far away anyway if it was still there as I don't have transport at the moment.

Talking of cooking oils aware it drops quite rapidly anyway as some is always retained in the foods but still needs changing not just topping up. There's no hygene issue btw, the place it spotless! Its just a case of using I think the cheapest stuff I'd not mind but the prices are very high, when compared with places a few miles away. A friends chippy actually (200 miles away in Wales) is nearly 1/3rd cheaper! (and its half decent too!) , to be honest I cannot be sure if its not being changed often enough or just really really cheap/nasty stuff being used. I suspect a bit of both personally.



Back on topic yes I think its just "easier" for the energy companies to get repayments rather than mess about with potentially expensive court details, ultimately they just want their monies for their energy supplied. I've not seen a prepayment in a business environment though (token/key/card) no doubt such things may exist in certain circumstances.

I'm vaguely aware of the method you mention, well in theory anyway how it could happen but obviously I'm not going to post it here. Someone may be silly enough to attempt it and as well as being completely illegal it would be extremely dangerous!

[Deleted User]

The BBC was stupid enough to reveal it in their 30 minute expose prog. The following week I found a gas meter which had been attempted to do the same clever tamper at an old ladies house in Goole. .She blamed it on her naughty nephew who would be having a practise on someone else`s meter first to see if it was doable.
The prog is still available on Youtube I think..Its a good half hours telly .

AndyCF

Its OK., I have to pay per GB so it would be not too cheap for me to watch a video. I can likely guess what happened / what was done though...