Charge Anytime and Ohme integration update: important information for our customers

I also bought my Ohme charger based on OVO’s recommendation, it’s been installed for exactly 3 months and is now no longer supported!  Come on, what idiot in OVO thought this was a good idea??  Did they wake up one morning and think “you know what, lets just turn off this Ohme support it’ll only impact 25% of our EV customers”

The Ohme app worked, it was easy to use, so why are you messing with it??

Octopus do a bolt on for £30 a month flat rate for charging (may be upper limits) -  intelligent drive pack 

I will be moving elsewhere as of 15th July! 

Like everyone else here, I'm really disappointed in the way OVO handled this, especially frustrating as I just switched only a month ago. They could have thought of a way to help out the "25%".

Here's the complaint I've written if anyone else wants to use it to help them also relay their own complaint.

Hi there, 

I’m writing to raise a formal complaint about the removal of your integration with Ohme.

I chose OVO because of this specific partnership - you even recommended the Ohme charger, so I forked out a substantial amount of money for the purchase and installation, based on your recommendation! It was a key factor in my decision, and there’s no suitable alternative available to me – my Ford Mach-E is not compatible with your smart charging offer.

While you haven’t yet confirmed whether early exit fees will apply, I want to make it clear that I believe it would be completely unfair to enforce any penalties on customers who are being left without the core functionality they signed up for. This is a material change to the service, and it undermines the basis on which many of us became customers. You only have to read the forum posts to see how you've upset customers, and how badly you've managed this communication and change of service.

Please confirm:

1. Whether affected customers will be allowed to exit their contract without penalty.

2. Whether any viable alternative is being provided for those in my position to keep us as customers e.g. to match Octopus' overnight charging tariff? 

If this can’t be resolved, I’ll be exiting my contract on the basis that you have materially changed the service and I'll be referring the matter to the Energy Ombudsman.

​@Bradley_OVO ,  I used to charge with a granny charger, you told me I had to choose from 1 of 4 chargers, 2 of which were Ohme, if I wanted to take advantage of the cheap rate.

Following your advice I spent £1000 on an Ohme charger.

I’m assuming you are going to either;

• Replace my Ohme free of charge or
• Refund me £1000 for my wasted purchase.

Please let me know what you intend to do forthwith.

Absolutely fuming with this ,no emils from OVO apart from offering me insurance on my 3 months old OHME charger that you told me to get to now got a email from OHME saying you are dropping them and low and behold my new car is not on your list ! I am afraid you have lost another Customer who has been with you over 12 years ! I will be reporting this to the ombudsman paying over £1000 3 months ago to now get told its no longer of use if i stay with you unless i pay higher price no thank you will be off to octopus who are offering a better deal !

This is abysmal from Ohme and OVO.

Did you pay by credit card?  If yes, you may be protected by Section 75.

This states:

Section 75 covers credit card purchases between £100 and £30,000, making the credit card company jointly responsible with the retailer if the goods or services are not as described.

It should not come to this! Just atrocious. They should hang their corporate heads in shame. 

No communication from Ovo on this had email from Ohme very disappointing. My car would be compatible if it was still within the free Renault Services but it’s not so will probably cost a fortune to extend this. So looks like I will be paying my £100 exit fee and joining Octopus, will get this back within three months with the money I save using cheap rate.

Thank you will investigate 

A word of caution…

Section 75 isn’t strictly designed for situations such as this one - you may risk triggering a clawback which would reverse any refunds and may cause further interest to accrue. Abuse of Section 75 may also result in you being restricted from making future claims, subjected to more intense scrutiny or potentially have your entire account terminated at the discretion of the credit card provider - you would still be required to pay off the outstanding balance if that happened.

It’s more about cases where the goods were not as described at the point of purchase, not about feature changes down the road. Since CA was compatible with Ohme chargers at the point of purchase, I personally get the feeling you’ll have a hard time with s75 so wouldn’t recommend it.

Classic example of “other-end-itis” which is a symptom that occurs in an end to end service in this case: EV to Charger Company to Utility Company

Ohme blames OVO and OVO blames Ohme.

A customer focus organisation would put the customer first and find a solution which would involve AT LEAST allowing customers to exit without penalty and/or refunding EV charger costs if installed within the last X months or a percentage discount on a replacement compatible charger.

I would be livid if I had OVO instal a compatible (at the time) charger and then withdrew support for it within the life of the charger.

Definately a legal / ombudsman / Martin Lewis case to be had here considering the unacceptable short notice

Hi,

If I am no longer using the Ohme app, how do I unlock the charger and approve plug ins?

how is the charger secured?

thank you

Hi ​@Benfs ,

Just so you know, I’ve squashed down your quote slightly to reduce the length of my reply.

You’ll still be able to use the Ohme app for those tasks even when using the Charge Anytime app - it’s only the scheduling that you’d need to use the CA app for after you migrate.

