Smart meter fiddle by new energy supplier?

Shoddie

I, like many others, lost my electricity supplier last year and my account went to British Gas where I was put on the standard economy 7 tariff.  British Gas had no idea what to do with the meter and I had to manually extract readings for them.  Earlier in the year I moved my gas and electricity to a new supplier offering much better (and possibly unsustainable) tariffs.  I was faced immediately with a huge bill.  After some investigation, I discovered that they had exchanged the functions of the two registers on what I believe was a "SMETS1" meter.  I have economy 7 heating so my total on the night rate had been much larger than the day rate.  When they took over the supply they set up the smart meter such that what had been the night rate was now the day rate and vice versa but without exchanging the accumulated totals.  I had been charged a huge sum for the suddenly larger total on the day rate whilst the reading for the night rate on the bill was an estimate.  I reversed the direct debit and cancelled the mandate on the account so they've not received any earnings from the house.  For six months they've refused to engage with the evidence for their "error" and insisted British Gas got the final readings the wrong way round.  I've given up arguing with them and passed the case on to the ombudsman.

My understanding is that suppliers can't access the totals on the meters but they can change the tariffs and time periods settings.  I can understand how the mistake could have been made.  What I can't understand is why their focus should be entirely on blaming British Gas against all the evidence.  Has anyone else out there had a similar experience?

Shoddie

Sorry, Shoddie here  - could a moderator stick this in the correct forum - I'm new here!

QrizB

Mistakes happen. Usually they get sorted out by CS, if not immediately then following a complaint.

When complaints still don't give satisfaction, you can go to the ombusdman.

Who is your new supplier?

Do you have bill history that confirms your version of events?

Shoddie

Hi QrizB.  Customer Services have been totally focussed on blaming British Gas throughout.  This seems to have been an imperative imposed on them from on high.  Their insistence on following this line against all the evidence makes me suspicious that I am not an isolated case.

I posted the question whilst I was putting together my complaint with the ombudsman.  I didn't want to prejudice the application by naming the company ahead of a resolution.

I do have a bill history to support my case which has gone to the ombudsman along the increasingly bizarre email correspondence with the suppliers' CS.  On several occasions they informed that they'd asked British Gas to exchange the opening readings.  A few weeks ago they sent me a letter in the post stating that the opening readings had indeed been exchanged and that I should expect a revised bill from British Gas.  I haven't heard from BG but, as I pointed out to my current supplier, this would put BG in the position of charging me for a huge amount of electricity during the day whilst I fed it back into the grid overnight!

I'll post updates on this and I'd be particularly interested in comments from industry insiders who understand the customer transfer process.

Shoddie

Just a quick update.  @QrizB, my supplier is Utility Warehouse.  The ombudsman agreed with them that British gas had swapped the readings despite all the evidence to the contrary.  Interestingly, they described their decision as "upheld", I think, on the basis that they had agreed about UW's poor customer service for which they awarded me a token £100.

I appealed their decision and the result from the appeal pretty much supported the original decision but with added waffle.  I rejected their decision as it still left me open to a large bill from British Gas.  I had, by then, realised that the "ombudsman" were not impartial as claimed but funded by the energy companies.

Since then, UW have frequently been threatening to take me to court but they don't follow through.  I've told them I'll counterclaim so I think they're just trying to wear me down.  I've had letters from two fake debt collectors and one real one.  They recently nreferred me to a Citizens Advice office in Plymouth that they have an arrangement with and I'm playing along for now.More news later on.

[Deleted User]

Shoddie said:

Just a quick update.  @QrizB, my supplier is Utility Warehouse.  The ombudsman agreed with them that British gas had swapped the readings despite all the evidence to the contrary.  Interestingly, they described their decision as "upheld", I think, on the basis that they had agreed about UW's poor customer service for which they awarded me a token £100.

I appealed their decision and the result from the appeal pretty much supported the original decision but with added waffle.  I rejected their decision as it still left me open to a large bill from British Gas.  I had, by then, realised that the "ombudsman" were not impartial as claimed but funded by the energy companies.

Since then, UW have frequently been threatening to take me to court but they don't follow through.  I've told them I'll counterclaim so I think they're just trying to wear me down.  I've had letters from two fake debt collectors and one real one.  They recently nreferred me to a Citizens Advice office in Plymouth that they have an arrangement with and I'm playing along for now.More news later on.

If a Final Decision is rejected then you have effectively withdrawn your complaint against the supplier. The supplier can then to go to Court and it can use the Ombudsman’s Final Decision in support of its claim. 

By going to the Ombudsman you agreed to third-party arbitration. There is always a risk that the outcome may not be in the complainant’s favour. EOS will argue that the fact that their service is paid for by suppliers does not in anyway impinge on their independence. The alternative is that the complaint pays for 50% of their process fee.

