Electricity meter bypassed

soozles_2 · 1 April 2023 at 11:40AM

This is a long read apologies.

My daughter moved into a flat in January this year, went to take a meter reading and we saw that the meter had been bypassed so contacted national grid who confirmed the did an industry bypass 4 months earlier due to the previous tenant having a faulty payg meter and the supplier did not attend to fix. The confirmed the supplier though my daughter had already signed up for a plan with OVO who were just waiting for readings and the switchover date to be confirmed. Previous supplier was SSE (I realise they are both now together) spoke to SSE as there was 3 weeks until the new OVO plan was due to start and the said they did not know it had been bypassed (NG confirmed they had informed them) the said that as prev tenant had payg they would have to install the same type of meter then come back at a later date to change the meter to be billed. Appointment made, they never turned up (received the compensation) then the switch over happened so then had similar convo with OVO who said they would attend in 3 weeks and they never turned up either and due to my daughters working hours she cannot ring them as their opening hours are the same as her working hours and has failed to get through before lunch breaks finish. They also haven’t replied to emails sent.

When she had her final SSE bill she challenged it as they tried to charge £75 for 11 days electric only usage and after speaking to them the said they calculated that using readings sent by the smart meter (there is not meter at all it has been completely removed) she asked for the readings they had and the dates the received them and they provided the same reading from 3 months before she moved in and the exact same reading for the date her contact started and then the final readings 11 days later. Thankfully after complaining and pointing out this information the reduced the bill to zero. Now with OVO she is receiving bills higher than she thought she would get (single person, very small 1 bed flat and she’s hardly ever home due to work etc) but the bills don’t state they are estimated yet they clearly are due to lack of an actual meter. Last email sent a few days ago giving them a deadline of a week to provide any meter readings they have automatically received and dates they received them as I assume they will do the same as SSE and tell her the bill is based off the readings (the stated that on every call she made)
but we’ve no idea what to do next. It’s their responsibility to maintain the meter which there isn’t 1 and obviously part of the standing charge is meter maintenance. Have looked online for advice but can’t find anything, even citizens advice couldn’t really help as they said they’ve never come across this issue they just told her to give them deadlines for email replies

any advice would be amazing.
thanks in advance