British Gas trying to deceive customers to have smart meters installed

nigelbb

Derick_R said:

Back to the topic of this thread:

British Gas trying to deceive customers to have smart.

Have British Gas been sending out Scam Emails?

I have been told by British Gas, the following email sent to me is a scam.. 

This it the transcript of a chat conversation I have had with a British Gas representative:

You : Where on my Energy and Home Services Jun 2021v2 contract does it say I have to have a smart meter.

Vashawi : Hi, you may want to check it in the terms and conditions

You : I have

You : I can't find

Vashawi : i'll certainly help you , could you help me your email address?

You : derick_r**@*****.com

Vashawi : thanks, please allow me 2-3 minutes to look into the account,

You : OK

Vashawi : almost done

You : Ok

Vashawi : thanks for waiting, I did read the complete terms and condition and it no where states that you require a smart meter for this plan.

Vashawi : it no where states that you require a smart meter for this plan

Vashawi : this means smart meter is not required

You : Please will you email me this information.. for my records

Vashawi : sure, you can take a transcript of this chat by clicking on the envelope icon on your chat box

You : I received this in an email: Hello Derick You're on one of our energy plans that needs smart meters

Vashawi : I'll check

You : Ok

You : I quote : "You're on one of our energy plans that needs smart meters, it was part of the agreement when you signed up.""

Vashawi : thanks for waiting, when did you receive this email?

You : 14/09/2020 09:31

Vashawi : I'm afraid, no such email has been sent by us ( there are records of the same)

I request you to send us an attachment on Phishing@centrica.com

we'll investigate the same further

You : Email came from "no-reply@cd.britishgas.co.uk"

You : Should I ignore the email then?

Vashawi : please ignore the email and forward it to us to investigate teh reason your received it

You : It is the same email address which British Gas send to me the rewards email.

Vashawi : as stated, this can be a phishing email you received, we keep records of all the documents we share, please ignore the same and send it to us to investigate

You : Was the email sent to me in error..

Vashawi : BG has not emailed you

You : What is the email address I should I report it for investigation?

Vashawi : I request you to send us an attachment on Phishing@centrica.com.

You : OK I will.. Thank you.

Vashawi : You're welcome , It was a pleasure assisting you.

You : This is all for today

Vashawi : great, take care

You : TTFN

I think that Vashawi is mistaken or misinformed. In my case when I raised a complaint about exactly the same email British Gas didn't deny sending it (the return address was no-reply@cd.britishgas.co.uk) but tried to claim that I really was obliged to have a smart meter installed.

silverwhistle

Gerry1 said:

But do get them installed.  When you're cold and dark because your smart meter says NO, I'll be thanking you for keeping me warm and bright with my conventional meters ! 

Except, of course, if those of us who already restrict our usage at peak times don't do so they will just switch off a whole area including you. A bit of intelligence in not using avoidable heavy loads at such times will avoid the issue. I have piddling little electricity bills, but that's because I use a time of day tariff and think about when I use power.

hozza94

silverwhistle said:

Gerry1 said:

But do get them installed.  When you're cold and dark because your smart meter says NO, I'll be thanking you for keeping me warm and bright with my conventional meters ! 

Except, of course, if those of us who already restrict our usage at peak times don't do so they will just switch off a whole area including you. A bit of intelligence in not using avoidable heavy loads at such times will avoid the issue. I have piddling little electricity bills, but that's because I use a time of day tariff and think about when I use power.

Been great using Agile Octopus for the last few week... minimising my 1600-1900 leccy use and only using my tumble dryer when it is under 7p/kwh. 

nobodymatters

I have had a number of emails telling me I need a smart meter fitted. The reasons you have given me are my 1/old meter could be inaccurate 2/ old meter unsafe and could cause a fire and today I received:

You're on one of our energy plans that needs smart meters, it was part of the agreement when you signed up. We've noticed you've still not upgraded yours.Installation is free and our Smart Energy Experts are upgrading meters in homes near you, so book yours today. If you've decided you don't want a smart meter, contact us and we'll talk to you about our other energy plans.

