electricity theft?

[porkchop buddah]

Hey guy and girls! Just was talking to a older grower and he gave me some info and I was hoping to either confirm or discredit his story. The guy had told me that before smart readers he would place magnets on his meter and that would slow down it to a crawl and he would run 10 lights for pennies. He also said that when his area made the upgrade to smart he found a way to get free electricity. He claims he bought a meter on eBay and had an electrician install it and that was all was needed to get it for free. He claims with your own meter their is no way of tracking usage since electricity gets registered thru it and your no longer a customer to the meter owner

 

[FireIn.TheSky]

I call BS.

For one, with the old meters they used to come and manually read it, you dont think the meter reader would have noticed the magnets?

And 2, meter sockets are not installed by the electrician. Electricians run all the the wires and install the meter enclosure but the power company will come and install the meter itself and put a tamper proof lock on it so it cannot be modified or removed.

You can't just go and remove the meter socket itself because the wiring on both sides is live, if you were to pull that out it would explode. To do any work to a household service you must first call the power company and have them shut off the power.

The only way to steal power is to tap the line side of the meter socket before it goes thru the meter, which would have to be done live. It is incredibly dangerous and you will eventually get caught.

 

[porkchop buddah]

From what he I gather he would remove the magnets when the people came out. As for the smart readers all he said was that you cancel your account and they come to your house kill the power and remove their meter. You buy a meter from eBay and pay a person to install it, not sure after that how you access the electricity

 

[FireIn.TheSky]

I guess it could be possible if you wanted to go thru that much trouble. I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

 

[Bud Green]

The "old grower" guy who told you this is an idiot, and he is 100% full of shit.

(see comment number 2... everything except the exploding meter is truth)

 

[Shmavis]

When it comes to security: one of the top three rules is: do NOT steal electricity.

Not sure where you live but around here if you cancel your account — such as when you move — no one from the electric company comes and removes the meter - at least not around here... that doesn’t even really make sense... why would the meter be removed? The meter, which is associated with a specific address, stays with the address... the billing information changes with occupancy.

Stealing electricity is not a good idea.

 

[SocalNugz]

1000000000000% true
Gotta have the right magnet tho not just any lil ol mag will do it. Havent seen it done in at least 10 years tho if not more.
Fireinthesky sorry bud but your quite a bit off on your electrical, ive hot swapped meters a million times as long as you turn off the breakers and remove the load you should not get flashback. And i dont personally steal electeic but its actually pretty easy to do an not get caught and if you do you pay a fine.... no big deal.
The meter pushes on or pulls right off the only thing holding the colar is a small clip sometimes they have keys but theyre easy to get a hold of.
Personally im of the opinion if you cant grow good enough to pay your electric bill you just shouldnt grow.

 

[noyd666]

I was taught how to but i'm not touching it with a ten foot pole lol, pretty much a no no down here , but done. have a google its there. one part said 8m pounds worth stolen in ireland every year. stealing elec with magnet, bought up a fair bit on google.

 

[porkchop buddah]

Guys I'm not trying to steal power just had a conversation that I was on the fence believing it or not and figured I inquire with some of you guys. I believe the magnet thing, if you remember how a penny got all channels on your cable boxed opened its feasible, a simple hack

 

[Space Toker]

I have a bit of a rebel streak in me, want to in theory stick it to "the man", oppressors, the rich and so on... but it is not worth it. From what I heard paying the bill on time is all you need to do. That being said, I am not using much compared to most growers these days. I mean, I hear you can do 10 1k lights pretty easily, 20 is not too hard, over that maybe.

But, I am not doing anywhere near the minimum of what I mentioned and when logging on to the electric company site, they have all kinds of graphs and charts claiming I am using 10x or more what is typical for my area, and until recently constantly got calls offering to use some federal law to get savings on bills x dollars or more, and a solar guy came up once and was very aggressive trying to get into the house and install solar (something had to be done in the circuit breaker box I guess). So yeah it may seem tempting to anyone and even more for me, but I certainly don't advise it. Hey there are plenty of reasons "legitimate" users can use way more than me so fuck them! The BS has died down the last few months anyway.

