Energy companies, Pre-Payment and Smart Meters

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I’m seeing a lot of this kind of story, where people are being put onto pre-payment meters without warning etc.

Often, if you delve a bit deeper, the ‘victim’ is almost always in arrears, usually substantial ones, which makes it hard to be sympathetic.

This cunting is about smart meters, which have been more or less forced on people, not because it helps the customer (us) budget better, but so they could do this, forced pre-payment, more easily.

Fortunately, energy companies are now on a warning that this is a last resort, not the first step, and they must demonstrate good faith attempts to recoup arrears with sensible payment plans.

Yeah! I’ll believe that when in comes in pink as well as blue!

Mirror News Link

Nominated by: Jeezum Priest

53 thoughts on “Energy companies, Pre-Payment and Smart Meters”

  1. Sure there are many who remember the old gas meters that took shillings.
    When decimalisation came along a 50p piece could be inserted for payment.
    The way to go then was to freeze water in 50p moulds and get them in the slot.
    Gas man comes to empty the meter and it’s full of water.
    Electric was even easier with several ways of trickery.

      • In the 80s my leccy meter was wired up for nearly two years.

        Bypassed.

        A mate wanted his wired up, we’d all been in the boozer.

        I said ” eh up Shaun, wire Gazs meter up for him like you did mine”

        Shaun goes to do it,
        Big flash!!
        Shaun hits the deck.
        Meter looked like it had come from Grenfell.

        When the meter reader came round he went off his nut!
        Gaz said
        ” it looked like that when it was fitted”.

        Meter reader didn’t believe that.

        Gaz had to go court for tampering with his meter.
        😁

    • When I was a kid we had a leccy meter that took two bob coins. It was a real fucker when the folks forgot to put money in, and you’d suddenly be plunged into the pitch black. It always seemed to happen at night, while you were watching something on the telly so you missed some of it.

      • That takes me back Ron! Remember it well, sitting there minding your own business, suddenly inky blackness, scrambling about trying to find a florin and then trying to find the slot in which to stick it. Happy days.

  2. I’m pretty certain that “smart” meters will become mandatory,due to the “climate crisis” or whatever fairytale our Supreme Leaders decide is best for us.

    The useless cunts.

  3. The latest wheeze to force them on us is to say you’ll get money back if you sit in the dark for a couple of hours. I’ve always said no to them, I don’t want them knowing when I am in, or them switching it off remotely.

      • As the business of getting the data to-fro smart meters in the UK is handled by Crapita, forget state actors, I’d assume any semi-competent hacker group will eventually have the ability to raise merry hell with the system.

  4. The old meters were the best. Put a magnet on it, or do a Steptoe. Loads of foreign coins put in the fucker.

    Then there was that fine Liverpudlian custom of ‘Fiddlin der Leccy’.

    • It was always great when the geezer came to read the meter and empty it. For some reason I could never figure, you’d end up getting a cash back rebate. My mom would always buy us chocolate and pop when she got money back.

      Happy days.

      • Er, Ron-a bit delicate this mate. Did this meter reader chappie look a bit like you?

      • As a kid, I use to enjoy watching the meter reader swiftly roll the coins into brown paper making a tube. We were easily amused in those days. Like you Ron, we got the occasional few coins back.

    • Don’t know if it was true, but I heard from a sauce that you could break the lead seal on the meter and with a bit of trickery use a screwdriver to stop the the wheel from going round. Remembering to put things back as they were before your meter was read.

      The same person knew how to swop some pipes round to get a rebate.

      • Also had a brother-in-law who didn’t care when the meter reader and coin collector came round to find the lock broken off. The relative world pay him in notes, saving him the bother of counting the coins.

  5. These so-called smart meters have been around the States for a few years now and are very controversial.

    It is alleged by some that they allow the Utility provider to not only monitor your usage but also control it.

    Using too much energy? They’ll dial back your usage. Your house not up to the new Green standards for efficiency of insulation? They’ll dial back your usage. Climate Change is an existential threat? They’ll dial back your usage.

    Of course energy providers here in the States deny all of this and I don’t know what the truth of the matter is. But if they and the politicians promoting the Green Raw Deal want me to have one then fuck ’em! I don’t want one.

