Smart meters for stupid people

[The Natural Philosopher]

Over the last year I have been called, texted and emailed over 100 times by EDF telling me I want a smart meter. I don't.

How can I get them to stop?

[Spike]

Contact them and ask to be put on the 'no smart meter' list - it's what I did when I was with them.

[Martin Brown]

You can't! I even tried allowing them to install one.

*THAT DIDN'T WORK!*

I got a reminder that they wanted to install a new meter the day after they finally managed to install the thing!

Even better - today (the same week as installation) some geezer turned up to read my electricity meter! You couldn't make it up!

FWIW the smart meter is fairly neat and to my surprise actually networked OK despite our not-spot status for mobile networks.

The in home real time display is marginally more accurate/precise than the old Owl thing I have on the incoming lead. More importantly it knows the tariff that I am on so spend per hour is more accurate and displayed at the same time as instantaneous W. It is SMETS II so more resistant to Putin's cronies who I confidently predict will switch every crap SMETS I unit on and off the grid synchronously at some stage in the near future.

I have them both displaying instantaneous W.

[Jeff Layman]

That worked for a few months, but, like TNP, I have been pestered by EDF since before the beginning of the year to have a smart meter.

[Andy Burns]

So is it on the arqiva ~400 MHz network?

[Andy Burns]

I got shunted onto EDF last autumn, the website has a "don't bother me about smart meters" tickbox, so far it's worked for me.

[Andrew]

Get a different phone number and go ex-directory

[Andrew]

Nonsense.

They never call me. They once made the mistake of booking me in for a smart meter installation that I hadn't requested and I phoned them and told them where to put it. They have never contacted me since.

Try creating an online account and specifying that only email contacts will be allowed. No phone calls, no SMS and no paper spam. Result.

[Mike Rogers]

I agreed to have on. Its small size helped tidy up the consumer unit panel allowing me build it all into a locker.

Oh and the fancy remote bit is in a drawer somewhere!

Mike

[Jock]

Use a different electricity supplier.

[Clive Arthur]

Just tell them you refuse to have a meter that's smarter than you?

[Jethro_uk]

Get them to fit a smart gas meter and smart water meter at the same time. That conversation has to lead to the fact that smart meters don't save you a penny and they usually hang up.

[Tim+]

Get a smart meter.

Tim

[David Wade]

Given the incentives the government has placed on companies to install one I think this will become increasingly challenging.

You could just have one. Whilst the cost of Smart Meters will be paid for by us all, we are also paying for the phone calls, people, programs, paper and ink involved in "persuading" you to have one and at some point the cost of this will be higher than having one.

Dave

[John J]

When I was with EDF before I got tired of being charged stupid rates per unit and switched to bulb, they phoned me and I made it absolutely and distinctly clear (without discussing the callers parentage but it was a close run thing) that I didn't want a smart meter at any price. They stopped calling after that. A few months later I switched to bulb and saved several pence per unit. The following year bulb jacked up their prices twice within a few months so I switched to octopus on the same price as bulb wanted but fixed for two years (18 months to go before it ends). I consider myself lucky to have switched to fixed price as it protects me from the current ramifications for a while at least.

[Martin Brown]

Probably. The guy who installed it said it wasn't on a mobile network.

To my surprise he had a workable signal on his O2 phone (that hasn't been possible here since about 2005 so was very interesting).

I was previously on O2 until then.

[Andy Burns]

Probably re-farmed some 2G bandwidth for 3G or 4G use ...

[AnthonyL]

That approach doesn't work with Eon-Next.

[Peter Johnson]

Next time your meters need changing you won't have any choice.

[Dave W]

Why don't you want one?