Why are smart meters being forced on us and are they a waste of money?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Government's £11billion scheme to install 53million smart meters in homes and small businesses by the end of 2020 has been plagued by problems.

Now it appears there may be more hidden nasties. A wireless tech expert says they have the power to take over customer accounts.

In theory, this means suppliers could cut off a household's electricity or gas without visiting the property, add debt to a meter, remove credit on an account, change the charge levied or turn the meter into a pre-payment device.

Authority to use these functions has yet to be granted – but it all sounds a little big brotherish.

In this week's podcast Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost question, is it time to rethink the smart meter push?

Also on this week's show, we talk secondary tickets after Ticketmaster axed Get Me In and Seatwave, discuss what to do with £10,000 in order to get onto the property ladder and the motivation you need to prevent becoming a CV cliché.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money Podcast in partnership with NS&I.
0:04.8	I'm your host Georgie Frost and alongside editor Simon Lambert and myself today is the newly promoted Lee Boyce.
0:12.0	Now assistant editor slash personal finance editor slash Lee, I'm not going to say this every time.
0:18.0	So just a quick one. Can you pick one?
0:20.0	Yeah, I think about it.
0:21.8	All right, fair enough. Well, coming up, while Lee thinks about that, welcome to 1984, the
0:27.2	hidden twist in the smart meter saga that could see suppliers take control of your account.
0:33.2	Victory for the fans as Ticketmaster takes a significant step to combat professional touts.
0:39.3	Also, can you get on the property ladder with 10 grand and how to avoid being a CV cliché?
0:45.3	Don't forget you step to date with all the latest breaking money news.
0:48.3	Just go to this ismoney.co.uk or download the app.
0:52.3	This is Money. Brought to you in partnership with NS&I, where safer savings set you free.
0:59.9	The first, the backlash is building against smart meters, which it turns out, well, may not
1:05.0	be so smart at all, nor so money saving.
1:07.9	The government's £11 billion scheme to install 53 million smart metres
1:12.7	in homes and small businesses by the end of 2020 has been dogged by problems, but now it
1:18.3	appears there may be more hidden nasties.
1:21.4	A wireless tech expert says they have the power to take over customer accounts so suppliers
1:27.2	could cut off a household's electricity or gas without visiting the property, add debt to a meter, remove credit on an account, change the charge levied or turn the meter into a prepayment device.
1:39.1	Authority to use these functions has yet to be granted, but it all sounds a little bit big brotherish.
1:46.4	So, Lee, I know you're a big fan of smart meters.
1:49.7	So just remind us, what are they?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This is Money, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of This is Money and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.