stealing electricity

[Tom Robinson]

started doing domestic call outs for a company and the first house I went to was stealing electric for god knowes how long. They had simply bypassed the meter taking two tails from the main fuse straight to their board. Does this happen alot with these top up card meters because i was told that knowone comes to check on them as a meter reading does not need to be taken?

 

[SKY]

Never seen it, I think some meters are now have sim cards in where the meters are read automatically.

 

[telectrix]

all you can do is report it to your boss/company. then it's up to them to take it further.

 

[Tom Robinson]

I corrected the installation but knowone seemed to care what was going on so i assumed that this happens alot.

 

[HandySparks]

I corrected the installation but knowone seemed to care what was going on so i assumed that this happens alot.

Don't think I would have touched it. Do you have a photo (of before you corrected it)?

 

[trev]

I'm amazed that you think this is something new mate. It's been going on for years, when I was a kid there was someone in our street that got nabbed for it. They had been making their own 50p coins by freezing water and putting it through their coin meter. There's a whole industry dedicated to it, several people living near us have been offered this "service" by "electricians" and that's disregarding the farmers of certain illegal crops who do it on a regular basi.
As Handy said, I doubt I'd have put it right. I'd have reported it but wouldn't have touched it

 

[kingeri]

This should be reported to the DNO / supplier and left untouched!!!!

 

[Guest111]

the card meter sends its data back to the company responsible for supplying your electricity each time you make a top up,I have seen this before several times and one guy told me that if they fiddled from day one there wasn,t much chance of being caught,it was only if the bill dropped dramatically that people came out to check.I E if you used say £10 a week from day one nothing was said but if you suddenly went from £30 a week to a tenner then someone would check.there was a daft scam years ago involving the old paper cards but it didn,t work,the trick was to cut a £10 card in half a certain way and you got £20 worth of electric,however when the meter was read the descrepancy was discovered and they got a bill.Most suppliers insist on reading a meter once a year,in the case of card meters this is more to check they have not been tampered with rather than taking an actuall reading.

 

[sedgy34]

I corrected the installation but knowone seemed to care what was going on so i assumed that this happens alot.

Hmmmm you corrected the mains before the meter?

 

[amlu]

on one of the jobs meter was bypassed with some lenght of 8mm2 earth wire.

 

[amlu]

...

 

[mackers]

lol seen it many times ,least they used 16mm rather than the 1.5 i usually see! (pushes in easier)

 

[Darkwood]

Disgraceful.... colour coding but a good idea with the loop just incase the meter goes faulty

 

[sedgy34]

Good to see someone has upgraded the bonding lol

 

[snowhead]

That could well have been a Meter fixer, given the quality of workmanship some of them have.