BATON ROUGE - Andrea LaFaver doesn't want a digital meter reading her energy usage and opted out of a smart meter when Entergy started making upgrades in 2019. Which is why it was a shock to her when she went to read her meter and noticed it had been swapped out for a new one!

"It's sneaky, it's underhanded sneaky business," said LaFaver.

The discovery was made on May 6, but LaFaver says she had no idea when Entergy was at her Broadmoor home making the swap without any type of notification.

"There was no need for this, an email is free they simply could have sent out notice," she said.

LaFaver has been pretty adamant with Entergy that she didn't want a digital meter. While meters were being upgraded to smart meters from 2019-2021, several people reached out to 2 On Your Side suspecting their new smart meter was improperly measuring usage at their homes. 

"I don't trust those smart meters are properly calibrated," she said.

LaFaver lives in an older home and opted to keep her analog meter. She has been paying Entergy $14.95 a month to come to her home and read the meter. There are other Entergy customers who also pay that fee and opted not to be switched to smart technology.

When she found the new digital meter on her house she contacted the Louisiana Public Service Commission.

"They admitted they did not know Entergy was doing it this way," said LaFaver.

Entergy tells 2 On Your Side the analog meters are aging out and the meter at LaFaver's home is not smart technology, it's just a digital version of what she previously had. Entergy says someone is still coming to her home to read the numbers of her meter to get LaFaver a bill.

"At the end of the day Entergy accomplished getting digital meters on our homes and going around the opt-out," she said.

LaFaver says her trust has been compromised and would have liked to have been notified prior to the switch. At that point, she would have preferred given an option to switch to a digital meter or a smart meter. Instead, she was not given a choice.

The office of Commissioner Jean-Paul Coussan says it has received a handful of calls about this in the last few days. It's not clear how many people opted out of the smart meter transition, but Entergy is looking into the matter.