Faced with the rise in the price of electricity, some do not hesitate to go illegal.
A few blows with a screwdriver, a fiddling with the wires and, suddenly, a meter which shows a clear drop in consumption. Faced with soaring electricity prices, more and more French people are resorting to an illegal method to reduce the amount of the bill to pay to Engie (or other operator). Although the Linky meter has been deployed throughout France, this box is not inviolable and some people take advantage of it to sell their skills in handling electrical installations. With a promise: to save their customers money.
Fraudging the electricity meter – just like the water meter – is nothing new. Schemes have always existed. But be careful not to get caught because the fine is much higher than the money saved. And, above all, a prison sentence can be imposed on those who cheat (and cause cheating). However, modest and wealthy households, young and old, individuals and businesses alike do not hesitate to take the plunge.
The system is simple. These makeshift electricians directly connect your most consuming equipment directly to the electrical supply, without going through the meter. Thus, the energy used is not counted. But the method is (very) dangerous between the risk of electrocution and that of setting fire to your home in the event of a bad connection.
To find people capable of changing the system, customers simply go through social networks. On the various existing platforms, groups have been created on which “handymen” offer their services, for a fee of a few hundred to 1500 euros per intervention, after-sales service included!
Because in the event of fraud detection, the energy company can contact you to come and check your meter. No need to panic in the eyes of the tinkering “technician” who promises to erase the traces. “Your Linky is at your home so its agents must ask you for authorization to enter. But as you are planning their visit, you call me, and I will come and put it back as before. The controllers will see nothing, and I will come back and put it back to you the system again afterwards”, explains one of them to Parisian.
If the phenomenon develops, Engie claims on a daily basis to have only really identified 1000 frauds, using “automatic alarms”. “If the meter is modified, in any way, we will know in real time,” assures the daily Eric Salomon, customer director at Engie, which highlights artificial intelligence and controllers to detect consumption anomalies . However, some seem to be able to get past it through trickery.
But justice is watching over the situation. In Doubs, a man was sentenced to two years in prison, one of which was closed, to pay a fine of 10,000 euros, as well as damages to Engie for having made meter bypasses, while the customers received 3 000 to 6,000 euros fine. Not sure that the economy would have been very real.