octopus forcing smartmeter

imeach

The only insults I saw were about stupid meter readers 😂
Being one of those I can confirm all meter readers would have id and mostly visible on a lanyard round their neck. 
They would also be able to tell you your supplier, the bill payer's name (although not always available), any previous visits, serial numbers etc and a password if you have one set up. 

On the estimated bill side, quite often customers receive estimates after the meter reader has read the meter. 
The main reason for our visit is a 'visual inspection of the meter and the reading confirms our visit'. 
All suplliers sub contract their meter reading so are obviously paying these companies to get reads so really makes no sense why they don't use those reads for billing. 

Newbie_John

I had a person reading my meter yesterday first time ever (possibly as I was never around during the day, then COVID etc.)
And I asked for their ID which meant nothing to me - some random name like John Smith, with some random company name Colisen that I never heard of.. the guy came, took a reading, left.Totally pointless but what do I have to hide Happy to share my usage with anyone..

Since I have smart meter it allowed me to understand how my house works - what runs when, how much things cost. All this applied with Octopus Agile resulted in £550 saved on electricity bill between December and now.

Every meter can go wrong and under/over report, but with a smart meter it's so easy to spot it earlier on and get it sorted quickly.

Qyburn

avenue12 said:

So many comments! Thanks all, I've contacted Octopus already to ask why our bill was estimated and if he was a legit meter reader. Thanks for the phone no whoever it was provided, if there is.no reply soon I will call them.

In addition I think it would be worthwhile putting in a meter reading of your own, on the web site. Your reading should over ride the earlier estimate and get the overall bill correct.

I had to do this a few times when training Octopus to bill once a month. For example they sent an estimated bill covering up to 28th November (over estimating), then my meter reading on 1st December triggered the next bill covering 29th-30th November for -58kWh and adding appropriate credit to the account.

EssexHebridean

Newbie_John said:

I had a person reading my meter yesterday first time ever (possibly as I was never around during the day, then COVID etc.)
And I asked for their ID which meant nothing to me - some random name like John Smith, with some random company name Colisen that I never heard of.. the guy came, took a reading, left.Totally pointless but what do I have to hide Happy to share my usage with anyone..

Since I have smart meter it allowed me to understand how my house works - what runs when, how much things cost. All this applied with Octopus Agile resulted in £550 saved on electricity bill between December and now.

Every meter can go wrong and under/over report, but with a smart meter it's so easy to spot it earlier on and get it sorted quickly.

This (my bit in bold) is actually probably something that gets overlooked - smart meters encourage many people to engage that much more with their energy use, and so yes, when there is an issue it is more likely to get picked up I imagine. Even those of us who have always ensured that we have taken regular readings etc can now have an even more exact knowledge of what we use - and that can help us to drill down to an individual appliance not behaving as it should, perhaps, but the possibility of spotting a discrepancy in a meter in itself isn't often really referred to. 

Newbie_John

EssexHebridean said:

Newbie_John said:

I had a person reading my meter yesterday first time ever (possibly as I was never around during the day, then COVID etc.)
And I asked for their ID which meant nothing to me - some random name like John Smith, with some random company name Colisen that I never heard of.. the guy came, took a reading, left.Totally pointless but what do I have to hide Happy to share my usage with anyone..

Since I have smart meter it allowed me to understand how my house works - what runs when, how much things cost. All this applied with Octopus Agile resulted in £550 saved on electricity bill between December and now.

Every meter can go wrong and under/over report, but with a smart meter it's so easy to spot it earlier on and get it sorted quickly.

This (my bit in bold) is actually probably something that gets overlooked - smart meters encourage many people to engage that much more with their energy use, and so yes, when there is an issue it is more likely to get picked up I imagine. Even those of us who have always ensured that we have taken regular readings etc can now have an even more exact knowledge of what we use - and that can help us to drill down to an individual appliance not behaving as it should, perhaps, but the possibility of spotting a discrepancy in a meter in itself isn't often really referred to. 

