Electricity company and pressure to get a smart meter

"I've told you no. I don't appreciate your company's disrespect of my boundaries. I mean you no personal harm, but I'm hanging up the phone. Thanks." And hang up :) You can be kind and firm. They can move on to annoy the next caller on their list. I've been doing this with EE. Sometimes they hang up on me first, problem averted.

Yeh all energy companies are the same they will all try and get you to get a smart meter. However as I digomandola said it’s not law to get one so no matter how hard they try they can’t force you to get one.

Thank you - that’s somewhat reassuring if I end up having to have one eventually. 

As someone who has recently worked for an energy supplier I can confirm, govt targets. Thing is though I've had faaaaaaar more issues with manual reads than the very rare issue with a smart meter. They're not scary, you can set how often they send meter reads, you can still read them manually if you wish. I love having one for my electric and am always trying to get one for my gas too! But yes even though you tell them you don't want one, they're kind of obligated to keep asking. 

Thank you. It was a bad day today anyway and I found it very intimidating today. The woman on the phone was very pushy and unpleasant. 

Thanks for your advice - I really appreciate it. They’ve been doing this for ages but the woman who rang today was very persistent and I felt so stressed about it. Horrible. I just want them to leave me alone.

Its not the law to have one, they may tell you it is but....i just ignore and block them.

Ours email us every now and again and I delete the email without reply, I refuse to have a smart meter and I'm not sure if one would be right for this house. What a lot of people don't realise or know, especially when their pressuring you to have one is that  how well they will work depends on what your house is built from. Some of our house is built from stone and its not a good conductor for internet signals, we have two wi-fi boosters and another for the thermometer for the heating and boiler, without it, it switches itself off and leaves us cold because it believes theres a fault, we have a new boiler too.

I know of a few people who've had problems with them, like them not sending the readings, or sending the wrong readings leaving the person either owing loads or being owed loads.

Maybe it's time to think about swapping energy company if you keep getting hassled?

Kate Kestrel said:

I think they’re trying to scare me into getting one and I’m so stressed about it.

All the energy companies are pushing hard on this because they have government imposed targets for the rollout (all part of the lowering of carbon emmissions drive).

It is of little benefit to you and I have read plenty of cases in the press where the meters are giving wrong readings, never in favour of the customer of course.

If they ask, just say no and hang up. There is no need to justify or explain why - it is your right as a consumer.

I had this pressure in my last 3 properties in the UK and did the same in all - told them no and to stop calling me for it or I would raise a complaint to the ombudsman.

If they keep pushing, ask for their name as you will be making a complaint for harrassment. Tell them you have made a note of the time and date of the call and will be asking for a recording to support your claim of harrassment - this normally makes them hang up and flag you as a problem customer not to be contacted.