Smart Meter Upgrade Misery

smudge2013

In April British Gas sent me an e-mail saying my smart meters were due for upgrade. They were the old gen1 version and due upgrade to gen2. I duly booked in the appointment and the smart meters were fitted without issue. The fitter assured me in a few days the British Gas app would update showing my new meters. The weeks went by and although the gas meter updated fairly quickly, the electricity just remained showing the old meter serial number. It then came round to taking meter readings time, so BG started estimating and basing by bills on what it thought my old meter would be showing, the meter which had been scrapped weeks earlier.

I have had numerous chats with British Gas customer care who keep assuring me that the meter details will be updated. So far all they have managed is to update the meter so the old meter no longer shows, but it still doesn't know what the current meter serial number is, simply showing it as "Unavailable". It also offers me a single/dual rate option, again showing the system has no idea what my meter is. It has now been over 10 weeks since the smart meter installation.

The only positive is I do think the meter is working itself. All of the communication lights flash green every few seconds as they should on the connection device above the meter. In my BG account under the energy usage page, I can see BG are getting daily usage data.

My big worry is that despite giving British Gas a final reading from my old meter, they will double bill me for the estimated usage on the old meter (even with it ripped out) and the actual usage on the new meter. I also wonder if they are ever going to be able to sort this problem out so my new meter with the correct serial number shows in my account.

The frustrating thing for me, is I didn't even need to do this upgrade. I just followed the request from BG. To say I have epic levels of regret now is an understatement. I just do not know where to turn next.

flaneurs_lobster

As long as you have the final meter readings for the old meters then I don't think that there's much reason to worry about double billing. Have you had a statement of usage since the changeover?

EssexHebridean

Have you raised this as a formal complaint yet? If not, then I would do so - 10 weeks is plenty of time for them to have addressed this, and that they are insisting on raising estimated bills for a protracted length of time is inconvenient at best.

Watch out for them attempting to close the complaint before the matter is actually sorted out - BG have a habit of doing this from what we've seen here, presumably because they feel it restarts the clock on an Ombudsman escalation.