IT seems that George Gittins, (HAS, Sept 23), has been misled about change of supplier costs for a smart meter. It’s not clear whether this report is from a dishonest call centre (quite likely in my experience) or a third party report.

It’s well known that some companies will use any tactics to avoid losing accounts, claiming that the meters have to be paid for appears to be one of them.

The smart meter is not part of the electricity installation for which he is responsible, it belongs to the Regional Electricity Distributor, the billing supplier may have arranged its installation, but it doesn’t belong to them.

The worst that can happen if you change supplier is that the meter will “go dumb” and be unable to automatically send its readings to head office so you have to read it manually.

This is a known fault of some first-generation meters and is already scheduled to be fixed at no cost to the user, but don’t hold your breath!

The government sponsored this scheme and the costs will be recovered from everyone’s utility bills, less the saving in not needing meter readers.

The media claims that smart meters save you money are obvious lies; any savings are down to you being aware of consumption and taking action.

The greatest benefit that I see is not having to arrange access to meter readers and avoiding estimated bills.

Anthony J Foster, Peterlee