Smart meters on the News - Being switched to prepayment without notice.

[Deleted User]

Chrysalis said:

I should have said seem to be, its normally though that if they are resistant to changes been made to improve the industry and have more than what is expected of public knowledge of how the suppliers work (internal processes).  I think someone did declare he used to work for the grid.

Isn't that entirely legitimate though?  Someone who has better knowledge of how suppliers work internally arguing against the "evil and malicious supplier out to scam everyone" line that is often pushed?

I often come down more on the side of the industry than many posters here, and (as you will see in my signature) that is my career background - I can't be more specific in the signature because that would be potentially de-anonymising and the forum doesn't allow that in this circumstance.  That doesn't mean that I'm a supplier shill, or that I say "suppliers are never wrong".

It's normally more "don't assume malicious action when a simple mistake is an adequate explanation" or "don't take a loud minority as direct evidence of a widespread systemic issue" - do you disagree with either perspective?

Or are we now suggesting that those with expertise and additional knowledge should be excluded from having a perspective simply because they have the additional knowledge?

70sbudgie

It seems that OFGEM shares the concern expressed here about remote switching to prepayment.

Apologies that only the headline and intro are visible.
https://utilityweek.co.uk/suppliers-put-on-notice-over-prepayment-remote-switching/

MattMattMattUK

Chrysalis said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Chrysalis said:

Deleted_User said:

Chrysalis said:

Ectophile said:

mr_stripey said:

Was covered in detail earlier this week but to to pick up on this point, I fail to see how not disconnecting someone could be inferred has "disconnection by the back door".

When someone is on a credit meter, but can't pay the bill, then disconnecting them for non payment involves a long process, and going through the courts.  The customer gets a chance to plead their case, and the energy company may find the court delays the disconnection.

Switch someone to prepayment, and as soon as they run out of credit on the meter (and run out of emergency credit), then the power goes off.  But it's called "self disconnection", so the energy company can deny any responsibility, and no court is involved.

So if you want to disconnect someone who simply can't pay, remotely switch them to prepayment, and their power will go off in a few days.

Well explained, it seems the fix for this is to still require a court order for remote changes to the smart meter.  The remote control should be a means of reducing physical labour but not bypassing the legal process.  So ofgem really has failed here (again) letting this happen.

That could be a decent fix - but I presume you mean changing someone onto prepayment remotely rather than needing a court order for every tariff change?

Has anyone actually got an example though, where a customer has been remotely changed onto prepayment without notice and without being in substantial debt that they have not agreed a plan to resolve?

This seems to be a stable door / horse thing again - surely the better answer is to deal with the situation before the customer is in massive debt, rather than worrying about what happens once they are?  Most of the media examples (of course, and not necessarily representative) have involved people who haven't paid their bill for several years and often haven't read their meter.

Notice isnt the issue here, its the bypass of legal process.

There is no bypass of a legal process, there is no legal process required. In theory there was never a legal process to fit a physical pre-payment meter either, the court order was for access to the premises to fit the meter, it was not permission to fit the meter itself which is not required.

Chrysalis said:

Of course preventative actions are always preferable, but what happens here?  Fixed DD system allows debt to be built up quite easy.  The only preventative action I can think of as a short term measure is requiring a good credit history to be on fixed DD billing, or to restrict fixed DD to a very low debt balance at which point action is taken at a much earlier stage.  

Preventative action in the short term would be submitting regular meter readings or having a smart meter report readings correlated against Direct Debits (things like EDF's 6 month billing cycle make that somewhat problematic), whole month billing/variable Direct Debit also solve the issue, although with seasonal fluctuations in bill amounts being difficult for some people.

There is a balance between not allowing customers to get into debt and also not requiring them to carry too much of a credit, the problem is it can be difficult for the suppliers to balance on an individual level as people are changing usage patterns, but they generally cannot win, people whinge if they get into debt, they also whinge if they have a large credit balance and they seem to whinge even more when they cannot understand that energy prices have gone up and that means that their monthly Direct Debit has to go up. A model which was pay monthly in full, or pre-pay would be the simplest overall to avoid the issues of debt or credit balances, unfortunately it also introduces other issues, hence the lack of a perfect answer. 

There is people with smart meters with inaccurate billings. (although granted the bill usually been higher than the usage not lower).

Again on MSE it seems there is assumptions been made about the suppliers (they are never wrong).  

I think many people think that supplier can get things wrong, the most common one seems to be the mix up between imperial and metric when it comes to gas billing, mistakes do seem to have also happened during SoLR and other transfers. It is not that they are never wrong, they are, but it is that the vast majority of cases where people come on here claiming that their supplier is wrong the supplier is correct, the consumer for a variety of reasons does not understand their bills/account.

Chrysalis said:
A lot of people seem to be affiliated to the suppliers on here?

The comments from some posters, usually the short term, belligerent ones who seem to lack the ability to post rationally is to claim that everyone who disagrees with them is in the employ of the energy suppliers, that is a straw man and an attempt to distract from them being wrong.

Chrysalis said:

If the court process is just for access to the property has a judge ever denied that permission?

I do not know for sure, but a judge probably has denied permission. Judges do not generally grant access to people's homes for frivolous reasons. As others have pointed out in blocks of flats with meters in communal areas do not require a judges permission, access can instead be obtained via the freeholder. Access can also be obtained via landlords in rented property using the reasonable access stipulations in most leases.

Chrysalis said:

I have a family member who has convinced her supplier to set a DD lower than her usage on the basis she cant afford to pay for her usage and they did it, so yes this can happen on fixed DD billings with actual meter readings provided.  It can also happen if usage suddenly increases on fixed meter billing as fixed DD doesnt adapt to higher usage until a year later.

There are always going to be exceptions, difficulties with changes of usage, margins of error etc. however the idea that it is some conspiracy is far fetched. The solution which would remove the vast majority of these billing issues would be everyone having smart meters and everyone paying for their usage in full every month, personally I have no problem with that but I understand that there are many who would struggle to budget over a year under that system.

deano2099

Chrysalis said:

There is people with smart meters with inaccurate billings. (although granted the bill usually been higher than the usage not lower).

Again on MSE it seems there is assumptions been made about the suppliers (they are never wrong).  A lot of people seem to be affiliated to the suppliers on here?

It's not that, it's just that most of the time, if the consumer and the supplier disagree, the supplier will be right. Not always, certainly. And you'll see cases every week on here where they are wrong. But generally, the supplier has a far better understanding of the whole thing than your average consumer. Therefore starting from the point that the supplier has it right is usually a better starting point. Plus the practicality is when people post in here, we can have a conversation with them so it's actually far easier to check they've not got anything wrong. Whereas we can't talk to their supplier on their behalf.

(This is of course, all assuming we're ascribing mistakes by suppliers to incompetence, and don't believe that suppliers set out to purposefully defraud as many customers as possible .)