Electricity Suppliers - advice?

[JohnW2]

The customer him/herself could fudge the readings, to squeeze a little more from the cheaper supplier.

They could - and, IF the explanation of the 'verification process' I've read is correct, then they would get away with it unless they 'fudged' the numbers to a ridiculous extent. In particular, if the new supplier was going to be the cheaper, then they could 'fudge' the changeover day reading right down to just fractionally above the previous reading and, per the process I have read, inevitably 'get away with it'.

Yes, even with smart meters, they ask the customer to supply a manual reading and it goes through verification process. I have gone through the process three times now, with a fully functioning smart meter. They have never disputed the manual readings I have provided.

Am I the only person who thinks that is just plain ridiculous (and a waste of what will eventually be customers' money)? Why on earth should they even ask for, let alone 'trust', a customer's 'manual' reading if they have the ability to determine the actual reading themselves without having to step out of their office?!!

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Am I the only person who thinks that is just plain ridiculous (and a waste of what will eventually be customers' money)? Why on earth should they even ask for, let alone 'trust', a customer's 'manual' reading if they have the ability to determine the actual reading themselves without having to step out of their office?!!

Kind Regards, John

Indeed!

 

[JohnW2]

Indeed!

Quite - and if a 'verifier' is actually charging significant amounts for 'verifying' the final meter reading when it's a functioning 'smart' meter, that would be totally scandalous - and, again, at the cost of customer's pockets!

Is OFGEM not meant to be working in the interests of customers?

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Is OFGEM not meant to be working in the interests of customers?

Kind Regards, John

Judging by the mess they made in allowing the roll out of the seriously deficient SMETS 1 meters, plus not simply relying on the smart meter readings when they are available, then I would suggest they are not working in our interests at all.

How come E.on were able to just swap me over from one tariff to another instantly, no questions about meter readings at all?

 

[JohnW2]

Judging by the mess they made in allowing the roll out of the seriously deficient SMETS 1 meters, plus not simply relying on the smart meter readings when they are available, then I would suggest they are not working in our interests at all.

True.

In terms of what we are discussing, if it is OFGEM's view that one cannot rely on a functioning 'smart' meter to provide an accurate and trustworthy remote meter reading on the day that a customer changes supplier, then the whole concept of smart meters is surely flawed, such that they should be abandoned, isn't it?

How come E.on were able to just swap me over from one tariff to another instantly, no questions about meter readings at all?

I presume that all the things (and seemingly a good helping of 'nonsense') we are discussing only applies when one is changing supplier. If one is simply changing tariffs with the same supplier, that's no different from what has been happening every year for many of us - and is nothing more than a paper exercise relating to billing.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Laurence Harvey]

Switch-over day tomorrow isn't it?

 

[JohnW2]

Switch-over day tomorrow isn't it?

Yep - I've just received a reminder to give them meter readings tomorrow. Watch this space!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Generally (but it depends on the supplier) by keeping your eye on the meter reading submission section on your new suppliers website,...there will be (or should be ??) an annotation against your opening read/s that says ‘Customer’,...once verified it will (should??) change to ‘Industry’.

OK, so I have 'switched' today, and my new supplier (ESB) has sent me an e-mail to confirm that.

I have today provided both ESB and my old supplier (E.ON) with meter readings (and I also gave E.ON one yesterday, 'just to be sure'!). In the case of E.ON, in contrast to what has always happened in the past, the readings I provided today did not immediately appear in the list of my 'meter reading history', the most recent entries in which are ...

With ESB, the reading I gave them today did immediately appear on the 'All MY Meter Readings' page of their website, but all I currently see there is ...

Unless those squiggles to the left of the numbers have some meaning, there is no indication of the 'type' of reading ('customer', 'industry', 'meter reader' or whatever). This obviously might change, particularly once I have submitted more readings - but if it doesn't change (and assuming I don't discover some meaning of the squiggles!), I may not know that the verification process has been completed until I get a final bill from E.ON.

