A YOUNG mum has said she was horrified to discover her smart meter said she’d used £40,000 worth of power in just one day.
Mum-of-one Chloee Miles Prior, 25, was so shocked when she got up in the morning and saw the reading that it felt like she was having a heart attack.
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Chloee said that her daily usage rarely goes above £1.80 but was stunned when she looked at her SSE smart meter on October 2.
She panicked when she saw the smart meter reading of £42,810.20 just before midday.
Chloee told The Mirror: “We don’t sleep with all the lights on, we don’t have an illegal rave going on, we’re not doing anything that would actually justify that.
“I suffer with anxiety and depression and everything and it sent me down that black hole for about half an hour before I could think about it with a rational head.
“It was ridiculous, like I was having a heart attack, it was shocking.”
Chloee, who is mum to six-month-old daughter Athena, has lived in a two-bed, ground floor flat in Pentworth, West Sussex, since March.
She doesn’t have an oven and uses two halogen cookers instead and added she is very careful with her electricity usage and hardly ever uses the appliance during the day.
Chloee claimed the lights are never on and the thermostat is kept at 20C.
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Her partner, Steven Leiper, works as a carer although he doesn’t live with them and Chloee is hardly ever at the property during the day.
When she set-up the direct debit, the estimated monthly amount she agreed to was £57 in total, with £46 for electricity and £11 on gas, which Chloee said was “incredibly reasonable”.
With millions of Brits feeling the pinch due to the ongoing cost of living crisis, Chloee said she was concerned what impact these meter readings could have on families who are struggling to get by.
People were urged to take meter readings ahead of the price surge that came into effect on October 1.
Due to her health, Chloee is “ineligible” to work and so can’t simply go out and get a job to be able to put a payment plan in place.
Smart meters and your rights
If your smart meter is not working properly, your supplier should investigate and replace the meter if required.
In the meantime, you should continue to take meter readings in the usual way to track your usage.
Suppliers should try to get a proper meter reading at least once a year.
Smart meters can show the wrong energy usage on the display, but still record the correct amount of energy you use with the supplier.
But it can be frustrating to see the incorrect cost if you use the meter to monitor your energy use.
It is hard to know if you are being billed incorrectly or if it is simply a price rise.
If your bill jumps suddenly, it is worth checking with your supplier. Take a look at your consumption and work out if that has gone up.
Avoid estimated bills at all costs. Give your provider a meter reading every month and take a photo as evidence.
Suppliers can only bill you for the previous 12 months if the error was its mistake.
If you are not happy with what your energy firm says, or it does not sort your problem, you can report the firm to the Energy Ombudsman.
You must have complained to your supplier and given the firm eight weeks to resolve the problem.
The ombudsman will then take a look at your case and decide whether you are entitled to compensation.
You must take your case to the ombudsman within 12 months of your supplier telling you of its decision.
She joked: “The only way I’ll be able to do that is by being Richard Branson’s sugar girl, and that isn’t going to happen.
“It sort of makes you take a step back because you’ve got your day planned out, you’re relaxing and chilling, it’s a Sunday, you’ve got hardly anything to do, maybe a roast is the most stressful part of your day, and then all of a sudden you see that [meter reading] and the day stops.
“If I’m not able to provide my daughter with a decent property, good heating and electricity to make sure that she gets a nice hot bath when she needs it, food when she needs it as well as sustaining myself so I can look after her, it’s a massive worry.
“It’s more than a worry, you get incredibly stressed out.”
In a bid to get to the bottom of things, Chloee tried to do some research online to find out what the issue could be.
She said: “The most I could see was that maybe there was a seven times increase because you’ve got an ecobulb, which confuses a smart meter, or a dimmer switch or something like that.”
The Sun Online has contacted SSE for comment.
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