Old electric meter mistakenly discarded. What could be the cost charge??

t0rt0ise

Your mistake was in saying it was your fault in the first place. It wasn't your fault and you should never have said to your boss that it was. Now you need to backtrack and tell your boss that having thought about, you realise that it was the fault of the guy who should have taken it with him and not left it. They'll all willingly blame you if you simply accept it.

leoguy555

Phones4Chris said:

@leoguy555 As has been said so many times here, it was the installer's responsibility to take the meters away, the fact that he failed to do so with one of them is their problem NOT yours. Also

Phones4Chris said:

Raise a formal complaint with BG for not taking the old meter away at the time and leaving it for months before doing anything about it. The chap that installed the smart meter should have put a label on the smart meter with the old meters' readings, have a look and take a photo if there is one there and submit that as part of the complaint.

You never responded to this. Is there label(s) on the new smart meter with the old meter readings? Take a photo anyway, so if there isn't a label, another thing the installer did not do correctly.
Whether or not there is, you (or your boss that is) can tell BG the installer took the readings, it's his fault he left one of the meters behind and after months' it was believed it was scrap, it's your problem BG! Here is photographic evidence of the meter readings (all the ones that you have) and the new smart meter. And if there is no label on the smart meter with the old readings point that out as well. It's all BG's problem not yours. Has your boss raised a formal complaint?

Okay, so I've just had a look and here is the situation in the meter cupboard.

The meter he DID take away was an old 3-phase mechanical meter. In its place he has installed a 3-phase smart meter. Next to the smart meter, he has put a sticker which gives the info/ last reading of the old meter he took away. It also has the start reading of the new smart meter. Okay, so all seems well there.

The meter he abandoned for months, has not been replaced with another meter. The wires that went to that meter  are still there but they've just been capped off and there's nothing connected in place of the meter he abandoned. There is no sticker or information relating to the meter he didn't take away. 

 My boss took photos of all the meters , so there is photographic evidence of the last reading of the meter that got chucked out. As far as I know, the power company are refusing to accept the photographic evidence as proof of the final reading last time I and the boss spoke about this. I don't know if the meter fitter reported that last reading or not of the abandoned meter. As far as I know, there is no further work to be carried out in the meter cupboard.

wild666

IMO the meter should have being kept in a safe place and BG notified the next day that they left the meter and the company should have given them a reasonable time limit to call back and take the meter away. 

I think I read years go that you give them 6 months then you can dispose of them or sell the goods that are left. 

Phones4Chris

@leoguy555 I think it's quite simple, you should tell your boss what @t0rt0ise has suggested and what others here have said, it was the installers fault. Also he needs to raise a complaint to BG, that should get this some proper attention from BG, they cannot deny the fact the the old meter was incorrectly left on site by the installer next to a bin! And also submit those photos of the meter readings.

leoguy555

Phones4Chris said:

@leoguy555 I think it's quite simple, you should tell your boss what @t0rt0ise has suggested and what others here have said, it was the installers fault. Also he needs to raise a complaint to BG, that should get this some proper attention from BG, they cannot deny the fact the the old meter was incorrectly left on site by the installer next to a bin! And also submit those photos of the meter readings.

Ok, well it seems unanimous the advice here is that the installer messed up by leaving the old meter behind instead of taking it away there and then. That's not something I knew then but it's something I know now. Even at that, I DID find it strange that he did leave it at the time . Why disconnect 2 meters, take one away and leave the other one? I suppose he must've simply forgotten. Not my fault apart from his. However, I still feel guilty for chucking it. 

It's not as if it got chucked out after a day or two either. It sat in there for months and months. Would you believe he had actually left it sitting in a precarious position as well , half balancing it on the edge of a electrical box a meter or so from ground level.  Pretty stupid. I moved the meter from there and put it down on the floor so at least it didn't fall off and get smashed. That's where it remained for all those months. ; On the floor next to where it'd been disconnected. And when he hadn't came back for it after the months, that's when I cleared the bin bay out with other crap and flung the old meter out with that believing he didn't need it and it was scrap.

It was quite a few weeks after I'd chucked it, he ambled back round thinking it would still be there. He didn't seem to care very much it wasn't. When we asked him if the meter getting chucked was a big deal, he was like ,"uhh, well it'd just get scrapped anyway." And he said that he'd just put down in his notes that the meter had been "mistakenly discarded by a third-party worker." He said the power company may charge for the lost meter. How much that charge could be is one of the questions ive never managed to find an answer to here

pochase

It seems to me that the issue is not really the material value of the meter, but the last reading and BG does not believe the photo evidence of the final reading.

You are saying there were two meters being replaced with one meter. Does the label on the new meter show the final reading for both meters or just one?

leoguy555

pochase said:

It seems to me that the issue is not really the material value of the meter, but the last reading and BG does not believe the photo evidence of the final reading.

You are saying there were two meters being replaced with one meter. Does the label on the new meter show the final reading for both meters or just one?

I think part of their moaning is the material value of the meter, (which will be peanuts), and part of the final reading issue. But the installer should've reported and recorded the final value of that meter at disconnection. Whether or not he did report the final reading, I don't know.

Yes. There were 2 old meters, and he installed only one smart meter. The place where the second meter was ( the one that was thrown out), has nothing new connected there and there is no info or label relating to that meter. It's just a blank space where the wires have been capped off.


The label on the smart meter shows only the final reading for one of the old, disconnected meters. (The meter he DID take away) It doesn't give the details for the abandoned, then chucked away meter.

pochase

Does the final read in the invoice match the read on the photo your boss took?

leoguy555

pochase said:

Does the final read in the invoice match the read on the photo your boss took?

I dont know. I don't know about asking about all that either, as it's maybe not my business. 

A few weeks after the guy left empty handed with the meter, my boss got a letter from BG. Basically the letter went along the lines of "thanks. We received your final reading, the meter was collected, and here is your final bill."  But because the letter said "meter was collected" and it had been chucked out, my boss phoned BG up to tell them meter was mistakenly thrown out and this is where the issue came from. If they'd just paid the bill and kept their mouth shut, I think the lost meter would never have been an issue.  

 BG replied back, changed their tune, and said that the old meter was still their property and they couldn't close the account unless they got the old meter back, or maybe something about charging some amount of money.

So. If they refuse to believe the photographic evidence showing the meter reading of the discarded meter, and getting the old meter back is impossible, ( fancy searching a landfill site with thousands of tons of rubbish?) ,  where does this leave the situation? What actually can the power company do apart from just charge some sum of money? 

Swipe

leoguy555 said:

A few weeks after the guy left empty handed with the meter, my boss got a letter from BG. Basically the letter went along the lines of "thanks. We received your final reading, the meter was collected, and here is your final bill."  But because the letter said "meter was collected" and it had been chucked out, my boss phoned BG up to tell them meter was mistakenly thrown out and this is where the issue came from. If they'd just paid the bill and kept their mouth shut, I think the lost meter would never have been an issue.  

It's your boss's fault then. Stop punishing yourself over it.