Quite a few issues with high electricity bills I've seen here on MSE were actually down to broken/incorrectly set up storage heaters/immersion tanks etc. With analogue reader you need to monitor it daily, note the different values and calculate how much you have used at night, how much during the day - not really knowing exactly when it runs.
With a smart meter you can just check things in the app - if you believed that you X 3kW device should run 2-4am and Y 2kW device at 4-7am it's so easy to check if that actually happeend. With analougue you need to wake up at 4am to prove it, especially if you have some E7/E10 set up that can only be tested at night.

LeesArt

 LeesArt said:

EssexHebridean said:

Just to clarify - an end of life meter is a situation where a consumer CAN be forced to have a smart meter, as a replacement is then indicated as required, and the meters available to make that replacement are SMETS2 meters. 

Refusing to let an installer in to the house in this situation is not really good advice - as the consumer will be very much in the wrong.

I wasn't advising to refuse to let an installer into the house, I said don't let anyone without adequate ID into the house and I said if he followed that path

"Now if you are adamant that you don't want it you can not let them in and tell them they will have to get a warrant, I doubt Octopus would do that, they would look for lower hanging fruit."

Anyone CAN refuse entry to anybody coming into their home, but I explained that they will have to get a warrant and expressed an opinion (which I am entitled to do for as long as this is a free country) that I doubted they would do that.

Advice would be me saying "My Advice is you do this" or "I suggest you do that".

Unlike others who simply insulted the OP I sought to answer his expressed queries and explained the likely outcomes, in my opinion

   

EssexHebridean said:

There are no "insulting" comments to the OP on the thread that I can see - everyone is being very courteous and trying to assist, then there is a bit of nostalgia and banter about 1970's power cuts. Perhaps you are confusing this with another thread? 

I'm also not going to get into semantics about a definition of "advice". 

I will reiterate my position that refusing to let an meter installer into the house in this situation would not be a sensible way of proceeding, and should not be being suggested as a viable option for the OP. End of life meter replacement is often taken pretty seriously by suppliers for several reasons - not least that if an out of date meter fails and causes an issue, they will want it to be clear that they fulfilled their duty of care to ensure that it was changed over in a timely manner.  

I will reiterate that I did NOT give that advice, nor did I suggest it, nor did I say it was a sensible way of proceeding, nor did I say I was viable.  At best it might be a delaying tactic, if you think of an accountant chasing monies due and with targets to achieve, they will always go for the low hanging fruit first.  

We all know that in the end they will make it mandatory to have a Smart Meter or they will allow them a punitive tariff for non smart meters.  

Just as we all know that there will always be a 2% who will never let them force it upon them, but when they move home they find it has a Smart Meter and some will become the biggest advocate.

OFGEM are already "consulting" aka preparing to authorise  

Energy prices could change at different times of the day

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68655725

Just as they launch a "discussion" on the price cap, but we all know the outcome, there will likely be a tiny concession for the vulnerable and everyone else will just pay pay pay, business as usual.

Ofgem launches discussion on the future of the price cap

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-launches-discussion-future-price-cap

It is absurd to suggest that suddenly these out of date meters are a duty of care issue at this time, people have had absolute relic meters for decades and Energy Companies had no desire to change them.  The fact that they so many people post how this is suddenly and urgent thing suggests that they have found a way to legitimately cattle prod people into doing it.

I personally have had two different energy companies try this on, the first property had 5 to 10 years, but it was in impeccable condition, they put a lot of pressure on me.  For my current property I looked up the meter and checked the date, it will reach end of life between 2037 and 2042.  However, in the situation of the OP I did point out that based on their description it sounded as if it was out of date, I suspect it has been out of date for 5 to 10 years, but of course they were in no hurry to change it until they have a financial incentive.  In fact that is what Greg was asking for in his interview. 

What is disturbing is the way this person was sent without first informing the customer, that he was reticent to provide ID and suddenly an estimated read.  This only makes people more suspicious and some will be concerned that he interfered with the meter, it is probably an unfounded concern but if they had written to their customers in a positive way in the first place it would be better.

