Faulty Electicity Tokens for Meter

Hi

At the end of February this year we had an electricity token meter installed on the advice of a friend. Looking back now I wonder why, we do rent out but had never had any problems getting the electricity paid for prior to the holiday. To date we have had nothing but problems as half the tokens would not register. Usually the people were able to make contact with our property management team & new ones tried though often it took a number of different tokens before one was registered. One night @ midnight a member of the team had to go to our apartment because once again the tokens were not registering. I have just received an email saying the same thing has happened again & someone has had to drive all the way back to Condado as all surplus tokens were in their office. I am not a happy cookie. It could be that it is our meter that is faulty but we would be interested to find out if anyone else is having the same problems. If you are then we will have to have the meter taken out & if not have the meter changed

Jan

Sack ya management company and vet your renters accordingly by charging them the going electricity rate rather than ripping them off with card meters...

Why would we sack our management company. It is not their fault the tokens are faulty.

I have had two PM`s from people who are experiencing the same problems and they are not with the same management company as us.

I gather its the fault of the chip if it comes in contact with a mobile phone.

As for ripping them off. We get our clients via a company who was advising us of a charge per person per night. This turned out to be oh so wrong as people were paying well over the top of the current rate & this is why we felt the meter was the better option.

Dont know why you have put your self on such a high horse.  Have you got problems with our  management company or are you just a grumpy old so and so

Are you one of the people who has two or more user names as this is very similarly worded  to a very negative PM I recieved this morning!!  Strange that the contecxt is almost word purfect

Jan

Which Electric meter do you have?

They were supplied along with meter by Echotech

Jan

Out of interest what have Ecotec said about the problem and what are they doing to assist you with it?

Although you mention that the problem occurs once it comes into contact with a mobile phone which sounds like the tokens have a component that is becoming de-magnetised which is not really something the supplier is at fault for. Ask Ecotec for advise about this.

If that is the case you need to really highlight the problem to your clients, perhaps provide the token in multiples so they are not left high and dry if one fails. The reinforce the point you could warn the clients of a call out charge if the tokens are misused.

Good luck!

I have just found echtechs email address and will be emailing them now. The problem re being next to a mobile phone was a suggestedvto me in a pm so I am not positive this is the reason. Our property management team have been giving more tokens than needed to our clients but as many would not register the remaining ran out. To be fair to Echotech they did re register all of our remaining and unusable tokens but the problem has occured a number of times since.

My understanding with this meter is that if a card runs out or is removed when low and a new card inserted it will not work? the system works by putting the last card back into meter this then clears the meter for another card. Perhaps clients are not doing this, ask for detailed instructions and leave them visable for your clients. 

Hi

Thank you to all who have commented on this thread either openly or via a PM

Sonatigh. Thank you for your comment. I was not aware of this & have just sent the info to our property manager.

We will get your advice added to our clientes information ledger too.

Thanks

Jan

Chaddyowl - the main reason I put a meter in is so that I didn't feel that I was 'ripping off' the renters.   If I didn't have the meter (which, incidentally, is set at a very fair rate) then I would need to assume that each renter was going to use the aircon 24/7 and charge them an arm and a leg for the let just to be on the safe side.  I felt it was the fairest option to install the meter and let people pay only for what they consume.

Exactly. Ajw. This is why we had a meter installed too,

We have lots of these meters installed installed, both theold card type and the newer chip type and we have been having some problems with the chip type meters sometimes not reading the cards

What we have to do it use 2 more cards one to clear  and the other to reset the meter, then the cards work OK. The older paer type were ugly but better because you could stack up credit

Whenever we have rest the meter the new cards have worked and I am not sure if the problem is created by voltage fluctuation

The way they operate is that they only control the AC and iuncluded in the rental is a credit for 21 hours use in one week and then they buy more cards at around €10 for 21 more hours as the meters are only calibrated to cover the cost of the power

These meter are a good idea as we have seen people run the AC 24 hours a day, run the AC all night and sleep under quilts and run while they go out to the beach and rental rates can be low, my record is an additional €40 spent by a family in one week

Hi

It appears that the tokens may not have been used correctly

This is the instructions I have received from Luke this morning. Hope this helps anyone else having problems