On all occasions I rang you and was told on all occasions was told that I did not need to have a smart meter fitted.

Whats going on??????

Gerry1

What do the terms and conditions of your tariff state?  If they say that smart meters are mandatory then you'll have to accept them or switch to a tariff / company that doesn't insist on them.  They'll probably be cheaper as well !

AngelaJane68

And they're still doing it.  I received another vaguely threatening email saying I NEED to have a smart meter fitted.  Then two days later saying it was a mistake and I don't.  I say 'another' as they also did the exact same thing to me last year.  It's obviously a deliberate and coercive ploy on their part to get everyone on smart meters.  Makes me wonder what's wrong with them??

MattMattMattUK

AngelaJane68 said:

And they're still doing it.  I received another vaguely threatening email saying I NEED to have a smart meter fitted.  Then two days later saying it was a mistake and I don't.  I say 'another' as they also did the exact same thing to me last year.  It's obviously a deliberate and coercive ploy on their part to get everyone on smart meters.  Makes me wonder what's wrong with them??

The energy suppliers are required to install them by the government, in a year or two they will likely to become compulsory. 

Nothing is wrong with them, the issue is the tin foil hat brigade, the conspiracy theorists and those that listen to them.

nigelbb

MattMattMattUK said:

AngelaJane68 said:

And they're still doing it.  I received another vaguely threatening email saying I NEED to have a smart meter fitted.  Then two days later saying it was a mistake and I don't.  I say 'another' as they also did the exact same thing to me last year.  It's obviously a deliberate and coercive ploy on their part to get everyone on smart meters.  Makes me wonder what's wrong with them??

The energy suppliers are required to install them by the government, in a year or two they will likely to become compulsory. 

Nothing is wrong with them, the issue is the tin foil hat brigade, the conspiracy theorists and those that listen to them.

There are problems with them especially when you switch suppliers when your smart meter cannot be read by their systems so reverts to being dumb meter.

When I posted this question we lived in a large Victorian house with a gas meter at the back of the house & the electric meter right at the front of the house by the front door. I knew that the way the smart meters work is that only the electric meter transmits data & the gas meter needs to 'talk' to the electric meter. I didn't fancy the hassle & potential disruption to end up with the gas meter unable to 'talk' to the electric meter.

We now live in a more modern house where the meters are adjacent & had smart meters installed about three months ago. The only issue was that the engineer was unable to restart our boiler & spent about two hours fiddling with it & speaking on the phone to various people. At the end of the process we were told basically "Tough !!!!!!. You need find a gas engineer to fix your boiler.". As this was a Friday in December & it was freezing cold outside we were not pleased. Happily I was able to restart the boiler myself as the engineer must have been ignorant of the process. It was OK for us but we could have been a vulnerable customer & to leave us with no heating or hot water was disgraceful. EDF should have processes in place like an engineer on call or just signposting to a third party but washing their hands of the matter is unacceptable & this behaviour by EDF is the source of a complaint to the regulator.

Ultrasonic

nigelbb said:

There are problems with them especially when you switch suppliers when your smart meter cannot be read by their systems so reverts to being dumb meter.

Just on this point, if it happens then someone is no worse off that with a conventional meter, and such issues are far rarer with SMETS2 meters. So far my SMETS2 meter has successfully worked with three different providers. I am though currently mid-switch to Scottish Power and I have seen a couple of people post here about cost display issues following a similar switch so I'll see how that goes. The actual usage figures are still displayed OK even then, which is the most important part.

You do raise a fair point about a meter change causing issues for anyone unaware of how to restart their own boiler.

MWT

Ultrasonic said:

You do raise a fair point about a meter change causing issues for anyone unaware of how to restart their own boiler.

The same problem would be there if there was a power-cut for any reason, so it isn't unreasonable to expect the customer to be able to handle that without assistance.