    • I think you’re correct General.

      The energy companies seem awfully keen on them…which makes me think they are up to skullduggery.

      So they can fuck off.

      • Hey UT

        Here in the States some governments are actually trying to force people to use smart meters.

        In the US State of Colorado, the State Utility Commission allows electric providers to charge you a fee if you do not have a smart meter. (The pretext being they have to send someone out to actually read the old style meter.)

        In the Denver Metro area the charge (according to the Government website) is $11.84 per month.

        In the rest of the state it is $23.64 per month. At today’s exchange rate in the UK that would be about 235 quid a year extra on your electric bill.

        Fucking cunts!

  6. The energy firms want their pound of flesh. I was decorating the hall years ago. undid screws on backboard dangle meter. he no work Mr Fawlty. Fucking lovely. Mrs CuntyMort comes home and had kittens. Put that back now!!! Yes dear I replied meekly.

    Been tempted to do it again recently. Fucking vampire bastards.

  7. The energy companies are the 21st century equivalent of the Highwayman, without the romance and glamour but with the fucking law on his side. They are fucking thieves the lot of them, along with their politician accomplices.
    You know net zero is never going to come don’t you? Then they wouldn’t have the excuse of saving the planet to push us around, tell us what to do and rob us blind. No, net zero will always be just out of reach but essentially desirable, that’s how scams work.
    You know it makes sense.

  8. If you provider comes up with the statement It’s compulsory ask for the cunts name and tell them OFGEM are going to become involved. They reverse faster than an Italian tank.

    • It’s OFGEM that are pushing the smart meters, the suppliers get fined if they don’t meet OFGEM’s targets.

  10. If people can’t or even worse won’t pay then what other option is there, the only way to make sure is prepayment otherwise it’s the rest of us who are picking up the tab.
    The hard up have had more support this last year to offset the increased costs, the £400 for everyone went straight to the provider but extra to the hard up went into their bank accounts, not the best idea.

    What is fucking annoying, electricity is charged at a flat rate, why the fuck when the wind blows and a big chunk is generated by windmills isn’t it cheaper!

    As for smart meters, biggest con trick by the government on energy supply, all bollocks with the ‘helps to save energy/money’, why the fuck does anyone need a bit of bling to tell them to turn the light off.

    • For the same reason McDonalds needs to tell people boiling coffee is hot, people are fucking morons.

      • And warnings about ‘scenes of injury detail’ in a film called Zombie Apocalypse 😂

  11. How can an extra gadget which you have to plug in reduce your energy use?

    I know they don’t draw much, but 28Mof the fuckers, all on 24 hours a day, would be a monumental twatting disaster.

    Presumably made in China, large carbon footprint in manufacture and distribution, don’t tell you anything which your dad didn’t use to (“Turn the fucking light off!”) there must be an ulterior motive.

    Oh yeah, when the bird-mincers aren’t spinning and it’s dark outside, they can grey out your power supply for the good of Nuts Zero.

    Cunts.

    • I don’t believe for one moment renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels when it finally comes on tap!

      It will continue to be massively subsidised for perhaps another 20 or 30 years. Therefore it will look cheap but propped up by massive Taxpayer and/or energy customer subsidy. False economics in other words, not least when you also have to factor it the personal cost of having your home converted to accept renewables. (And people might say you’ll get a government grant to help, but where does that “grant” come from? Yes, the fucking Taxpayer!)

      Net Zero is just like the privatisation of the railways – privatised in part, but heavily subsidised by taxes ever since.

  12. Don’t worry the Suntan Kid has created a Secretary of State for Net Zero……The Right Honourable Massive Prick Grant Shapps.
    We are saved!
    The Polar Bears will live forever!

    • Secretary of State for energy security and net zero.
      How the fuck will that work in the same department?
      They are principles that are diametrically opposed to one another. Either you have energy security or net zero.
      You can’t have both.
      Any retard can work that out, yet our esteemed government can’t.

  13. Smart Meters are currently not mandatory but you just know it’s going to be a matter of time before that changes and everyone will have to have one whether you like it or not.

    They’re not there to help you save money, they’re soul person is the control it will have over your consumption and the periods throughout the day when you can use it.

