ELECTRIC SHOCK
BIG CHARGE CUSTOMERS STUNNED Smart meter glitch hands £33k bill to customer for a day’s fuel
SHOCKED customers watched their faulty smart meter rack up a £33,000 bill for one day’s power.
A string of users reported problems with SSE’s hi-tech billing devices.
And the gas and electricty giants have launched an urgent investigation into the malfunction.
They promised no one would be charged for the error.
One of the gadgets warned a customer they had bust their daily budget by almost three million per cent.
Complaints began appearing on SSE’s Twitter page on Friday.
Dozens of customers eventually said their meters were quoting thousands of pounds for 24 hours of gas and electricity.
One account holder tweeted SSE with a photo that said they had used £33,183 of gas in one day – and were 2,765,175 per cent over-budget.
The following day the meter said the bill would be £27,022 for 24 hours. The average annual bill for a medium-sized house in the UK is around £830.
The customer said: “Prices certainly gone up @YourSSE @SSE if my smart meter is accurate on my gas use over last few days. Like it warm but …”
Customer Usman Hussain tweeted a picture of his meter saying he would be charged nearly £9600 for his day’s electricity and gas. Another meter said a day’s fuel would cost £19,825.17.
SSE said they were aware of an issue affecting “a small number” of their smart meters.
A spokesman said: “The issue will be investigated as a matter of urgency and no customer will be charged the extra amounts resulting from errors with the smart meters.
“We would like to apologise to any customers if this has caused distress.”
Smart meters communicate directly with energy suppliers, allowing customers to monitor their energy use in real-time and eliminate the need for estimated billing.
The UK Government hope the devices will have been rolled out to every home in Britain by 2020.
The latest figures show there are 4.9million meters in homes and businesses across the country.