Octopus tentacles ‘adjusting’ meter readings to private client
Sun 2:18 pm +01:00, 28 Aug 2022 2
I reported the electric meter readings as prompted by Octopus, as follows.
on 22.7.22 4134
on 21.8.22 4184
This is exactly 50 units and is clocking at less than 1.67 kilowatts a day through this period.
Solar is full on at this time of year, and the batteries are working well.
If you stretch this daily consumption to 51.7 kilowatts to make it 31 days to match your billing period, you have not billed us for 51.7 units but for billed us for 64.7 units. You mention some other charges which no one has ever heard of other than daily charge and charge for units used and recorded on a meter which is visible to the client and agreed to be accurate.
If you wish to question the accuracy of the meter, when in the past, you conceded was accurate, please provide your evidence.
Unless someone can explain what the reason is for adjusting (in your billing) the units of electricity and gas consumed and recorded on the meters, I contend that this is now part of a claim against Octopus, as registered with you. You have provided no information to refute this claim. The previous month’s meter read of 36603 on the gas meter was accepted at the time but was adjusted in the next month’s billing – downwards to 36600, effectively charging us for any extra 3 units in the current period.
As for the electric overcharge, the rate for electricity from Octopus is 26.5p so this looks to be an overcharge of – 26.5 X 13 units – £ 3.45. You used to do your billing on the days of the meter readings provided to you. Why have you moved away from this practice? It can only cause confusion and give Octopus the opportunity to make more mistakes which are curiously invariably in Octopus’ favour?
The gas reading was wrongly entered (or in fact wrongly adjusted – it was entered correctly) and I have an overcharge claim for gas of 3 units being the wrongful adjustment made to the reading, which is now part of the complaints procedure.
As you point out you are receiving electricity from us free of charge from our solar system. Thank you for offering to credit us using a smart meter, but as we do not want smart metering here, we would propose that you credit us from the amount recorded as supplied to you.
We do have a figure recording as to how much electricity we are sending you from the computer which manages our electric system, which reports online,, and I can bill you for this if you would be willing to pay for the commodity we supply you and which you then sell on to others..
As it is, the billing to us is being done incorrectly and getting this unsatisfactory situation sorted out would be a good start. We can work on the free electric we supply to you later.
Please can process my claim and issue the required credits. Thank you. Henry Curteis
I can understand your frustration Tap, I have similar problems with EDF. I have solar panels and storage battery as well. Even though I am exporting way over the amount I use during this time of year, a few watts are imported each day roughly 1.3 a day, a bit less than you. At night before I go to bed the batteries are still 70-80% full. I know if a lot of power is used at the same time, which is over the battery’s capacity that can affect it but I don’t thick so in my case. I have heard that they send surges of dirty electricity far above the 220-240 volts and the 300 maximum – over 600v have been recorded particularly at night which can damage equipment, but also causes the meter to run faster – a good way to extract more money from the customer and to pay wind generators to close down when there is excess wind power! I haven’t forgotten about the electrician!
Good! Thanks, Newensign.