Advice on UW switching day/night registers and charging for it.

[Andy]

I had a smart meter installed in 2017 with an E10 tariff that has not had a signal since installation. At some point in November it started communicating and Utility Warehouse uploaded their tariff to it. Unfortunately it has swapped the registers from Peak to Night and Off Peak to Day resulting in an almost £1500 bill. Despite sending photos of the meter (Smets 1 secure) and IHD before and after, their billing team has determined I have been scamming them and reset the billing for the last year. They have said they will not entertain any more discussion! I was in a dispute earlier this year as they were making up the bills for months. It seems they don't want to acknowledge that I have 18kW of solar panels and a large stack of batteries.

The problem is any photos of a smart meter only show the reading and not the register. They cycle 'Day'-> reading-> 'Night'-> reading. You have to take a video to capture the full picture. Having tried multiple ways of uploading the videos and reencoding them they are unable to view the videos or access them from their internal network.

The next step is deadlock which the customer rep I have been dealing with is kindly going to do straight away rather than waiting 8 weeks.

I would strongly recommend avoiding UW as their billing team is a different cell that seems to operate to their own rules and won't entertain any form of reasoning or logic. They cited the decimal point being in the incorrect place between the IHD and the meter as a reason they can't determine they were showing the same reading. One was MWh and the other was KWh

My next step is the ombudsman but I have to wait for the deadlock letter before I can proceed. It was recommended that I move supplier so I have started moving to Octopus which hopefully goes live tomorrow. However, the meter which has shown good signal for the last two weeks, now once again has no signal. I am hoping it has something to do with the move to Octopus but somehow I doubt it.

I have photos of the IHD at various points during the year and video of the smart meter in Aug before the change and another now post change. Of course I also have my own data logged every 5 seconds, solar edge data, victron data and myenergi data. But getting that in a format to persuade anyone of the absurdity of what has happened won't be easy and how do I prove I haven't fiddled the numbers.

I was wondering if anyone has been in a situation like this before. It seems the ombudsman has no power of the providers and the next step after that is the small claims court which I haven't been through before. Does anyone have any advice/experience to relay before I move forward.

Thanks

[nowty]

Registers the wrong way around is a common problem, especially if you move providers. I've had it and I know others on here have had it. They should be able to take your video or send a meter reader round. If it goes to the Ombudsmen, you should win that one.

The meter having intermittent connection is more problematic as suppliers are allowed to re-bill you on standard terms or pro rata based upon the standard person which is no help if you have solar and batteries.

The IHD is a red herring as it is only for info, its what's on the meter that counts, likewise your own data is only supportive.

If the Ombudsmen goes against you I would think the small claims court would be an uphill struggle.

The good news is Octopus should be able to read a Secure SMETS 1 meter assuming its comms is getting through. You can check whether your smart meter is working in smart mode here, https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

[Andy]

Thanks Nowty

The meter having intermittent connection is more problematic as suppliers are allowed to re-bill you on standard terms or pro rata based upon the standard person which is no help if you have solar and batteries.

If they agreed to take me on an E10 meter but using their E7 day/night rates does that change things? I can see how going forward with a working smart meter I probably don't have a case.

The IHD is a red herring as it is only for info, it's what's on the meter that counts, likewise your own data is only supportive.

I agree the meter is what counts but the IHD is the only way to see some of the info in the smart meter. Surely any reasonable person would accept a smart meter reading and IHD matched as very likely to be linked to each other?

The good news is Octopus should be able to read a Secure SMETS 1 meter assuming its comms is getting through. You can check whether your smart meter is working in smart mode here, https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

Unfortunately the website has had no record of my meter throughout this process. UW claim to have been reading my meter but have given me two different stories. I have a GDPR request in at the moment. The person I have been dealing with said that it is normal practice to be fined for not providing information in a timely manner. However the last bill was generated by a smart meter reading according to their source showing 'smart meter'. Various people I have spoken to don't seem to have any access to view smart meter information.

I just thought it might be worth consulting my home insurance lawyers if it goes beyond the ombudsman. Fingers crossed. This is all very frustrating as years of charging the electric car/ doing the washing etc during the cheap periods is about to be undone by their actions.

[nowty]

So you have had a dumb meter throughout but thats what the registers are for. It then comes down to what you did and what they did about the register swap issue and whether they were reasonable about it or not.

If they were not reasonable I don't see how you cannot win with the Ombudsman unless the E10 meter voids their responsibility somehow.

EDIT - Did you get any bills correctly (via manual reads) before the meter connected to UW and the tariff was updated ?

[Tinbum]

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to show which register is increasing at which point during the day.

So if Register1, on the actual meter, which they think is the Peak rate register is increasing during the night then it's wrong.

[MoSTiE]

Smart meter, i would have made sure it had released a lot of 'magic smoke' by now

[Yuff]

Fingers crossed your switch to octopus goes through and then you will have further proof that UW got it wrong and your octopus figures back your usage up.

[Gareth J]

You could, write them a letter, explaining the situation and that, in light of them not wishing to do anything about it, suggest you will be happy to proceed with 14hrs of cheap(er) electric, as opposed to just 10 and that you'll adjust your usage accordingly.

Might be too late now the switch is in progress though

[Andy]

So you have had a dumb meter throughout but thats what the registers are for. It then comes down to what you did and what they did about the register swap issue and whether they were reasonable about it or not.

If they were not reasonable I don't see how you cannot win with the Ombudsman unless the E10 meter voids their responsibility somehow.

EDIT - Did you get any bills correctly (via manual reads) before the meter connected to UW and the tariff was updated ?

I was with them for 3 years with it as a dumb meter. I've managed to reencode my phone videos as they can't view anything from an iPhone so I'll see what happens there. They agreed to the E10 at the start which I have on conversation several times including recently.

There might have been a man round in the past but all mine where photos of the IHD. However it would be reasonable to accept them as they are still matching the meter now. Thankfully I have a video of the actual meter in August with my last dispute.

A big problem with taking photos of multi register meters is that the number displayed on screen is just that. A number. It doesn't tell you if it is day/night/peak/off peak without seeing it cycle through the messages.

I've sent them some pretty graphs of my usage which might scare them with what people are up to

E10 and the new weird 8 hour tariff I seem to have now. The E10 was certainly easier on the battery.






Of course my wonderful new smartness ended the evening before I joined Octopus. It hasn't had a sniff of signal since then. It's frustrating when there is an EE mast and it might just need a new sim to talk with EE. Octopus say they don't do that.

[Andy]

You could, write them a letter, explaining the situation and that, in light of them not wishing to do anything about it, suggest you will be happy to proceed with 14hrs of cheap(er) electric, as opposed to just 10 and that you'll adjust your usage accordingly.

Might be too late now the switch is in progress though

If only it was so. They times have been reprogrammed to the new registers.