By my calculations, as of today I owe E.ON about £25.53. If they take a DD payment 'as planned' on 16th April, I have set that (on-line) for as low as I was able (£93, being 80% of the figure they 'recommend'), although they are obviously free to collect less than that amount if they so wish - so it remains to be seen what they actually do. In case anyone is interested, I'll keep you posted!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnD]

When I worked in that line, the changeover reading was sent to a central industry hub, with your Meterpoint number and changeover date, and the same number recorded by both the relinquishing and the acquiring supplier. Assuming the same, or a similar, process is still used, I would expect a "final" and a "start" reading to appear in the systems, with the changeover date, and to be the same. Perhaps there will be a delay.

 

[JohnW2]

When I worked in that line, the changeover reading was sent to a central industry hub, with your Meterpoint number and changeover date, and the same number recorded by both the relinquishing and the acquiring supplier. Assuming the same, or a similar, process is still used, I would expect a "final" and a "start" reading to appear in the systems, with the changeover date, and to be the same. Perhaps there will be a delay.

Indeed. From what I understand from what I've been told during the course of this thread, providing a 'final' meter reading to the 'old supplier' is probably a redundant process. As I understand what I have been told, what matters is the 'initial' reading one gives to the new supplier. They send that to the 'third-party verifier' and once it has been 'verified' (which I still think is a seemingly silly process, other than to detect major errors in reading meters), that figure is not only used as the starting point for the new supplier, but is also 'passed back' to the old supplier to facilitate their creation of a final bill'.

As I said, we'll see.

Kind Regards, John

 

[AndyPRK]

from past experience I now avoid giving the meter reading to the old and new supplier on the same day.

I know it sounds like a sensible idea to ensure the old supplier gets it! however the last time I did this that independent body verifying the meter readings decided on a different meter reading. They changed the digit shown with a T xxxTx

The old company decided to bill on the reading I gave them. The result of this was that I ended paying for some electricity twice!
I didn't bother to fight it on this occasion, but just remember not to supply both companies a reading.
And even if the agreed reading is wrong, at least I won't be paying twice which hurts further.

I've just switched over, but yet to receive my closing bill.

 

[winston1]

Why not. I'd have on them like a shot, pointing out the reading I gave them and accepted by the old company, and accusing them of theft?

 

[JohnW2]

from past experience I now avoid giving the meter reading to the old and new supplier on the same day.

Well, on this occasion, it's obviously too late for me to avoid doing it

I know it sounds like a sensible idea to ensure the old supplier gets it! however the last time I did this that independent body verifying the meter readings decided on a different meter reading. They changed the digit shown with a T xxxTx

I don't know what " T xxxTx" is - but, if the 'verification rules' to which I was recently directed are a true statement of the rules, then the "verifying organisation" are not meant/allowed to change the final reading (i.e. 'reject' the customer's one) unless it is grossly wrong - specifically, if it is either less that the previous reading or if it is so high as to imply that consumption since the previous reading was more than 2.5 times what it should be on the basis of historic reasons. Given that the 'previous ready' I gave to my supplier was only 24 hours before the final one, that doesn't give them much scope for 'rejecting' my reading, per those rules

Anyway, we'll see!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

I probably didn't mention this before (since I didn't initially notice myself!), but there's a fairly unique feature of the tariffs offered by the supplier (ESB) to whom I switched last week.

ESB offered me something close to the cheapest E7 tariff out there, which is the main reason I chose them.

Traditionally, there has always been a trade-off associated with dual-rate tariffs like E7, since the price one pays for having 7 hours of cheap electricity is that the price for the other 17 hours is greater than one would pay (for all of the 24 hours) with a single-rate tariff. For that reason, there has always been a threshold value (typically around 35% in the past) of "% usage at night", below which one's bills would become higher with E7 than without it.

However, my new ESB tariff charges 15.446 p/kWh for 'day' usage and 10.836 p/kWh for night usage, but the corresponding single-rate (i.e. not E7) tariff charges 16.16 p/kWh throughout the day and night.

That means that (uniquely in terms of what I've seen) with this supplier anyone would get smaller bills with E7, regardless of their day/night usage, since the non-E7 price is actually greater than the daytime price with E7. I don't know whether this is a mistake on their part, or what, but it sounds as if everyone who is with ESB is spending more than they need to if they are not on E7!

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

There seems very little difference in the day rates (with or without E7).

Even if the wrong way round, having E7 would presumably be cheaper in a lot of cases.

What were the comparisons of your old rates?