Faulty electricity meter.

[Justmuddlingalong]

Looking for advice. After sending my electricity meter reading, prior to changing supplier, they have emailed me saying my reading is lower than the previous one! I had to send another reading after 7 days and in that time its only gone up by 9 units. It's an old meter, but I'm now worried that A. Will I get a massive bill? B. Will I be charged for a replacement meter? C. Will it cause problems with my new supplier? We pay by monthly DD.
Anyone with experience of this? TIA

What electrical appliances did you use during those days?

Tumbledrier? Washing machine? Dishwasher? Electric cooker? Electric shower? Or just lights and TV?

Does it have dials like a clock face, or numbers like the milometer in a car, or a digital display? A photo would help. Are there push-buttons on the meter?

Are you sure you didn't transpose numbers, or misread a 6 as a 5, or an 8 as a 3? It can help to photograph the reading.

Do you have electric storage heaters?

Do you have solar panels?

btw meters are exchanged at intervals, at the supplier's expense, so you would not have to pay for that. Old ones (especially mechanical dial ones) tend to underread if they become faulty.

If the supplier thinks you have a faulty underreading meter, they will probably schedule a replacement. They might also send a more skilled person who will look for signs of interference, instead of an ordinary meter-reader. Amusingly, my gas meter got swapped quite quickly after I changed my boiler for a more efficient modern one and my usage dropped dramatically.

Thanks for posting PigletJohn. I've used central heating, TV, lighting, cooker, washing machine, hairdryer, kettle, charged laptop, phones. No storage heaters or solar panels. Definitely read the meter correctly. Just took a photo, sticker on it dated 2001, .

is there another digit after 0499? is it red?

move away any metallic or electrical/electronic items that might be next to or on top of the meter. It should never go backwards but there are some things that can be done to cause it. If the house was previously rented, an earlier tenant might have interfered with it.

It is an old type and I suspect it has gone wrong.

When you fill your kettle and switch it on, the flat disk under the numbers panel should speed up, but all the heavy load devices you mention have thermostats so will turn themselves on and off.

If you have a fan heater, you could turn it on for 20 minutes as a test and see how much the meter increments, but at this time of the year it would be wasteful.

If you want peace of mind, contact the suppliers (as shown on your bill) and tell them you think the meter might be faulty and is registering surprisingly low. If you are in the middle of changing suppliers it will confuse them less if you wait for the transfer to be completed.