forgive me but arent these nice card meters tamper proof, ie dont go moving them around or when the custard gets their card the meter will be useless till the supplier pops out to reset it, and your name will be mud.
To my knowledge at least if these are getting used to recover a debt then they get put in a special mode where you rather would lock them. You could get yourself a bit in trouble playing about with it as you seem not to know the history and the setting of the meter.
If it is a HA the responsible agent/manager usually comes forward quickly with a solution to prevent further costs.
As for the theft thingy, once caught they usually assume you have used it since the last check/meter reading by themselves and average the usage.
It is your part to proof different then. You could try by videoing during the time of bypassing as a preventive measurement. Still would get charged as theft but the claim for the stolen gas could get reduced.
Dunno how easy Gas Safe does take that then? Worth trying?
Word of mouth can be brilliant but if your customer spreads word of this it could as well go wrong.
Add on: Not so funny episode to think about, a company in my area had installed a few months ago a new gas appliance. Now there was an accident. From rumours totally unrelated to the new installation. But. That still means that now even the new installation got checked by inspectors, any potential flaws would be reported to Gas Safe. And likely lead to increased check ups/reports.
You never know before. Cutting corners can become quite costly in the aftermath. At least this company has spent many unpaid man hours on answering questions and hunting paperwork to proof their procedures.
This is no assumption that faults have been found on the new installation. Just a hint how tricky things can be.
