Utility billing company ARMS Ltd has been advised to give households advance notice of meter readings and to keep documentation proving that meter readers had shown up at people’s doors.
The Ombudsman made the recommendation after a disgruntled person complained that he had been charged €4.60 by ARMS after one of its meter readers found nobody home.
While the company contended that the meter reader had tried to access the meters twice, the consumer insisted that he had never received any notice about meter readings in his letter box.
With both sides refusing to budge, the man asked the Ombudsman to step in and help him get his money back.
The Ombudsman noted that while the €4.60 charge - €2.30 each for water and electricity meters – was negligible, the amount could snowball if a significant number of ARMS Ltd’s client base was affected.
Smart meters have in many cases made physical meter readings a thing of the past – in a recent statement, the company said that it was now issuing 78 per cent of bills with actual readings, rather than estimates – but in some cases a physical check of meter readings is still required.
In such cases, a meter reader is sent to households. When nobody is home, the reader posts a note and customers can submit their own readings within five days, through the ARMS website or via telephone.
If customers do not send in their readings within the five-day timeframe, they are charged a €2.30 fee per meter.
After the Ombudsman stepped in, ARMS grudgingly agreed to waive the man’s €4.60 fee on a one-time basis, as a favour to the customer.
This did not wash with the customer, and the Ombudsman was also sceptical about ARM’s ex gratia reasoning.
The company, the Ombudsman noted, should give customers reasonable advanced notice of upcoming meter readings, and meter readers should keep a signed and dated copy of notices they posted to customers who were not home.
Furthermore, the Ombudsman said, the advanced notice sent out to ARMS customers should make it clear what they had to do if they could not be home when the meter reader came calling, and clearly explain that they would be charged a €2.30 fee per meter if they ignored the notice and did nothing.
This is not the first time disgruntled consumers have complained about ARMS.
The company is currently locked in a court battle with foreigners who say the company spent years discriminating against them by forcing them into the higher tariff band, and its billing system is currently the subject of a government review after consumers – and the Opposition – highlighted discrepancies which could lead to consumers effectively being deprived of parts of their lower tariff quotas.