Smart Meter Error

matelodave

Can we just confirm that you've been and looked at the meter yourself (not the IHD but the meter where the leccy and gas enter your house) to make sure that the readings that they are using are about right. As I said, you do need to check yourself on a regular basis that the readings and bills are correct - don't just accept a bill without checking it even with smart meters.
Even though the bills says "our read" you've no way of knowing whether it's correct unless you check it on the meter - not the IHD unless you know it's accurately displaying what the meter reads

Now you've started with a new supplier get yourself into the habit of checking it all on a monthly basis, keep your own spreadsheet, download your monthly bills or statements and save them as PDF's - it makes it so much easier to work out what is going on and hopefully alerts you to any anomalies when they happen rather than six months or a year later.

Verdigris

Did you supply readings to your new supplier when you switched? The Final EDF bill should be based on those, as long as they have got past the Mystery Independent Readings Adjudicators.

Richardoatway

yes, the meter itself (at point of incoming) is showing the same as the IHD is showing, 

i certainly will be paying more attention after all this, ill be honest i didn't think id need to until this has happened, maybe smart meters aren't so smart, and evidently neither am i. 

Verdigris

EDF aren't very smart, judging by my time in the utilities industry. (Other useless energy suppliers are available)

matelodave

It's not that you aren't smart it's just that some of us are less trusting after many years of fighting with suppliers and still like to do our own sums, just to be sure.
Being with several failed companies has also sharpened some of our analytical skills and demonstrated the benefits of keeping and maintaining our own records.

Ideally save them for at least a couple of years after you've left them or they've gone bust. Last year British gas had a purge and dredged up old "final" bills for recalculation to see how much they could recover from unsuspecting customers. Likewise some administrator from failed companies have set the dogs onto people several years afterwards - it's so much easier to defend if you've got your own copies of stuff.

Smart meters aren't exactly the panacea that they are supposed to be, mainly because the totally shambolic way they've been implemented and some companies still don't seem to have worked out how to use them properly so it's prudent to check.

Richardoatway

Will definitely keep an eye out more often. 

Strange occurrence tonight, I rang EDF and told them I have the usage from my IHD and gave them the figures. They said they would ring me back, 

next thing I know my electricity usage information has disappeared off my IHD and I can only see gas. It’s either a coincidence or something fishy! Can’t even see current live usage. 

matelodave

Hopefully you copied it all down.
I'm sure they can control the cost info displayed remotely but I doubt they can alter the meter memory so check the calendar function (and keep a record yourself as it's a rolling function).
As I said, you can't trust them so keep your own records. However is your meter being transferred over to your new supplier on the DCC network

I think that BG used to be able to disable the IHD if you stopped being a customer but I've had no problems except loss of cost info on my four year old SSE meter/IHD combination. The loss of cost info isn't a problems as it was incorrect anyway