Ha! Good joke. These days they just send out letters asking the customer to read the meter instead. First time I got one of those, I was thinking "What? No, that's your job. Don't I pay you for that?"
Someone other than you has to read it once in a while; every 3-12 months most likely. I report mine (via SMS) so I don't get a surprise bill (or find I've been giving them a six month interest-free loan) when the estimated use and the actual use differ.
> Someone other than you has to read it once in a while; every 3-12 months most likely.
Not here. I assume that as long as your consumption figures aren't wildly implausible, they just leave you alone. You can voluntarily upload a picture of your meter while submitting the reading, but I've never bothered and they've never requested it.
Probably there are random spot checks, but personally I've never been subjected to one of those. They might also catch you when the meter finally gets replaced at some point, but power meters seem to be relatively long-lived, so they probably won't rely on that alone.
It also really doesn't help that some of the power companies have started sending letters/emails to their customers saying "your meter has reached the end of its life, we have a legal obligation to replace it, please arrange an appointment to fit a smart meter". They're lying to try to force you to allow them to install a smart meter, and they're only doing that because so many people have said that they don't want one.
Most of the world reports their meters regularly to get accurate measures - the company still sends someone out every 6-12 months to true up. You're free to lie or ignore it, but the bill will come due just the same.
Many of them don’t even need to be directly read - they have a little sensor that can be read from nearby, sometimes even just by a utility truck driving by.
