Scottish power multiplied my meter reading by a factor of ten!!!

BUTTSY

Thanks. But it really is frustrating dealing with them. Yes it could be a genuine error, but they will not change back to my original estimates and refuse to admit the meter is faulty. At the same time I think I have been a little foolish and maybe should have stuck to just posting an image of the real problem and that is just the blank display when I press the green button for a reading. I have posted two cropped versions. One is the illuminated blank screen when pressing the green button and the other is when the illuminated screen dims and displays the culprit number that has caused me much whoa. Yes I have time stamp versions on Google Photos.

[Deleted User]

“I was asked” does not mean “I have sent”.

At no point in the original post was the initial reading confirmed to be from a photograph.

As I specifically pointed out, this has historically been an approach to address when a customer has provided an usual reading, such as typing in a number including decimal places and such like.

It generally helps to read the post, and probably the remainder of the thread, before attacking a contributor.

As you appear to have unilaterally determined that my contributions are unhelpful, I will leave you to address the concerns.

BUTTSY

[Deleted User] said:

“I was asked” does not mean “I have sent”.

At no point in the original post was the initial reading confirmed to be from a photograph.

As I specifically pointed out, this has historically been an approach to address when a customer has provided an usual reading, such as typing in a number including decimal places and such like.

It generally helps to read the post, and probably the remainder of the thread, before attacking a contributor.

As you appear to have unilaterally determined that my contributions are unhelpful, I will leave you to address the concerns.

Yes maybe I should have been a bit clearer and possibly it was just an error when they omitted the decimal point. Just hoping it gets resolved.

QrizB

BUTTSY said:

Yes maybe I should have been a bit clearer and possibly it was just an error when they omitted the decimal point. Just hoping it gets resolved.

If you read the other threads I provided a link to earlier, you'll see it is *not* just an error where they omitted the decimal point. Your meter has a fault, has reset itself and needs to be replaced.

Your meter is not meant to display three decimal places, only one.

Your meter reading used to be something like 08000.0 kWh, five digits plus one decimal place. If you check your old records you'll see that.

Some time since you last gave a reading, the meter has decided to start counting again from zero and with three decimal places. It is now reading 1289.169kWh, four digits plus three decimal places. This is not correct.

There are three possible outcomes from this, only one of which is going to be any good for you:

1. The current one. SP think your meter has gone from 08000 to 12890 and want to charge you for 4890 kWh.
2. Worse. SP think your meter has gone "around the clock" from 08000 to 01289 and want to charge you for 93289 kWh.
3. Better. You convince SP that your meter has the same fault that all the other ones of the same model in those other threads had. SP replace your meter and bill you for your estimated usage since your last good reading.

There is no satisfactory way out of this without your meter being replaced by SP.

BUTTSY

QrizB said:

BUTTSY said:

Yes maybe I should have been a bit clearer and possibly it was just an error when they omitted the decimal point. Just hoping it gets resolved.

If you read the other threads I provided a link to earlier, you'll see it is *not* just an error where they omitted the decimal point. Your meter has a fault, has reset itself and needs to be replaced.

Your meter is not meant to display three decimal places, only one.

Your meter reading used to be something like 08000.0 kWh, five digits plus one decimal place. If you check your old records you'll see that.

Some time since you last gave a reading, the meter has decided to start counting again from zero and with three decimal places. It is now reading 1289.169kWh, four digits plus three decimal places. This is not correct.

There are three possible outcomes from this, only one of which is going to be any good for you:

1. The current one. SP think your meter has gone from 08000 to 12890 and want to charge you for 4890 kWh.
2. Worse. SP think your meter has gone "around the clock" from 08000 to 01289 and want to charge you for 93289 kWh.
3. Better. You convince SP that your meter has the same fault that all the other ones of the same model in those other threads had. SP replace your meter and bill you for your estimated usage since your last good reading.

There is no satisfactory way out of this without your meter being replaced by SP.

Thank you QrizB. But it's so frustrating to deal with them. I have only been on the phone to them a handful of times and find myself talking to people who haven't a clue and have told me all sorts of rubbish. And the chat lines are not much better. Someone on their side actually raised a complaint on my behalf just when I was about to. Whether they knew something was wrong with the meter or they thought I was hoodwinking them I'm not sure?  I have now a complaint advisor who has tried to tell me that it's normal to omit the decimal point. WHAT?

I photographed a reading this morning of 1376.508kwh. Back in March it was 0732.361kwh.

So 1376,508-732.361=644.147 kwh. My usage for a year is typically about 1100kwh to 1600kwh. I live alone in a three bed terrace and taking in the fact I'm not there much. Not to mention these reading are from the end of winter, through summer and to the present - they may well be typical.

So then, from this if we take Scottish Powers formula for dealing with this and omit the decimal point. From March till now I will have used 6441.47 kwh. So by about next March I reckon they could be billing me for about 11000kwh to 16000kwh. What?

Meantime they have increased my direct debit from about £100 to £291. It would have increased anyway due to the price hike, but not by that much.

The other frustrating thing is that I have to wait 8 weeks for the complaint to go through until I can contact the Ombudsman - or I get a deadlock letter.  Meanwhile I am being charged for electricity I will never use and will I get the money back?. I considered informing SP that I would cancel my direct debit and pay them monthly based on my original estimate until this is sorted out. But once you get into a legal dispute, the Ombudsman doesn't want to know.

I am recording every email though as evidence and photos of the meter. I have emailed them to say I would like the meter independently testing as by GOV.UK guidelines. But very little response. Citizens advice are tracking it and they say they have an internal systems that gets forwarded to bods in SP. But lets hope....and I will keep at them.

EssexHebridean

They are right about omitting the decimal point - it's just they're forgetting to add the salient bit of information that you also leave out everything AFTER the decimal point, too! 

Great info from QrizB about the previously recorded faults - at least you can go back to them with a bit more information on the subject now. 

BUTTSY

EssexHebridean said:

They are right about omitting the decimal point - it's just they're forgetting to add the salient bit of information that you also leave out everything AFTER the decimal point, too! 

Great info from QrizB about the previously recorded faults - at least you can go back to them with a bit more information on the subject now. 

As said I sent them an image of my meter which clearly displays 1298.169kwh of which they took this as a customer reading. This was obviously less what would have been on the estimated accumulated kwh's of my meter of about 8500kwh since the meter had been installed. So I think it didn't look right to them and so they omitted the decimal point and turned it into 12981kwh. But if that meter has reset itself sometime last year. It is possible it is tracking my usage inline with my yearly consumption.

At the end of the day though, all I should be able to do in order to take a reading is press the green button and get a correctly formatted number displaying either just 6 numbers,  or 6 numbers followed by a decimal point followed by a number. All I get is a blank illuminated display. I want a working meter!