They know the serial number and model of every meter in the country because there is a central database that anyone can use to search who their supplier is when they move home.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/finding-your-energy-supplier-or-network-operator

The OP is with Octopus and as I said in my post above, they provide the best incentives to install a Smart Meter.. In their position I would write and inform the customer that they suspect their meter is at end of life and give them a small incentive or they could simply let the customer thing they are in control and it is their decision.

I see that the Octopus mini home is on back order so for me that is a disincentive in my personal decision making process.  I see that there is a wait list but not for me.

https://youtu.be/JGCN10nb5IU

LeesArt

Reed_Richards said:

avenue12 said:

...... I doubt a new smart meter will fit in our self made cupboard so will ruin our indoor wall. Any ideas please?

Based on my own experience, if a smart meter will not fit in the space available, it will not be fitted.  There won't be any wall ruining.

Sadly that is not my experience, especially on the Gas meters, where I lived before we had the usual  brown boxes with a lid that lifts up, with the analogue meter it could close, with the Smart Gas Meter is was huge and would not close at all, the box filled with water in no time and it was unsightly because litter would blow in there.

I suspect it depends on the model the supplier plans to put in, my previous suppliers would not agree to provide me with a specific model and so I declined to move.  Octopus seem to have a brand (Secure Liberty) and there are videos on YouTube showing others that they used to install.

LeesArt

dunstonh said:

hubb said:

 I was berated by many aggressively defensive smart meter fans on the Tracker thread (and my posts flagged and banned!!!) for refusing to have one installed thus forfeiting the Tracker tariff (which turned out better for me in the end as prices are dropping in April) And yet what did we see in the BBC news a couple of days ago - up to 4 million "smart" meters not working properly and putting people into debt (smacks of the Post Office Horizon story doesn't it)  

According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnez), 2.7 million were not operating in smart mode as of June 2023. It has since revised this figure to 4.31 million, citing reporting errors from a minority of suppliers.

At the end of last year, 3.98 million were faulty.

I rest my case. Now I'll put my tin hat on and wait for the barrage of flak.

Your case is not rested as the "faulty" figures include all those that do not communicate and effectively turn into conventional meters.  If you are looking at truly faulty meters and not including broken or missing IHDs or communication then you find that the ratio of faulty smart meters is in the same ballpark as conventional meters.

Comparing it to the post office scandal is disgraceful.  you should be ashamed of yourself.  People were prosecuted and their lives ruined.    A smart meter that doesn't communicate effectively turns into a conventional meter.   How is that comparable?

I don't know if I can agree with your position, the whole point of the Smart Meter project was to give accurate reads automatically, so them going into "conventional" mode is a serious fault and the issue is that they have not carried out the firmware upgrades which millions of homes need.

When they were being berated for installing SMET1 they said they could install the firmware remotely, but that does not seem to be the case or why would they have this backlog, it can't just be the money that Greg referred to.

Also there are other serious faults, like a smart reader reporting on a meter 270 miles away, this was reported in January

https://web.archive.org/web/20240123232443/https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-12997659/My-smart-meter-charged-house-270-miles-away-devices-going-haywire.html

and again a few weeks ago on Dean Dunham consumer show at 400 plus miles away.  The simple fact is that there is more to go wrong so these meters will have a shorter mean time between failures.  This is not a new thing, buy a super whizz £800 washing machine and the electronics are going to be more complex, yet the £300 cheaper one is still going strong since 2012 was a better buy.  However, consumers have no choice what meter they get nor are they informed on what level of investment is put in by their supplier.  So if Tat Energy Plc puts in a duff meter one can understand why the current supplier Great Energy Plc are not keen to replace or service it.

It is not disgraceful to compare deliberate corporate policies that are draconian and unfair, this is a way of silencing people's right to express an opinion, do not use the H word or the G word, albeit that the scale of the atrocity is way different, one has to look at intent, there was no intend to deny the atrocity by Hubb.

