[Bravefoot]

Hello everyone. I hope I’m posting this in the correct category.

I am just a bit flummoxed and confused. Two days ago, a worker came, saying they wanted to check our gas meter.

A little bit of background: we live in an apartment on the first floor. When the bell rang, my mum went downstairs to open the main building door. Unfortunately she doesn’t speak very good English, so she only understood the worker wanted to see our gas meter. She just let him through. The worker then went on to the communal garden at the back, where all the gas meters are. My mum just returned upstairs to our apartment.

This morning, I went to top-up the gas meter. But I was very shocked to see it was on £0.00. Actually, it was on -£0.02 (it showed when I put the card in to top-it up). I was shocked, because I had checked the amount shortly before the worker came two days ago, and I remember very well we had around £20 on it.

Can £20 be spent in a mere two days? I am feeling a tad suspicious, because we’ve never used so much in such a short amount of time. The usage for last month was £48.15 (I’ve been keeping detailed records since we first moved in). So I find it unbelievable we used up £20 in just two days.

I don’t want to immediately point any fingers, but I honestly do not know what other explanation there could be, only that the worker that came two days ago did something to the meter…

I was wondering if maybe this has happened to someone else, or news/things have been happening that I might have missed.

I have contacted E-On on WhatsApp, it’s just that these days I am extremely busy and I’m not able to stay on my phone for long.

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated ☺️
Thank you

[retrotecchie]

Likely reprogrammed the tariff. As prices rose on 01 October your monthly costs will change from £48 or so to nearer £60 or so. The missing credit is most likely several weeks difference between the old and new rates. In a perfect world, the meter folks would have been out in force in early October, but I guess they have a lot of meters to reprogram.

That is my best guess, but chat to your neighbours and see if they had similar happen. They would have adjusted everyone's PAYG meter. Smart meters can be done remotely without an engineer visit.

[Bravefoot]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

Likely reprogrammed the tariff. As prices rose on 01 October your monthly costs will change from £48 or so to nearer £60 or so. The missing credit is most likely several weeks difference between the old and new rates. In a perfect world, the meter folks would have been out in force in early October, but I guess they have a lot of meters to reprogram.

That is my best guess, but chat to your neighbours and see if they had similar happen. They would have adjusted everyone's PAYG meter. Smart meters can be done remotely without an engineer visit.

Ok, my mother also thought as much, but I personally wasn’t sure because, as you said, the rise happened on the 1st of October. I naively thought the meters would be reprogrammed somehow by themselves (the power of technology 😆), so there wouldn’t be a need for someone to physically come and do it… Now I see that was very likely the case! Also it taking nearly 2 months kind of was unexpected, but as you said, they probably had a lot of people.

Thank you very much for your reply, I will make sure to check my gas meter more often now that we’ve been reprogrammed to the higher tariffs :P

[retrotecchie]

@Bravefoot

Smart meters do have the tariff updated remotely, in theory, but there have been many tales of woe on here with rates being wrong. The situation not at all helped by the OFGEM cap saying one thing, the EPG kicking in and all sorts of other issues that have delayed the process.

As you do have a prepay meter, I assume you got your vouchers ok?

[Bravefoot]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

@Bravefoot

As you do have a prepay meter, I assume you got your vouchers ok?

Yes, the vouchers have been coming to us by post on time, fortunately ☺️

[retrotecchie]

@Bravefoot

That's good news at least. 👍