What does a yellow tag on electric meter mean?

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asked May 12, 2022 in Other-Home/Garden by Higgonbottom (13,070 points)
What does a yellow tag on electric meter mean?

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answered May 12, 2022 by BEngle (2,140 points)
A yellow tag on an electric meter means they observed or encountered a condition that is not an immediate hazard, but has the potential of becoming one in the future.

The black tag on your house's electricity meter is a security device that lets your power company know whether the meter has been tampered with.

The tag is on the side or bottom of the meter's glass cover or metal panel.

You are not to cut, remove or modify the tag in any fashion.

You can cut the seal on your meter box if you need to remove the meter to do some work or you need to pull the meter in an emergency such as an electrical fire or other fire.

However if you cut the seal and don't report it to the power company they may assume you tried to tamper with your meter or are stealing electricity.

If you need the meter pulled you can have the power company come out to pull it for you which they will do when you need to do repairs to the electrical system.

Meter tampering is when you open your meter box and bypass the meter or pull the meter and then prevent it from registering any use of power.

Anything that alters the meter and prevents it from registering the amount of electricity you use is considered meter tampering.

External wiring modifications include swapping phase and neutral wires; disconnecting the neutral wire altogether; providing a return path via ground rather than neutral; and disconnecting one of the phase wires from the meter.

In some places meter tampering is a crime especially if you steal electricity although it's rare to get caught if you have been turned off for non payment and then bypass the meter socket.

However not everywhere makes meter tampering a crime and for the majority of places just tampering with your meter or meter box will not result in any crime being committed or any charges being committed.

I remember about 10 years ago I was unable to pay for my electric bill which was sky high and I needed my electricity so a few days after my electric got shut off I had the idea to open the meter box by cutting the seal and then placing 2 jumper wires between the lugs of the meter socket.

I owned the meter socket but the utility owned the meter.

I then continued paying back the electric bill until I got the account caught up within a year.

Then I removed the jumper wires and called the utility to come turn it back on after paying.

The utility never said anything to me about the seal being cut and just turned the power back on.

My neighbor is actually doing the same thing right now.

He had his electricity cut off last month due to non payment and a $600.00 electric bill owed so right after the electric utility guy left town he opened the meter box and ran a few jumper wires to get his electricity back on.

I won't say anything as he needs his electricity.

Although in some larger cities the utility sometimes goes around and sends people to look for electricity theft and meter tampering.

But in a smaller town or subdivision it's unlikely they would ever find out about the meter tampering or electricity theft.

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