The simple fact is that the Smart Meter programme has been been flawed from the start, then there has been bad behaviour by some Energy Companies and millions of consumers have been pressured into having kit that turns out was outdated, they knew it was outdated and they got paid between £10bn to 15bn to do it.

They will argue that it was regulation, targets, incentives and penalties, so on reflection millions affected in an inconvenient way (that costs them money because we all pay for this) versus 750 with life changing and obscene policy, cover up, private prosecution, suicides, break up of families, lost home, lost business, lost reputation.  Obviously not the same but the core issue is corporate decision making.

LeesArt

MeteredOut said:

hubb said:

 I was berated by many aggressively defensive smart meter fans on the Tracker thread (and my posts flagged and banned!!!) for refusing to have one installed thus forfeiting the Tracker tariff (which turned out better for me in the end as prices are dropping in April) And yet what did we see in the BBC news a couple of days ago - up to 4 million "smart" meters not working properly and putting people into debt (smacks of the Post Office Horizon story doesn't it)  

According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnez), 2.7 million were not operating in smart mode as of June 2023. It has since revised this figure to 4.31 million, citing reporting errors from a minority of suppliers.

At the end of last year, 3.98 million were faulty.

I rest my case. Now I'll put my tin hat on and wait for the barrage of flak.

Smart meters not working do not "put people into debt" and that's not what the BBC report said.

Where the system has failed is people not noticing they are being billed on estimated readings (and I do think Ofgem should be pushing suppliers to make that clearer on bills) and running up debit accounts due to their direct debit not covering their energy usage.

"A smart meter not sending readings does not put someone into debt - a meter unable to be read at all could contribute to someone ending up in debt, but even in that case that person would be well advised to use their past use figures to work out what they anticipated their energy would cost them, add 10% on top, and then to put that amount of money aside until needed to pay the inevitable bills - this isn't exactly rocket science. That is called budgeting, and budgeting prevents debt, in the vast majority of cases."

I think this issue of putting people into debt is subjective, not everyone are money saving experts, they set up a direct debit and expect it to be based on accurate reads, they have a busy life and just leave it to the energy company and their bank.

The back billing rules are supposed to protect someone but listen to Dean Dunham and Daniel Barnet shows on LBC to hear cases where someone notices when an outrageous Direct Debt is suddenly being demanded.  When the case is drilled down the Energy Company has not read the meter in the 2 year maximum, the Energy Company were fully aware the Smart Meter was not giving reads. The Energy Company provided electronic bills based on estimates in their portal but the Customer did not even look at their bills, they had a new baby, a job change, basic life admin.  It was not prominently highlighted to them that they were using excessive energy or that the meter was faulty, like many people they put the IHD in a drawer and just paid the direct debit.

Yet the Consumer is expected to be on top of this, I think this is blaming the victim who trusted the Energy Supplier and now has a £7k bill.  That puts a huge stress on someone who wull be charged even more if they cancel their Direct Debit, you can be sure that the Smart Meter will be "fixed" promptly so that it can be turned into a debt meter.  Meanwhile the customer has to prove their usage is lower, work out what one years usage is, then go to the ombudsman.  A process that could take well over a year.

That is putting the customer into debt 

LeesArt

imeach said:

The only insults I saw were about stupid meter readers 😂
Being one of those I can confirm all meter readers would have id and mostly visible on a lanyard round their neck. 
They would also be able to tell you your supplier, the bill payer's name (although not always available), any previous visits, serial numbers etc and a password if you have one set up. 

On the estimated bill side, quite often customers receive estimates after the meter reader has read the meter. 
The main reason for our visit is a 'visual inspection of the meter and the reading confirms our visit'. 
All suplliers sub contract their meter reading so are obviously paying these companies to get reads so really makes no sense why they don't use those reads for billing. 

I have had an estimate bill when the meter reader mixed up the read and when a legit read was taken but it is obvious to the company that it is profoundly above or below what was expected.

You make a good point about it being sub-contracted,