estimated digital meter reading

[thornewood]

I have been an AGL customer since I installed solar.  All ok till May this year when estimated readings started to appear in May 2021. I have a smart meter which has been checked by techs on more than one occasion and found to be working just fine.  The latest addition to the phone app even advises me that my solar feed in appears to be working a OK.  I have contacted AGL on numerous occasions to no avail. On one of the first times I called the lady I spoke to said that my data was being received but that here was a processing problem at their end. The last time which was over 2 weeks ago gave me hope that a solution was near.  I spoke to a very nice lady who was described as a "resolutions manager" She assured me she would take over my case and get back to me within a week.  That was over two weeks ago.  No contact has been made.  I advised that techs had visited and found no problem at my end however without letting me know a visit was made to our house on a day when we were out.  As  I have my meter box locked they could not access the meter.  I got a text from AGL at around 7 PM that night to tell me they had visited.  Last I heard from them. I would like to know when the estimated readings will end and the actual readings will commence.  I am sick of going through the system and having to repeat the same info over and over.  That being said everyone I speak with tries to be helpful.  The system obviously needs a major overhaul.  I would love to get a positive meaningful response to this but unfortunately by past experience I am not holding my breath. 

[David_AGL]

Hi @thornewood . This definitely sounds like an extremely frustrating situation. As this issue does require direct access we most likely won't be able to resolve it here in the community, but I appreciate the frustration of having to re-explain the issue each time. 

One thing that might help is to use the Messaging function within the AGL app and My Account page. Unlike phone or live chat, an ongoing record of your conversation will be stored within your account, which should save time re-explaining things when you get in touch, and serve as a record of how the issue has persisted.

If you'd like me to check in with the Resolutions team on how the investigation has progressed, please shoot me a private message here (click my name) with your account number and I'll try to chase it up.

One final thing to note is that receiving an "estimated" bill does not necessarily mean the entire bill is an estimate - if even a single one-hour interval for the billing period is estimated rather than an actual read from your smart meter, the entire bill will show as "estimated", even though it's 99.9% based on actual reads. 

[thornewood]

Hi David

Thanks for getting back to me.  As I said everyone I contacted has tried to be helpful but I really still haven't got an answer I'm happy with.  As far as estimates go if I look at the daily figures on the app they are completely different to what I'm seeing from my inverter app.  Now I know from past experience when all was working as it should (up until May this year) the output of my solar was within 0.1 Kwh on my inverter app compared to my AGL app.  As for as consumption from the grid this differs simply because the data from the inverter ceases at night.  If I look at the app the estimates shown continuously since May show the same estimates for each day from week to week.  I haven't done it yet but I'm pretty sure if I compare my inverter output to the grid for a billing period it will be vastly different to the estimate.  Anyway I appreciate your offer to follow up with the investigation so far.  As I said it will be 3 weeks tomorrow since I spoke with a lady who told me she was taking this on board and would get back to me within a week.  No reply yet.

As far as messaging goes I have used this through the phone app but if I am logged in on my PC and I try to sent a message it takes me back to the intro screen.  I have never been able to set up my account properly since day one.  There are details that I have tried to update numerous times and all I get is the cute little puppy with the disconnected extension cord.  I eventually gave up in frustration..

I look forward to your follow up reply.

Thanks

Rod

[David_AGL]

Sounds like there may be some issues with your online account then, as well. If you can provide your account number to me in a private message here, I'll gladly follow it up with Resolutions.