Smart meters. Has anyone had a bad experience?

We keep getting postcards and emails from OVO trying to give us a smart electricity meter - free!! We don't want one, and it would appear from the available times that they offer us, that nobody else in the area does either. I don't think the mobile reception is good enough here anyway.

Good luck, Greciangirl with fighting them off. If you don't want a smart meter, you don't have to have one, whatever they say.

Lots on a previous chat here.

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I just had EDF on the phone telling me it is a legal requirement that they fit one. Anyone help me with best way to respond to this bullying on the telephone? I'm otherwise completely satisfied with their service and have been for many years.

We have had a smart meter for years - the inhouse display stopped working about 5yrs ago and they told me the inhouse display i have is obsolete!!! I cannot have a replacement. Tread carefully is my advice.

I absolutely refuse to have one, so have blocked their calls and txts and I agnore their emails. What can they do.. they can hardly break into my house..

I have a smart electricity meter, I have had it for over 3 years. Ihave had no problem at all and I am now trying to get a gas one as well.

I am getting fed up having to taake monthly meter readings to make sure I am builled correctly (I pay on monthly usage, not on bills averaged over the year)

You posted earlier this month about this Greciangirl.

Has the meter reader not been until now?

As far as I’m aware, you are not under any legal obligation to have a smart meter fitted. The government are very anxious to have them rolled out as quickly as possible but they can’t make you have one. What the energy companies do is to offer tariff incentives for you to change to a smart meter.

All they’ve offered us so far is a prize draw to win a year’ free electricity. Yeah, right!

I've had offers of free entries into a cash draw if I let them fit a smart meter. No thanks.

We are being conned. Some years ago, BG installed one in my house, uninvited. A while later, I wanted to change utility provider and was horrified to be told that I owed over £2,000. The meter said so. We are very mean with gas and electricity (I am currently sitting here in 9 degrees with a blankie, a hairy dog and a hottie!!). BG had the audacity to say that, during two summer months, we used more gas and electricity than in the depths of winter. The boiler was not on. But the meter "said so".

I had to pay that bill. The final invoice from BG to close the account actually said that the reading was accurate as it came from the smart meter. I have this in writing. The meter had been unplugged for several months due to on-going renovations!!! The regulator believed the smart meter, not me or previous bills.

DON'T HAVE ONE IN THE HOUSE. They are inaccurate and untrustworthy. The scary thing is, how we are all going to be manipulated and controlled in our own homes by these blasted machines. Think about it.

Oh dear - I have one in the house 😩

I have never had a problem, over 30 million households have them, the vast majority have never had problems, I personally have not known anyone that has.

I won’t agree to having one installed. Whilst on holiday a few years ago I was chatting to a chap who was a project manager for implementation of smart meters. He explained it was about the utility companies having to meet set targets and nothing else! Sorry can’t remember who he said set the target's.

I have had one for at least a couple of years. No issues whatsoever. I am able to monitor how much energy I am using hour by hour if I so wish. I know to the last £ how much I owe. My bills are never a shock and we can alter our energy use immediately if we think it is getting out of hand. There is a lot of information it gives me from how much my kettle takes to boil, to the cost of various electric fires - one in particular is much more energy efficient than the other - to gas central heating use by the hour and weather!
I suspect that have a smart meter has encouraged us to use less energy.

Overall I like the smart meter as it gives me total control.

I keep getting letters urging me to have one. They make it sound as though it's compulsory. I have told them to sort out the problems with them first, and then I might consider it.

Had them for years with no problems. The home display thingy has never been out of the box as it is not a necessary part of the meter. I can check my usage with a phone app if I want.

We have had one for years never been a problem. As far as I am concerned have no desire to keep reading my meter and sending figures to energy company.

If you read the complaints of various fuel providers you will see that a great many complaints are around smart meters

I resisted for years, then relented and said ok, they made a date and time, duly came out, took my electric meter out, then man got a phone call to say, leave the job there’s a problem …so he put my old meter back in and I ve never heard a peep from them since that was about 3or 4 years ago.
It takes me literally one minute every month to read my two meters and another minute to send it off Not really a major concern and I feel better in control after being charged £6000 which eventually came to light they were charging for my gas and some other duplicate meter I didn’t have
My trust is nt 100%

Bluebelle i assume your meters are somewhere convenient. One of ours is on the floor, right at the back of the understairs cupboard. DH can no longer get down to read it. I just find it a hassle as the cupboard is also the broom cupboard and I need to empty it first and get a torch, read the meter, write it down and then put everything back in the cupboard.

The other meter is in a cupboard in the garden. To be fair that is a smart meter, so I never need to waste time going out in the rain to read it.

I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. I had one, which was faulty and Scottish Gas said I owed £7000 for three months gas over last summer, so not even for the winter period. 😱
The amount kept changing.
They refused to believe it was faulty and took huge amounts from our bank account. I was told if I froze the DD, they would send in the baillifs. They even had the nerve to offer us debt counselling. 🤬

It has taken a year and three meters later, (a further two were faulty) to resolve the issue. I now have a brand new old fashioned one.
Ever time we were told the complaint had been resolved, the emails started all over again.
Thank goodness were were on the ball and provide spreadsheets of former usage.

We have one it tells us what our daily consumption is, which is useful.
I can't think of any negatives.

We’ve had one for about three years, no problems and I don’t know of anyone with any issues either.

Kim19

I just had EDF on the phone telling me it is a legal requirement that they fit one. Anyone help me with best way to respond to this bullying on the telephone? I'm otherwise completely satisfied with their service and have been for many years.

You have two options. The robust approach ( blunting telling them they are lying) or, put the number in your contacts and don’t answer the phone.
All the while you answer the phone they will keep calling.