For most, tampering with an electric meter or tapping into a power line to siphon off free electricity just seems like a bad idea. It’s a practice that could bring instant death or, at the least, a very sudden and painful shock.

Yet stealing electricity is a way of life for some and even a business, an illegal one, for others. And the real victims are paying customers and Oncor.

“People will try to directly tap into our service lines or drill through the conduit to steal power,” said Curtis Melton, Senior Manager, Revenue Security. “The real deal about tampering is not just about the money, it’s also about safety. If there’s a problem or mistake, it potentially could cause injury or death to our Oncor employees, first responders and the public.”

Below, Oncor Revenue Security employees, from left, Joey Lynn, Jonathan Nichols, Frank Hukill and Curtis Melton.

In an average month, Oncor investigates 2,400 cases of suspected theft. Industry experts estimate that $6 billion of electricity is stolen each year in the U.S.

To fight back, Oncor relies on its own “electric detectives” from Revenue Security.

On a recent chilly morning, Joey Lynn, a Revenue Security Representative, is at work in his usual location – the back yard of someone he doesn’t know.

Within minutes, Lynn examines the electric meter and finds what he’s looking for: evidence that electricity is being stolen, diverted or manipulated to lower the monthly bill.

“The people who are doing it have been doing it their entire life or they are paying to have it done,” said Jonathan Nichols, Supervisor, Revenue Security. “They don’t ever think there’s anything wrong with it.”

At one residence, Lynn finds a “direct tap” to divert power away from the meter. At another, he finds “jumpers” in the meter, a trick designed to reduce a monthly bill by half.

By noon that day, Lynn discovers tampering at four of five houses. At each, he confiscates any suspicious wire or devices as well as the tampered meter, and then installs a new one.

Lynn also fixes any safety issues caused by the tampering. At one location, he screws in plates at the bottom of a meter base -- the metal box that holds a meter – to seal up open holes.

“Kids could shove something that can conduct electricity up those holes, then we’ve got a problem,” Lynn said. “It’s a live environment.”

“It will kill you graveyard dead,” Supervisor Melton said, and he’s not smiling.

At his truck, Lynn uploads data from the meter to a laptop and photos he’s taken of the home and the tampering. Oncor then has two days to notify the customer that evidence of tampering has been found, a requirement from the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC).

 

Melton is standing nearby, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a rundown shack or a million-dollar home,” he said, “we find tampering.”

Before employees like Lynn investigate a house, Oncor data analysts Laura Rawlinson and Sasha Pang spend hours, days or even weeks reviewing data from Oncor’s nearly 3.7 million meters.

They’re experts at detecting the quirks in meter data that can point to someone drawing off electricity for free or tricking a meter into an incorrect reading. Their work results in the service orders that send Lynn and 28 other reps out to investigate.

Once Oncor reps find tampering, they’ll install locks on each side of the meter base to prevent someone from doing it again. It doesn’t always work.

At a gray warehouse in Fort Worth, Nichols showed off the metal cover of one meter base. The cover is dotted with holes drilled into it to remove the Oncor locks.

The warehouse is where Oncor stores the thousands of pieces of evidence confiscated from houses and businesses. Black plastic bins, roughly four-foot-square, full of damaged meters, cables, metal clips and more line the warehouse floor. The PUC requires Oncor to keep evidence for at least two years.

 

And then there’s always someone who uses a stolen meter. “People move and bring the meter with them,” Nichols said. “Most people don’t think that way.”