EssexHebridean

Are you absolutely certain that British Gas definitely still had you on E7, and weren't charging you on a single rate tariff? I ask as they have had huge issues around E7 and smart metering - to the extent that the majority of those in your position who were SOLR'd to BG have found that they were immediately switched to a standard single rate tariff, as I understand it. If this is the case, it could be that all your use while you were with BG has been recorded against the day rate... 

Shoddie

EssexHebridean said:

Are you absolutely certain that British Gas definitely still had you on E7, and weren't charging you on a single rate tariff? I ask as they have had huge issues around E7 and smart metering - to the extent that the majority of those in your position who were SOLR'd to BG have found that they were immediately switched to a standard single rate tariff, as I understand it. If this is the case, it could be that all your use while you were with BG has been recorded against the day rate... 

I'm sorry that I missed this.  The dispute is still unresolved.  I've not paid anything for gas and electricity and they keep chasing but at increasingly long intervals.  I've refused to discuss the bills unless they either accept that they exchanged the functions of the two registers when they took over the smart meter, or supply an alternative explanation with reference to the evidence I've submitted.

From what I've experienced the so called Ombudsman is funded by the energy companies to act as an extra arm to their "customer services".  They help them avoid the exposure of malpractice whilst maintaining their credibility by "upholding" the complaint and recommending a token gratuity.  They can then publicly claim that most complaints submitted to them are upheld.

I'm an engineer and have a reasonable understanding of metering systems.  I had to supply British Gas with meter readings because, as you've noted, they didn't have a clue about smart meters when they took over the account.  The meter was originally installed by Utilita then passed on to Ebico / Robin Hood.  When Robin Hood disappeared, BG took over.  When I had time to look for a better deal I moved to my current supplier.  The bill record is patchy but enough to be convincing.  There is a long gap as tenants were doing PAYG with Robin Hood and I can't get any billing data from them as they popped down a rabbit hole long before the current supplier hacked the meter.

Here are the key readings from the bills.  The heating system used immersion heaters to heat a thermal store overnight throughout the period covered by the bills.  This is reflected in the night usage always being higher.  The dates are for the actual readings listed here, the company is the billing supplier who supplied the readings in their bills and the date in brackets is the date on the bill itself:

• 08-11-2018 Ebico (22-01-2020):  Day - 418.8, Night - 347.6.
• 07-11-2019 Ebico (22-01-2020):  Day - 867.8, Night - 2688.6.
• 19-11-2020 BG (19-11-2020):  Day - 1120, Night - 3417, readings taken over from Ebico.
• 11-08-2021 BG (25-11-2021):  Day - 1512, Night - 3941
• 16-01-2022  BG (25-06-2022**):  Day - 1774 (E), Night - 4393 (E)**
• 17-01-2022 Current (02-07-2022):  Day* - 4461, Night* - 1791, original readings taken over from BG.**
• 17-01-2022 Current (17-08-2022):  Day* - 4393, Night* - 1774, revised readings taken over from BG.**
• 17-01-2022 Current (02-07-2022):  Day* - 4520, Night - 4409 (E?), original readings used to raise first bill.**
• 31-07-2022 Current (17-08-2022):  Day* - 4600, Night* - 2581
• 07-08-2024 Current (17-08-2022):  Day* - 5402, Night* - 4110.

* The day and night totals here are mixed since the current supplier exchanged the functions of the registers.

** I believe that the last BG bill dated 25-06-2022 was raised much later and backdated.  It reflects the new starting totals that appeared on the current supplier's corrected bill of 17-08-2022 but doesn't reflect the current supplier's assertion that BG had accepted that the higher figure was for the day rate.

Shoddie

[Deleted User] said:

If a Final Decision is rejected then you have effectively withdrawn your complaint against the supplier. The supplier can then to go to Court and it can use the Ombudsman’s Final Decision in support of its claim. 

By going to the Ombudsman you agreed to third-party arbitration. There is always a risk that the outcome may not be in the complainant’s favour. EOS will argue that the fact that their service is paid for by suppliers does not in anyway impinge on their independence. The alternative is that the complaint pays for 50% of their process fee.

Sorry - the above was meant to be a reply to this too!

QrizB

When you switched from BG to UW, there will have been an agreed handover reading. This will ideally have been supplied by you and will have been vetted by the group @Gerry1 calls "the mysterious third party".

BG should have used this reading to close your account and bill you up to the date you switched.

UW will (or should) have then provisioned your smart meter with their own tariff information. It's entirely possible for UW to have switch the registers at that point, since there's no standard way to do it and each supplier can choose their own.

Gerry1

QrizB said:

It's entirely possible for UW to have switch the registers at that point, since there's no standard way to do it and each supplier can choose their own.

That's an interesting point: I wonder whether some suppliers standardise to their way whenever they take over an account?  Sounds a bit fraught and not something I've experienced although I switched frequently when we were all encouraged to do so as though it were a civic duty.

It's something that dozy Ofgem should fix.  With meter replacements no longer being up to 40 years or whatever, there may well be a case for the register allocations for all new meters to be standardised, at least as far as simple ToU tariffs are concerned.