Cancelling Charge Anytime

Hi ​@Snuggles ,

Sorry for the trouble, but I do want to recommend one thing before you do that. Rather than just pulling the plug, could I recommend you see if the Charge Anytime team can help you first?

Please reach out to them on 0330 175 9678 or chargeanytime@ovo.com . If they can find a solution, they’ll see what they can do to get this fixed up. One possible workaround might just be that you set an earlier ready-by time (like 4am) to force the system to try and ping the vehicle sooner before it goes into deep sleep and get a solid session in. You’d still get CA rates under these circumstances.

If you really want to cancel, I won’t stop you but I’d still encourage you to try and see if the team can help first as you might still get lucky yet. Out of interest, what charger do you run on?

If you cancel anyway, the app will still work up until OVO loses control, at which point it’s back to regular mode.

Morning ​@Snuggles,

I’m sorry to hear of the issues you’ve been having. ​@Blastoise186 has given the right advice here - try contacting the team (they’re working today). Hopefully it might even be an easy fix for them to get you back up and running. Let us know how it goes when you speak to them.

I’ve been looking around online and have seen some Skoda owners complaining about the 12v battery protection issue - some people saying it prevents them from using heated seats etc. Sounds very frustrating. It might be worth speaking to Skoda about this one. You can find their contact details here: https://www.skoda.co.uk/discover/contact-us.

I’ve found that some other people are discussing similar issues on the Enyaq forum here: https://www.enyaqforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2092.

There’s also this YouTube video that discusses the problem (about five mins into the video). I hope you get this sorted soon 🤞. 

Thank you both. We tried setting a shorter ready-by time but this didn’t help. Maybe even shorter might work, but I’m not sure how short the time can be or whether you might be breaking the terms by restricting it excessively, as obviously the whole point is meant to be to allow the supplier flexibilitiy. So if the car takes about three and a half hours to charge, and I set a ready time which only allows four hours, would that be acceptable usage?

​@Blastoise186 the charger is a Wallbox Pulsar Plus. 

​@Ben_OVO thanks for those links, I had seen there had been lots of reports of 12v battery problems with the Enyaq. Very few for the Kodiak, and there have been no other issues with the car at all until this. 

To be honest, given the amount we charge (my husband needs to do a full charge pretty much every night as he does a lot of miles, and I have a full EV) we would be better off switching to a two rate tariff with another supplier anyway, which wouldn’t involve charging being repeatedly turned off and on again. We had decided to opt for the Ovo add on (after finally getting round to having smart meters fitted recently) thinking it would be less hassle than switching supplier, and having been happy with Ovo for many years.

But as it is proving to be a hassle, and there are better alternative offerings in terms of cost, we might as well switch (I must admit I’m also not impressed by the fact that Ovo don’t take into account the charge anytime credits to adjust the monthly DD!). 

OVO’s rules do indeed allow you to set the Ready-By time to four hours away from when you plug in if you need to get round pesky EV bugs like on your Skoda just to make the thing charge at all. Just set the Ready-By time a few minutes before you plug in and it should work fine.

I should advise, however, that two-rate tariffs are rarely the best option for EV drivers - I strongly recommend you think very carefully before going down that route.

Thank you, we will try setting the ready-by time to that level and see if it helps.

Re two-rate tariffs - how so? EV charging accounts for around two thirds of our usage, and by my calculations we should definitely be better off on some of the two rate tariff options available - most of our charging is already done overnight and we can easily do it all overnight.

The difficulty usually comes from the fact that if your habits change, two-rate tariffs may not be suitable anymore and coming off them isn’t usually as easy as switching tariff - it’s known to be painful in some cases.

Thanks for this, I will do some research. However I would have thought that with a smart meter, you don’t have two separate counters for day and night (as you would with an old style Economy 7 set up), but that the separate tariffs are simply calculated based on the time of usage from the half hourly meter readings. So I can’t see why this would cause any issue with switching to a single rate tariff - but maybe I’m mistaken.

The meter itself makes the swap easy - it’s basically just a config change. It’s… Everything else that makes it complicated unfortunately. Billing systems, national databases, profile classes… Lots of background stuff you never really see.

Thanks for all your help here ​@Blastoise186.

​@Snuggles if you do decide to leave us we’d be sad to see you go, but we’d also always promote switching if it means you’ll be better off (price, ease, etc). I’d really recommend contacting the Charge Anytime team though, as they might be able to tell you something you hadn’t thought of that will help get things running better. I have asked them internally myself, and will let you know if I hear back from them. Please let us know how you get on with Blastoise’s advice around setting the ready time.

Regarding the Direct Debit not taking into account Charge Anytime credits - this is because the Direct Debit forecasts are calculated solely on length of contract, account balance, and average annual usage. We don’t factor in extra credits like SEG or Charge Anytime, as they’re not guaranteed, and change month on month. I hope this makes sense.

Hi ​@Ben_OVO 

Setting a short ready time worked last night and the car fully charged, so that’s good. However I’m not convinced that I won’t at some point be told I’m not using the add on fairly by only giving a very short window for charging which allows little flexibility for the supplier. 

I also keep getting logged out of the Charge app just after midnight. I can get logged back in eventually after repeated attempts, but all my account info is gone, no cars showing. It sorts itself out by morning. Not sure if this might be related to the loss of communication with the car or it’s a general app issue.

I will contact support when I get chance, but I suspect this is a Skoda issue. Might be a daft question but is it best to contact support when the car is here?

Re the direct debit, thank you for that. I know that’s Ovo’s stance on it, but from the customer pov, it’s not great!

OVO is generally pretty understanding if you’ve got a vehicle that’s misbehaving and forcing your hand so I wouldn’t worry too much on that front.

You don’t need to be at home to get in touch - OVO already has the logs anyway and it’s those logs they’ll mostly use for diagnostics.

As ​@Blastoise186 says, do contact Charge Anytime ​@Snuggles - you’ll likely find that they’re very helpful with this. At the end of the day, you’re our customer and we want to make things work for you. You can contact the team when you’re not with the car, but it might be the case that they’ll need you to check something out with the car. If it’s easier you can always email them at chargeanytime@ovo.com.

​@Snuggles the Charge Anytime team have come back to me and confirmed that you’re allowed to set the shorter ready-by time window. This wont penalise you at all.

With regards to the app issues you’re experiencing, please could you delete and reinstall the app, which’ll mean you’ll be on the latest version. Hopefully this should resolve things - please keep us updated as to how you’re getting on.

Ah that’s good to know - thank you! The car charged successfully again last night with the shorter window.

Re the app, I did delete and re-install when this problem first occurred at the weekend and it made no difference. I still couldn’t get logged back in properly until morning. It didn’t happen last night, but then again I wasn’t anxiously continually checking whether the car was charging last night!

Anyway all good for now, and we’ll see how things go. Thanks both for your help.