Competence, Apparently, is not Contractual...

 

Jane mentioned in passing tonight of some consumer piece on TV about a ruling by the ombudsman, regarding British Gas installed smart meters. It seems that the regulatory body deems that the consumer/customer is not owed, nor should expect, any accurate feedback from their 'smart meter' devices regarding the monitoring of their actual consumption of energy. If this is the case, it calls into question the purpose of the kit in the first place, the motives of the energy retailers in pushing the tech onto its customers, and frankly, the raison d'être of the regulatory system itself.

Anyone who knows us is aware of the long and painfully tedious battle that we fought with our previous energy retailer over a non-functioning smart meter, lack of billing and woefully inaccurate estimated readings. We won our case, but it took several years of our time, a 125-page dossier compiled by Jane, copious snotty and deliberately officious letters from me; and to be frank a rather lame decision by the ombudsman, who could only concur with what we had found through our own extensive research and sheer bloody-minded effort, offering a token payment to be made in recompense for our troubles. 

Persistence pays off, but it is an absolute, all-consuming, ball-ache: effectively a second job. Oh, and surprise, surprise, the company that got our 'business' when our previous supplier's business failed and went under - no choice of supplier was given to us: it was an Ofgem fait accompli to dump the new one on us - has also failed to show any logical consistency in its dealings with us, with emails regarding lack of meter readings, 'aborted meter reading attempts', and sundry other such bollocks; ending today in a curt climb-down message that our smart meter is indeed communicating with them, and they are billing accordingly.

My question is: given that they have been badgering us for meter readings for months; have allegedly had some third-party contractor turn up at our door repeatedly, only to find the premises unoccupied and no access to the meter therefore being available - simply not true: we are both retired and seldom leave the house before ten in the morning - why is it that they have now capitulated? What is the motivation behind all of this? Or is it simply that are just unable to run a functioning business? And what of the regulator? It can't appear to be acting in a particularly impartial manner if it won't agree that a malfunctioning metering device is simply that: a malfunctioning device. If your car malfunctions, you take it to the garage: where do you go to sort the malfunctioning piece of pseudo-intelligence that monitors your energy usage?

What this all amounts to is that it's apparently OK for the technology to fail to provide accurate information for the customer whilst providing perfectly accurate data for the purposes of the company in extracting your hard-earned cash from you. No amount of flimflam would sell that in a court of law, so why should ordinary people have to accept such tosh, roll over and pay up? If we had been almost anyone else - and we are not people with large financial resources, so the civil courts are not an option for us, but being simply two very righteously-persistent old people who are aware that ordinary folk like us actually have some legal rights in this world - we would probably have had to fork out to these idiots in full. It took us - not the ombudsman - to make this happen. Make yours happen, and Godspeed you in your task. And by the way, Ofgem, fancy marble plaques a public service do not make ...