Smart meters are a scam that “overcharge consumers by up to 582%” while at the same time collecting owner’s data which is then sold to third parties for further profit, according to the first major university study into the controversial technology.

Electric utilities have increasingly embraced smart meters, pushing hard for the mass rollout of the technology. Roughly 65 million of the devices have been installed in the United States over the last few years, with 57 million of them in consumer homes.

The meters provide innumerable benefits to utility companies, often delivering an ocean of new remote access and monitoring tools to better manage the network and reduce meter reading truck rolls.

But the benefits to consumers have been less notable, including interference with some home routers, as well as the fact that a number of models have been shown to be relatively easily hacked.

Now the University of Twente in the Netherlands has published the results of a major study into the  nine most popular smart meters used in the United States and United Kingdom, with the conclusion that smart meters routinely overcharge consumers, often by staggering amounts…

Source: University Study Exposes ‘Smart Meters Scam’ – Your News Wire