British Gas sending out "don't read the meter"

johnt22

Got an email from British Gas today saying there was no need to send a meter reading as we have a smart meter. 

We do have a smart meter for electricity, but not for gas... taking notice of what they say might lead to us being overcharged. 

[Deleted User]

Hi,

are you thinking of the £400 energy rebate, it only applies to electricity.

Ultrasonic

It might also lead to you being undercharged. Submitting a reading at the end of the month ensures bill accuracy, but a calculation back from a later reading may be in your favour or not. There is certainly no reason for everyone to focus on having submit a reading specifically on 30 September as opposed to roughly around that date, and so not stressing if we find all the energy company websites crash again. Which I'd expect to be honest.

EssexHebridean

I believe Martin's advice this time round is to send in a reading this week at some stage, which seems fairly sound. I agree that telling people not to read meters without qualification is likely to lead to a fair number of folk taking that to heart and just not bothering though. 

Grizzlebeard

Basically a very crude way (without explanation) of stopping web/telephone traffic because they know their website and phone lines are going to crash again.

At least Octopus explain and give you a week or two to get readings in.

Xbigman

British Gas sent me a dedicated link to be able to submit meter readings for the 30th September and they can accept them up to the 14th of October and apply the reading to the 30th.
This actually looks sensible from BG (I never thought I'd say that) giving that everyone will try to log in on the same day otherwise.


Darren