    All part of the social credit system – be a good person and you’ll earn extra credits, which means being able to use your electric for an extra 10 minutes before being rationed like all the other mugs on the street.

    As for OFGEM – toothless paper-tiger that fucked up big time allowing so many 2-bit energy suppliers enter the market with the proper checks and balances. And now here we are more or less back to the usual Big 6 or 7, which will inevitably shrink further to perhaps 3 or 4.

    Well done, Ofgem, you useless twats.

  14. This must be the third or fourth cunting of Smart Meters. I did one years ago because the pencil-pushers used to phone me twice a year and they’d go through the same pantomime appearing shocked when I didn’t want one.

  15. My Younger uses British Gas for dual fuel, and neither of her smart meters are working. She’s had 2 appointments for an engineer to replace them, both appointments having been cancelled, by BG, on the day.
    She’s been informed that they (BG) currently are having difficulty getting supplies of smart meters, and they don’t know when they will be able to replace hers.
    In the meantime, she’s getting estimated bills, so could be seriously over or underpaying for her energy.
    Never mind, I’m sure the £30 credit for each cancelled appointment will be a comfort to her.

    • This is actually true, JP.

      Due to a shortage of chips coming out of batflu land, the meter manufacturers in Germany (Sensus usually) are rationing meters to energy suppliers.

  16. A plumber I know, sold his large house (3 floors/6 bedrooms/4bathrooms/snooker room/large indoor pool).
    I asked him a few years before he sold, how much the indoor pool cost to run?
    His reply: nothing.
    Seems that “somebody” had installed a second gas supply coming in from the road to service the boiler heating the pool.
    He also said that several years previously, the gas board knocked on his door to ask him if he knew where the additional pipe went into his property? He said “no idea”-and that was the end of that.
    I suspect the crafty fucker was heating his house “on the cheap” too.

    • I have it on good authority that Gary Neville is one of the biggest tightarses on Earth. As rich as he is, the cunt has switched his energy firms just to save a few quid. If Neville even saves a few pennies, he sees it as a ‘result’.

  17. I think it’s safe to say that I would murder any engineer that attempted to fit a smart meter and bury them in the wild area at the bottom of my back garden. My main concern is that the meters are on external walls at the front and side of the house so easily accessible.

  18. I had a neighbour who was “Off Grid” with enough Panels to resemble a fucking lake! He is/was in a fight with the non supplier who wanted to charge his cost. Upon asking, they could not answer. Ofgen found in their favour. That I can never understand. Cunts the lot of them.

  20. My supplier has stopped hassling me to install a smart meter after the last call when they asked why I did not want one. I started simply it’s because I have a brain between my ears and anything with ‘smart’ in the name, well, usually is actually the opposite. Stunned silence then er, um well, ok then Thank-you, goodbye.

    That said it will become compulsory especially now after the sun tanned PM has unveiled a Secretary of State for ‘Net Zero’… dog help us.

    Plus, some cunts have to pay for all the fucking aid we are giving to shit clown Zelenski.

  21. My mother in law’s (who’s 83 with dementia) smart gas meter failed last week. No gas supply to the house. My brother in law lives with her as her carer. The home care company came out and replaced it with a normal mechanical meter within 3 hours. Scottish Power would take 5 days to replace it. 5 fucking days.

    If they kick up a stink about it I’ll tell my wife to let me speak to them. They are the DNO for this area (English term, never heard it called that in Scotland) and their smart meter was fucked cutting off an old lady in the middle of winter. The home care company did the right thing. They didn’t leave the new meter point number in the paperwork though. Scottish Power will have to send out Morrison’s Data Services to get that for them. The bastards.

    She is always over £600 in credit and they treat good paying customers like shit. We have been over £700 in credit for the last 6 months with Bulb. They want people to have smart meters so they can charge whatever they like at different times of day. It’s a disgrace.

  22. The forcing of smart meters onto cutlets is a sinister back door precursor to the introduction of hourly pricing.

    The trial run of this was the recent ‘rebate’ where it cost less of you didn’t use as much power in the early evening. Pretty soon they’ll be charging you more in peak periods but you can bet they they won’t be charging you less the rest of the time.

    It’s a con. I ain’t having one. They can fuck right off…

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