 

[MR_Falcon]

I moved into a townhouse & was growing, for the 1st 5-6 months my bill was $0.00 while running multiple lights. I finally called the power co & they said I was registering 0 usage. they sent someone to check the meter & he said it had been by-passed. unfortunately they sent me back bills based on my current usage so it was a big nut. I did think about letting it ride but that juice isn't worth the squeeze. so yes it is absolutely possible because all the guy changed out was the meter, no line tapping.


i'm #100 out of 100 on those graphs too, but I figure if I get bumped down I'll know another grower has moved into the area.

 

[porkchop buddah]

Thank you Mr Falcon. I guess I'll take this old timers word from now on, I was skeptical at first. Kinda figured if you can buy a meter from eBay then you can tap into the line without it being communicated to the power company

 

[Bwanabud]

Yes it can be done, but you'll get caught sooner or later..the new digital meters put an end to the shenanigans. Put a wind mill on your property, and sell the power back to the electric company.

If you have to steal electric to grow, quit growing.

 

[Happyflowlucky]

I saw this being done in Isla Vista back in the 90s. They would run the magnets for 2 to 3 weeks and remove them before it was time to be read. Another trick I saw them do out there was to "buy" a bag of the security wires/locks they use to secure the meter in place. They are like a cable lock you crimp into place that allowed them to see if it had been tampered with. They would cut one off and flip the meter for almost 2 weeks, then flip it back and replace the cut lock with a new one. I was told the meter would run backwards for the time it spent flipped. I heard they eventually got caught as well.

Anyone remember the hidden cave grow attached to a house in TN? I think it was TN., anyway, it was an epic setup and I think they got caught because they were stealing power.

 

[Cadfael]

Yes, those old school tactics used to work. But with the advent of E meters, it has become harder and harder. Now if you switch out the e-meter, the Company would know by the new ID number of the meter or by a non E meter being there where an e meter used to be. Remember they "phone home" and makes it easier to see if they have been tampered with.

If you thought a scorned ex-girlfriend was a bad risk, try a billion dollar power company.

 

[corky1968]

I think it's wiser to stay small, pay one's hydro bill and not get greedy.

Grow outside if you can.

 

[porkchop buddah]

After starting this thread I went and spoke with some people and now know how to bypass all the new meters without bringing attention. I AM NOT STEALING ELECTRICITY! I am curious by nature it's just my personality. In essence to steal electricity all you need to do is buy your own smart reader and install it, I won't go into details but it's very, very easy. All your doing is getting rid of a smart reader that is linked to your address, how can a gas,water or electric company now what your using if they can't read your usage? The electricity company can't read your smart reader you bought, they don't have that info. And for those people who claim you can't have the electricity company remove their meters, are you serious? Didn't realize I legally have to have a meter attached to my home even if I don't want it, give me a break! Meters get removed daily for various reasons construction, off grid, delinquent bill and many more

 

[Baron Greenback]

Absolutely 100% true, friends of ours were doing it in France up until last year when they changed their meter to a smart one. An electrician mate of mine showed me how it was done, powerful magnets will definitely do it.
A guy I knew who set up rooms for people had a spark he worked with, room set-up, £5000 to the spark and there would never be a bill at that house (this was a few years ago though).

 

[Jhhnn]

Growers already have enough liabilities w/o fucking with the power company. Here in the US, if you pay the bill & don't overload their equipment they'll be happy. They're constantly on the lookout for power thieves, however, & have all kinds of ways & tech to figure out if you're that guy & how much power you're stealing. Armed with that, the cops can easily obtain a search warrant & arrest warrant for the miscreant of record.

Slamma-jamma, dumbass.

Thankfully, I don't have to deal with any of that being Colorado A64 compliant. We never exceed our plant count limit & sell none of it.

Although I think it's impractical for larger grows anybody who wants to cut the power bill should look into Philips 315w tech. It's spendy up front but my limited & not really scientific experience is that twin 315's grow as well as a conventional 1000w while using 60% as much power. I went that way to get better temp control & couldn't be happier.

 

[pop_rocks]

/totally thinks this guy is thinking about stealing power

you are just asking for trouble,man

you dont think the electrical co will not notice that a residence that has been drawing electricity is suddenly dark?

like others have said, if you are stealing power you are really taking a risk.
most of us would rather stay low, pay our bills, and grow mad weed without going to jail

its up to you man, but unless you are really getting somehting out of this, i would not take the risk