A STUNNED Gourock woman has been told she used £14 MILLION worth of gas in ONE day – when her supply wasn’t even turned on.
Mary Davidson, right, has been caught up in the problems caused by faulty ‘smart meters’ operated by energy supplier SSE, who have blamed the errors on a ‘software upgrade’.
The meters are placed inside people’s homes and provide a continually updated display of the cost of energy being used each day.
The information is sent back automatically to the supplier but Mary is one of the customers around the country whose meters have shown amounts much higher than normal.
Mary and her husband Jim first noticed the problem last month.
Mary, who retired a few years ago as personal assistant to Morton chairman Douglas Rae, said: “We usually glance at the meter from time to time to see how much energy we’re using.
“Our combined gas and electricity costs are normally about £5 a day in winter, so we couldn’t believe it one day when we saw it was showing £485 for only one hour!
“The meter was making a strange noise, and a message came up on it saying our connection was interrupted.
“The amounts have since varied from day to day.
“The electricity part of the meter seems to be okay, but the gas readings are always ridiculously high – and the gas isn’t even turned on!”
Mary contacted SSE about it, and they promised she would not be charged the amount being shown on the smart meter, and said they were trying to fix the problem.
She said: “We don’t know exactly how much the meter is claiming we’ve used in the last few weeks.
“I thought I was the only one with this problem, so it was a relief when I saw on the news that it was happening to others, too.
“We have had no communication at all from SSE other than the reply to a tweet I sent them.
“Even a letter would have been nice.”
A spokesperson for SSE told the Tele: “We would like to apologise for any concern this issue may have caused customers, and would stress they are not being charged any more than normal.
“Their bills will be completely unaffected, as the problem only affects the information being shown on their in-home display – not the smart meter itself.
“SSE is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and would additionally advise customers to log on to their online account if they’d like to double check information about their usage, as we can confirm the information here is accurate.
“We are in the process of communicating directly with all of the affected customers to explain the situation and update them on our progress, but anyone with any further concerns should ring SSE directly on 0345-0713991.”