Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: Jean-Marc Barrere / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 4:39 p.m., April 2, 2024

Faced with rising electricity bills, consumers may be tempted to tamper with their Linky meter to save money. An illegal practice, which is not without risk, warns the customer director of Enedis in an interview with “Parisien”.

Enedis is issuing a warning to all those who would be tempted to tamper with their Linky meter. In its edition of this Tuesday, April 2,

Le Parisien

shines the spotlight on fraud, practiced by consumers or technicians, which makes it possible to reduce the amount of the electricity bill. As the daily reports, one of these frauds, called the derivation technique, can be carried out in a short time and can even reduce this amount by up to 70%.

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Tampering with your meter “is exposing your life”, warns Enedis

But this type of manipulation is not without risk for households, quite the contrary. Questioned by

Le Parisien

, the customer director of Enedis, Éric Salomon, explains that doing this maneuver “under voltage is putting your life at risk. And wires that are poorly connected, or that move over time, can cause fires. In buildings, this also constitutes a danger to the lives of others.”

Also, this can be compared to “energy theft”. In this case, the consumer is exposed to a sentence of three imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros as mentioned in article 311-3 of the penal code.

“1,000 proven frauds” on 37 million boxes

According to the customer director, meter traffic, however, remains limited. Of the 37 million fluorescent green boxes installed throughout France, “1,000 frauds have been proven”. He ensures that the latter do not go under the radar of the electricity distribution network manager.

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“If the meter is modified in any way, we will know in real time. Any attempt at fraud is detected thanks to the thousands of sworn checks in the field and the 250 agents who work thanks to alerts and intelligence artificial", explains Éric Salomon. To reduce your electricity bill, it will therefore always be safer to adopt government recommendations.