British Gas at it again

[Tay]

As per my Inverter / Batteries thread.h's the low down on British Gas - again

I'm paying less attention to the old monitoring system despite it working perfectly since I got the Victron stuff installed.

I'm relying more on the Victron VRM than my own monitoring solution, but recently I had to refer back to the system to spot the error in peak vs off peak usage and British Gas's billing/smart meter fiasco.

I spotted on my Feb bill that I had practically no off peak usage at all, I knew this was twaddle as I was charging my Bluetti AC300 battery nightly after midnight. I regularly used the dishwasher and washing machine after midnight to utilise the midnight to 5am window I have with British Gas

I checked my daily usage with my old monitoring gear which nicely split it out for me. Quite clearly I was using much off peak!!

Visually its quite obvious from the table but the lighter blue is peak and the darker blue is offpeak, I've hovered over one day so show the break down.

BG being BG tried to blame me with a suggestion that I wasn't using my off peak and perhaps I was using too much peak rate power. I was able to tell them exactly what my offpeak and Peak was usage was .

They went off to investigate, several days later I got a DM on twitter saying that there was indeed a problem with the smart meter rate 2 that wasnt updating, it was a knw problem that 'only' affected a small number of meters.. yeah right !!!

Apparently I was going to be contacted by the billing team to explain that I was eligible for up to £1.90 per day compensation, I mentioned that I had been over charged too, they went off to look again and finally agreed that in addition to the compensation of "up to" £1.90 per day they would recalc the last last 3-4 months. i never received a call, I just happened to be looking at the BG website to see if they had fixed the inability to show any electrical usage at all, which they handy but noticed my account was £176 in credit.

So, if your with BG check your bills, I wonder how many a 'small number of smart meters affected really is.

Also, to note, this isnt a billing issue per se, its the fact the Rate 2 on the smart meter wasnt reporting any use whatsoever, I have never had any faith in these smart meters but as soon as BG present the next bill I'm outa there. I should be quids in I reckon.

/And breath

[dan_b]

Come over to the Cephalopod supplier! Plenty on here can offer you a referral code I'm sure!

[AE-NMidlands]

Smart meters not working is currently in the news (and righly so.) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9zqn77ezno

Faulty smart meters rise to nearly four million
The number of smart meters in Great Britain not working properly has risen by over a million, the latest figures show.

According to data from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnez), 2.7 million were not operating in smart mode as of June 2023 - by the end of the year this had gone up to 3.98 million.

Customers have reported being hit by massive bills caused by faulty meters, and the Desnez says it is concerned that reporting errors by a minority of suppliers are behind the rise.

Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry, says suppliers are obliged to replace faulty meters.

etc.

[Moxi]

The real story is the criminal negligence of the companies in not responding to reported errors and faults and correcting them in a timely fashion.

If OFGEM made the companies assume any fault is their and started a clock to investigate and fix before penalties I am sure it would improve matters, presently (as some on here know to their cost) its too easy for the companies to say " your meter is fine the bill is right you need to pay" irrespective of the end user knowing how much they have used.

So to me, an admitted anti smart meter troglodyte, the smart meters seem ok and maybe just above an acceptable error rate per unit and the real fault seems to be customer services who assume they are always right and the customer is always wrong.

Fix that and you will probably see a bigger uptake of smart meters - after all if it breaks and doesn't cause the consumer any problems to get fixed they won't care - it is the victimisation that scares people off.

Starting to feel more and more like a public version of the HORIZON scandal.

Moxi

[Tay]

I’m tempted to get bg to replace the smets1 meters i have “then” leave to Octopus.

The fact that i spent 5 months without gas readings other than what i gave them up i didnt want a huge bill, then months and months with no detailed usage which is still on going, now meter not reading at all

[smegal]

I’m tempted to get bg to replace the smets1 meters i have “then” leave to Octopus.

The fact that i spent 5 months without gas readings other than what i gave them up i didnt want a huge bill, then months and months with no detailed usage which is still on going, now meter not reading at all

Can your supplier not get your smets1 talking? Octopus works fine with ours?

[nowty]

I’m tempted to get bg to replace the smets1 meters i have “then” leave to Octopus.

The fact that i spent 5 months without gas readings other than what i gave them up i didnt want a huge bill, then months and months with no detailed usage which is still on going, now meter not reading at all

Can your supplier not get your smets1 talking? Octopus works fine with ours?

If the SMETS 1 meter is a "Secure" brand, Octopus will be able to connect to it.

[Tay]

It is, and they will.

This is a slap in the face for BG more than anything.

I suspect many of the issue relate to BG's inability to manage the Smets1 devices, when they gave me off peak metering the IPAM was all set up according to them.

However, when I tried to switch to Octopus last year they couldn't move me at the time because BG hadn't correctly (and to my knowledge still have not) updated the database which lists all IPAMs, meters, other gubbins

I'll see how I feel when the next billing period occurs and I leave BG. I might just want to see the back of them after all this twaddle.

[nowty]

British Gas chief's pay package jumps to £8.2m.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68669446

[AE-NMidlands]

It is, and they will.

This is a slap in the face for BG more than anything.

I suspect many of the issue relate to BG's inability to manage the Smets1 devices, when they gave me off peak metering the IPAM was all set up according to them.

However, when I tried to switch to Octopus last year they couldn't move me at the time because BG hadn't correctly (and to my knowledge still have not) updated the database which lists all IPAMs, meters, other gubbins

I'll see how I feel when the next billing period occurs and I leave BG. I might just want to see the back of them after all this twaddle.

I'm afraid that (from what I have read) that sort of failure on the part of (e.g.) BG is a deal-breaker. I think it is criminal that they can do things wrong and yet have a strangle-hold over whether you can move out simply as a result of their incompetence or negligence and foot-dragging. I wouldn't hesitate to escalate it through a formal complaint, then to OFGEM and / or any other ombudsman I could find, copying my MP in all the way through. It might be worth getting a national newspapaer interested...