Smart meter does not match my bill

[user49682]

Has anyone else experienced this? I had a bill a lot higher than expected for gas and electric.
I keep my eye on the smart meter every day to try and ensure it didn't go over £5 per day. It occasionally did when it was really cold but other days we were out they were less so it evened out or so I thought.

We pay every quarter for what we use so I expected a bill for around £500 instead it's £800!

Rang British Gas who said the meter readings are correct and I've convinced myself I'm going mad not reading the meter correctly. However messing around with it I have found the amounts for each month working out around £140 a month.

I've taken images to send to BG but has anyone else experience this? Is it the meter than is showing incorrect figures or the bill?

@HappiestSleeping

It would seem so. I thought you meant that the bill was generated by the smart meter.

I did. The bill is generated by the smart meter. The thing you kindly posted a picture of IS the smart meter.

I think I get you now. In my case, the bill was generated by the smart meter, but it shouldn't have been as the smart meter reading that the energy company had was not the number that was displayed on the meter. Only the top part in the photo is the smart meter, the bottom part was there before the top part was fitted.

So you are correct that the bill is generated by the smart meter. My point is that it shouldn't be as the smart meter reading is not always the same as the number that is displayed on the meter. In my case, I was over billed as the smart meter number for a given day was miles out from the number shown on the actual meter. You can see in the picture it says 05162 on the meter, but the energy company were saying that the reading they picked up from the smart meter was significantly higher.

In my humble opinion the two should be the same but they are not. And then there is what is shown on the remote display which is a whole other issue.

@HappiestSleeping

I wasn't talking about your meter or situation though. In fact my comment was to another poster who thought the smart meter was the in house display thing and asked about she 'proper meter' - the 'proper' meter IS the smart meter. I'm not sure why you keep coming back with more about your meter, none of it makes any difference to what I said.

I agree that the display isn't relevant, but the proper meter isn't the smart meter. I only refer to my case to demonstrate that the smart meter is an addition to the original meter (which I referred to as the 'proper meter' in a previous post). The smart meter has been an addition to the original meter in every case I've seen.

They are two different things, but they should definitely align.

Compare the readings on the actual meters with the readings on your bill. As said above the in house display is just that. You need to read the actual meters that may be outside or in a cupboard somewhere. Then on the bill once they have calculated the cost of the gas/electric used they will add on the standing daily charges as extra.

They usually ARE the same (I work in the industry and do this all day for context) it sounds like there was some fault with yours which should have been fixed.

@HappiestSleeping

but the proper meter isn't the smart meter.

Well it usually is.

Not in my experience. Every one I've seen looks like mine which is the original meter with an add on box. Admittedly, I haven't seen every installation in the country, but I've had four properties with them in, plus my family, plus my friends, and they all look like mine.

To the point of the original poster's question, it is not a safe assumption that the remote display shows anything like the correct amount (on which, I think you and I are agreed), but it is also not a safe assumption to think that the number the energy company have matches with the number on the physical meter (which is the point you and I have been discussing). It defeats the point of having one if they still need to send someone round to have a look.

Edited to add that someone else here works in the industry so it looks like the 30 or 40 that I've seen are outliers.

I've never seen one that differs from mine, but I'll bow to your experience. 👍

Per my post above, I've only seen 30 or 40, but they all look like mine.

What is your view of why the smart meter reading the energy company had being different from that shown on the meter? Or is that what you mean by a fault? They didn't send anyone round to look, just accepted it was different once I provided evidence, which suggests to me that they know it happens?

This happened to me. Then they gave me £166 back because they had messed up the bills, somehow. I had called them and checked with them in Jan 23, when figures made no sense to me. They corrected the missmatch in June.
Now all makes sense since then. I give them monthly readings, in addition to the smart meter because I am not confident.
I hope you get all yourthings sorted. And have a look to your actual meter.

I'm glad it wasn't just me 😉

Not glad that you had the same issue though. It's a pain in the arse to have something that either doesn't work, or you don't trust.

I'm the same, I'm now taking a final reading from my 'smart device' (more like it doesn't matter device) every day. It literally doesn't tally with your actual bill?

So I'm down for an estimate of £120 a month dual energy. After writing down what the smart meter reads before I go to bed and the bill I recieve from my provider, there's a difference on average of 25% in the favour of my energy provider?

It makes no sense, what's the point of these devices when they are completely misleading? I'm now literally taking screenshot every night. However, I know the energy company will always deny there's anything wrong. Let's face it, we're literally getting robbed and there's nothing we can do about it, fact!

With no help from BG who insisted my bill was correct we managed to suss it out. I switched as I just knew something was wrong. The new company sorted it within a 20 minutes call. My smart meter had been set up to display incorrect readings. It was a total of two readings apparently and they showed me how I could find my correct readings that I need to submit. @Deanlarson2005 this might be the case with your smart meter. My new provider has said it's a common issue with BG.

BG owed me over £300! What really bothered me was that the reading I submitted which BG insisted must be correct. BG submitted a reading in the background to my new provider which was the correct and very different reading to what showed on my smart meter and what they were billing me for. So after months of phone calls/complaints it appears no one had bothered to simply check if my reading looked correct compared to the one they could view.