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My 77 year old mother who lives alone gets her electricity from Scottish Power/Manweb.
Last Friday they rang her at 8.00 PM to ask her if she would mind doing a meter reading for them. They used her password so the call was genuine.

This morning she phoned me in a terrible state, her normal quarterly bill is around £40 and she has just received one for over £342.00 .:Yikes:

I managed to calm her down and promised to visit ASAP and sort it out.

I have just been round and found that she has a newish meter with a digital readout. As with most meters it is not in that easy to see, she has obviously read it incorrectly and given them the figure 9835, it should have been 4835.

Mistaking a digital 4 for a 9 is very easy for anyone regardless of age.

I phoned Scottish Power, gave them the correct reading and left them in no doubt of my displeasure at this occurence ( very politely mind).
I dread to think what could have happened if this had been someone more frail than my mother.
I don't know what you think about this but to my mind it is a dreadful way to conduct a business.

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Well, I think it just one of those things. Noone deliberately did anyone else any harm. If I was working for the electricty company, and someone gave me a meter reading with such a jump I would have at least asked her to check again or questioned her about it. (If I was allowed to. Things like have people moved in recently, anyone using an electric heater, etc).

If they correctly adjusted the bill, and it happened to my mum, I would probably leave it at that. Maybe complain to the electricity board about the meters and make some with better visibility readouts? Most are in the dark making it harder to read anyway.

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I obviously don't know your mother but is she in her 70's, with a heart condition, living alone and on a very limited income.

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does the power company to know that your mother is alone, has a heart condition and on limited income?

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Think of the children - please...

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I don't see how the electricity company could have done anything differently, they can't be expected to flag up an alarm every time someone uses more electricity than normal, or tells them (in this case incorrectly) that they have.

Whilst I feel sorry for your Mum and the shock she got, like most problems in life they are never as bad as they seem at first.

My only question would be why the meter man did not read the thing himself. Perhaps you can ask them to ensure that they do it themselves in future rather than asking your Mum to do it.

Glad you got it resolved.

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sorry to hear that , a similar thing has happened to me before and it makes your heart thump regardless of age , i think it just has to be one of those things unless the electricity company has some sort of flag system that can be implemented , have you thought about asking them if it is possible ???????? :)

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eh?

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crossed threads maybe :rofl: :rofl:

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I have told her to refuse to do anymore readings over the phone and insist they read the meter for her. To be honest the person I spoke to also agreed with my concerns and said she would pass them on.

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Obviously not, and it would be rather bad publicity if they actually got that information after someone had collapsed or worse due to their actions.

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I think that is for the best, iadom, otherwise she would have worried about the next time. Sorry to hear it happened, but it has resulted in a better situation, now, i.e. peace of mind for your mum :)

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Sounds a bit crappy tbh - very unprofessional :confused:

Is it standard procedure to ring up and ask the customer to give a readout? Maybe the customer should get some kind of price cut or something for doing their job :confused:.. I know it's trivial, but...

Technically what if your mother had a fall whilst reading the meter? Could the company be held liable ?

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There is a solution. As some of you know I am ill with MS. So I rang the gas company and electric company I use and asked them to place me on their care package. This means that I no longer have to hoist a wheelchair out from underneath the stairs and spend an hour getting into the cupboard and another hour getting out :help:

I now have a nice young man with a lovely bottom! that comes to do it for me. Maybe it would be worth ringing your electricity suppliers and asking for your mum to be put on their care list ? They are then obliged to come and read the meter for her and they are also obliged to treat any incident that causes power failure as urgent. Just a thought:)

SeTi^

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Trust me, scottish power/manweb billing system makes NTL look brilliant.
They sent me a letter the other week telling me that they were going to treble my monthly payments. :Yikes:

One phone call later and it got sorted (for now). It is not the first time either, they sent me a letter last week with a final settlement bill because I was moving house (news to me), they then sent me a bill to pay for all the power I had used (and payed for) for the last 5 years :mad: .
In the end I came out better off, cos they lost some records and could not charge me for a period :p: :D .

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Good suggestion Seti, Iadom make sure you get the guy with the luvverly bottom :D

Isn't there a meter that can be automatically read by phone these days?

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Thanks for that advice Seti, not to sure my mum is into botties at her age though. :tu:

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There is a gas meter that can be read from outside the property - they just have to be within 5meters of the meter...

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Our water meter is in the kitchen under the sink but is read from outside using a connection on the outside wall.

My daughter, when she lived in a flat in Essex, had an electricity meter that was read from outside the block by radio. She also kept getting gas bills and threats of disconnection although there was no gas supply to the flats and never had been.

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Funny you should both say that, but I remember when I moved into a flat I bought in London and phoned up to switch the bill to my name, they immediately disputed the reading and said it must be incorrect. The reason, only 4 units of electricity had been used in the last 4 months (nobody was living there). When I explained the property had been vacant they accepted it was probably correct.

So London Electricity could see these things and ask are you sure, must depend on the billing system.

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The meter reader that came round tapped the number into his machine and then waited. I quizzed him about this and he said it checked if the reading was within bounds before it would accept it. Sounds like a good idea - why don't other people implement this?

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Sorry, but that's ridiculous.

Firstly, how is the company supposed to know she's old and fragile?
Secondly, the CUSTOMER gave the wrong reading - how is that the company's fault?
Thirdly, why on earth should any utility company be held liable for someone injuring themseklves whilst trying to read a meter? Surely, if they're not capable of reading a meter, they should tell the company?

This was an honest mistake on both parts and I don't see why the company should be blamed for it. :shrug:

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1) The fact that they don't know who they are ringing should stop them using this practise.

2) Granted.

3) It is the duty of the utility company to read their own meters, they are their property after all.

4) If they intend to use this method of meter reading they should have systems in place that warn them when a customers bill goes from averaging around £40 per quarter to £342, I'm damn sure they would be round like shot to check if the reverse was the case.