Smart meter not working properly for over 2 years - EDF now want £900!

HendosRelish2

Hi all! Sorry for the new account, the forum says that all accounts created before 6th Feb need a password reset and I honestly can't remember the email address I used for my other account, so I've had to make a new one.

Sorry for bumping an old thread but I thought the information would be useful to other people in similar situations. This issue is now resolved, though it took a really long time!

Apparently the "billing team" were really backed up and nothing happened for ages until I made it into a formal complaint, and then they phoned nearly every other day to apologise and say it was still being deliberated on. I'm not sure if making it into a complaint made them process it any faster, but it may be worth doing because the whole thing took almost 4 weeks from start to finish, which is pretty poor. The EDF call centre seem pretty good; they're polite, speedy and seem to know their stuff. It's the billing department who seem useless.

But anyway, as mentioned in the thread, the bill for energy used before Jan 2019 was written off under the Backbilling rules/law. So my dad was already happy he wasn't facing the full thing. However they refused to budge on him paying back the last year's gas, which was about £378. I tried as many things as I could think of to say to get them to write some, if not all of it off since this is entirely EDF's fault, but they said they couldn't (or wouldn't) and insisted he would have to repay that sum. I managed to get them to agree to a 36 month repayment plan, which means it only costs him around £10 more a month. My dad was happy with that so that's what they've both agreed to. I understand that he is liable for the gas he used, but if they're not capable of installing a working meter this is their own fault. It shouldn't be the customer's job to micromanage their bill like this. He's also paying for gas now finally, but still an estimated amount until they figure out how much gas he uses in a typical month.
So a decent outcome but for me I would have wanted more.

His meter is still not reporting any gas usage to EDF though, and they basically said it can't be fixed until the "version 2" smart meters arrive some time this year supposedly. I think that's nonsense tbh and they could fix it, but they don't want to. For now, he'll have to send a monthly meter reading through his online account. It's simple to do but still a bit ridiculous that the smart meter means he's ended up doing more work than the normal dumb meter. For anyone thinking of getting a smart meter: DON'T! At least until the new revisions are rolled out well into the coming year.

I told my dad he should probably leave EDF as a protest but he wasn't interested, he just wanted the issue settled. I think he's afraid if he left them they wouldn't have let him pay it back over 36 months or demanded it as a lump sum, but they would have had to because he simply can't afford to pay it all at once or in a smaller timeframe. If it was me I would have been willing to take it further (Ombudsman, small claims, whatever) but he just wants a quiet life.

So yeah, I guess in the end EDF did the absolute bare minimum they could. Their call centre is surprisingly good, but billing and the corporate aspect of the company are just as you'd expect; a faceless, unfeeling monolith that only cares about making money (bit dramatic perhaps... but still!)

Thanks once again to everyone's help on the matter.

comeandgo

Wish I had read your posts last week.  Got smart meter fitted on Wed and it does not work as we have no tv signal, nobody even mentioned we needed one.  Total waste of time and still have to send in our meter readings.

Gerry1

Nothing to do with TV signals.  In the south it's the O2 network, and in the north it's the Smart DCC network  However, if you're in a real blackspot for the relevant network you may not have much of a terrestrial TV signal either.

comeandgo

Person who came to install said its to do with tv reception but whatever it is we don't receive it, we are very very far north.

nottsphil

dogshome said:

The Smart Gas meter is battery powered and can only send out a weak signal - For this reason it's signal is sent to the Mains Powered Electric meter which then sends it onto the supplier.

nottsphil

Does this mean you can't have a smart gas meter fitted unless you have a smart electric meter as well? I presume vice-versa is OK.

BTW this forum software is an absolute joke! Where are the times of previous posts for a start, and why can't I  quote and post on the same post?  There must be a thread on it somewhere! 

MWT

nottsphil said:

BTW this forum software is an absolute joke! Where are the times of previous posts for a start, and why can't I  quote and post on the same post?  There must be a thread on it somewhere! 

You can, just like this.

When you hit 'quote' you should see the quoted post in a grey box, you can edit that to remove the bits you don't need then move back to the white area to add your own text.

Re post times, it seems they only show up for the current day, previous days just have the date...

To answer your question, yes, only the electricity meters have the ability to connect to the network and provide the readings, the gas meter just has a wireless connection to the electricity meter.