My electricity supplier, on the bills they send me, annotate every meter reading as ‘read by you’ or ‘read by us’, presumably so that if the readings are ever non-monotonic or otherwise unbelievable they know which ones to question.

Last week they stuck a card through my door telling me that they'd tried to read my meter but I hadn't been in (since, just like every other company in the multiverse that visits people at home in the course of its business, they invariably attempt to do so at the most likely times of day for the occupants to be out at work). My previous supplier's suggested fallback procedure in this situation was for me to read the meter myself and give them the readings either by phone or through their website. This lot prefer me to fill in the meter readings on the card itself, and to leave the card in my window so they can see it when they call back.

So I did that, and today I got the resulting bill. The meter readings are exactly the ones I wrote on the card, but they're annotated ‘read by us’! I wonder if that meter reading is now tagged as trustworthy in their database despite them not having laid eyes on the actual meter at any point.