Martin Lewis issues advice to people unable to submit energy meter reading today

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Martin Lewis is urging people ‘not to panic’ if they are unable to submit their energy meter readings today. The Money Saving Expert had advised people across the UK to enter in their meter readings with their energy provider ahead of a hike in gas and electricity bills coming into force from tomorrow.

But it appears a number of websites have struggled to cope with the stream of customers attempting to do this online. SSE, E.ON, Bulb and Scottish Power are among the companies whose websites have experienced significant downtime throughout today, according to DownDetector.

In a video released earlier on Twitter earlier today, Martin Lewis said he has alerted energy watchdog Ofgem to the problems.

The consumer champion also issued advice and urged households not to panic if they are unable to submit their meter readings today.He said: “This is just a way of protecting yourself from them trying to overestimate your usage at a higher rate.“If you were to do it tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, just doing it around now reduces the wriggle room for a problem with estimates."A day or two out isn’t the biggest panic in the world.“Of course, the perfect time to do it is 11.59pm tonight, but if you forget or there’s something wrong with the firm, don’t panic."He added: “If you can’t send it through online and their phone lines are too busy, some of them allow you to email a photo of your meter to count as a meter reading, so check your firm’s website to see if that works.”Martin Lewis has been urging members of the public to submit their meter readings today to allow customers to prove how much energy they have used before the higher prices comes into force.In February this year, Ofgem increased the energy price