Free electricity?

Brain dead as usual. They will catch up with you and you'll have to pay in the end.

I thought the free sat/sun was conditional on having smart meter(s) fitted? Do you have them?

Direct debit would ne the usual way

I expect you'll be paying for them, good job you cashed-in those shares eh?

Nothing on there seems to be free, or even related to electricity.

I don't want a smart meter now!

I am paying DD of £62.54 as per this, but there is no electricity comp onent to the bill nor any way of entering my own reading.

Then BG won't give you free electricity.

Someone is already!

As I read it, you have to have both Gas and Electric from them and have to have a certain type of smart meter, and not have any of the economy tariffs like economy 7. In this case they can read your meter, but I still understood you have to have a direct debit set up as any power used before this is priced at the standard default rate wh until that is actual up and running. Read the small print as well I bet its only free for a certain time then it will be reviewed. if too many people take the power off peak then it will in fact become the peak which would defeat the whole object I suppose. Brian

Yes - the £4-95 I got on 25OCT16 was a very good price.

I have an old fashioned rotating disc electricity meter and there is no way they can remotely read it. The only way they can charge me is if a bloke turns up with a torch and clipboard, but I haven't seen one of those for several years.

Are you sure that your previous supplier has closed your account and you have a final bill.

I would not trust BG not to clobber you if they discover the situation.

I did once have a free gas supply. I wrote and thanked the gas board when I sold the property.

I also ended up with a free BT broadband connection but I got rid of that. The challenge at the time was to get a MAC number out of them when they did not think they were supplying me, and I could not move without it.

Your free electricity will only start once they have installed your smart meter. They use the smart meter to give the free electricity. Anything else is charged at the normal rate.

Must happen relatively often, a friend had the same, caused a problem when after owning the house for several years they rented it out, he tried to persuade the tenant that gas was "included" in the rent, but tenant wanted to change electricity tariff to a dual-fuel.

I logged onto npower on 1OCT16 and it said "this account is now closed".

You don't even need to read the small print...

Until you have a smart meter installed you will not be getting the free electricity deal with BG.

The only way you may be getting free electricity is if you have dropped off of the radar - your old supplier has closed the account and your new supplier has no record of you signing up.

Are you sure that BG hasn't tried to contact you by snail mail or email to say your property is not suitable for a smart meter and therefore you cannot have the free electricity tariff. They would then automatically default put you to the expensive standard tariff and send you the estimated bill in 3/6 months time?

By Jove, someone has got it! Although I am on BG's waiting list for a smart meter, but if they get in touch, I will say that I have changed my mind and don't want one anymore.

It's not MY c*ck up, after all.

Well, very peculiar, as I'm certain I read that they have to install the smart meter to give you this free function so they can monitor usage. Sounds to me like you have fallen through some crack in the system somewhere and I'd make enquiries sooner rather than later, as they will sting you megabucks otherwise. Which reminds me, EDF have already missed telling me about a meter reading appointment, so I have two quarters outstanding now. Time to get a pointy stick out with them I think. Brian

Are you sure that when switching the electricity that you used exactly the same contact details as you used for the (exsisting?) gas? You may have two BG web accounts and you are only accessing one of them. You may have to register your new electricity account on-line with the email address you used and the meter id_number found on your previous suppliers bill.

Good advice. And almost *exactly* what we found on switching back to BG (with smart meters) earlier this year. (Spin on our switch was that the wrong meter was linked to our address - something that led to an interesting phone call from BG's IT people who were trying to fathom who had done what, where to corrupt the records.)

Which does happen, my daughter got her electricity for nothing for several years for this reason. She repeatedly tried to find who her supplier was to no avail. As a result she *didn't* get a huge backdated bill when it was finally sorted out because only one year's worth was chargeable.

Yes - the ONLY way I will ever get charged is if BG employ a guy with a torch and clipboard to bang on my door when I am in - not gonna happen.