Questions

If I migrate to Octopus 12 month dual fuel fixed tariff (Which recommended for EVs) online and without phoning them, can I just arrange the cheap rate charging online as well?

Do they support more than one EV, different owners? 

It’s fair to say Ovo aren’t covering themselves in glory with the way this is being handled, and especially for those of us with an incompatible EV. It does appear that they have no plan B, so you either suck it up and pay significantly higher kwh fees, or leave with a penalty if you are in a contract.

Given they are being unhelpful I am considering buying a new home charger to replace the Ovo recommended (so they have form here) Ohme Pod with an Indra Smart as i’ll recoup the cost within a year.

Aside from next month Ovo deciding Indra are no longer part of charge anytime, can anyone see any flaw in my thinking? Thanks

they use the ohme app - which covers a far more robust number of cars than Ovo.

only issue is you need to pay Octopus a month up front to take your account into credit with them.

Switched over to Octopus Today don’t get me wrong the man I got on Ovo switched my plan to variable so i would not need to pay a exit fee and credited my account with £30 for my inconvenience but it’s not the point i wouldn’t have had to do this and spend over £1000 if ovo had only told me 3 months ago they were dropping ohme instead of telling me that was the one i had to buy ! what is more shocking is the variable rate is actually cheaper than what my plan was ! But Octopus have gave me a great deal and are replacing my gas meter to a smart meter free of charge as well as giving me my 7p per kwh for my EV and I can still use my OHME app !

That’s not what the email from Ohme says and it’s their app and hardware.

There’s still been no official communication from OVO on this entire topic, all we have to go on is this forum post. I’ve done what has been suggested previously in this post regarding scheduled charging (handily the car is compatible), but I haven’t charged at home since and am understandably a tad skeptical that it’ll work and I’m therefore going to get charged a fortune.

Luckily for me I’m not contracted, so if it doesn’t work I’ll just move to Octopus as they seem to actually want customers whereas it just seems we’re an inconvenience to OVO.

Free advice for OVO: your customers are in a spin and you’re doing nothing about it, Ohme have got the jump on you regarding the announcement, you’re already on the back foot and now you are compounding the issue by seemingly ignoring it. What you need to do is get some comms out to answer all the issues highlighted in this thread, along with any others you’re no doubt had. You also need a decent how-to guide for your customers to follow in those comms.

I signed up to a 12m fixed tariff 2 months ago with the information that my EV (Peugeot) and Ohme work on the tariff. Now that’s not the case I spoke to OVO to see about my exit fees being waved as I would no longer benefit from the tariff and the lady I spoke to said that they wouldn’t normally be able to do that. I stated that they were not fulfilling the contract and that it was not my fault as they were no longer supporting Ohme. I asked to speak to a manager however apparently they have no managers on the floor and the manager was off which is just ridiculous in this day and age. They raised a complaint. I’ve now been told that they would cancel the exit fees to allow me to switch. Very poor…

Ive joined Octopus and have a £50 voucher that we’d both get if you use the link. *Removed link - Moderators*

Ooh looky, an email from OVO about the changes.

If you haven’t had it yet, you’re not missing much, basically says Ohme got the jump on them, there’s a link to the forum and a promise of some proper comms by the end of the week.

edit - hmm, on second look it might just be in response to the email I sent them yesterday.

just swap to a new supplier? Even if exit fee is charged it will be around £100 vs £1000 for a new charger. 

All.in all its a disgrace, i was sold a charger by ovo 6 months ago they said was compliant with them. I am aware how long decisions take in companies like this so they will have been fully aware that this was possible, though have continued to sell anyway.

They will take aaay the fees for leaving HOWEVER please be warned.... i rang them yesterday and they removed the fees by taking me off my fixed rate amd putting me.onto a variable rate...and then back dated the charges to march which then costs more than the leaving fees..... this is a disgrace that will betaking further and i only noticed because i keep a close track of credit on my account....i wonder how many they have done this to..... i still await the phone call back i was promised...though they did admit what had happened when i contacted again last night…

All.in all its. A shocker and i hope everyone leaves ovo because my bet is there will be more chargees they recommend that will be discontinued next....

It’s a closer cost than you think as I already have the Ohme wired professionally. I can get the Indra for £319 and the fitter said as everything is in situ he would charge £100 to remove the Ohme and replace with the Indra. That’s still £419 but my household use a lot of electricity so it still makes financial sense to do this as i’ll save that back by the end of the 2 yr fixed rate i’m on vs Octopus. Very galling though. The quandary is keeping the Ohme and switching to Octopus as it’s compatible, but what if they also remove it from being supported? Or giving Ovo a second chance and changing to the Indra, to then find that also become incompatible!

Something I’ve picked up on elsewhere - it may be driven by the need to distinguish where the power comes from, by the sound of it there's scenarios where a customer has solar and that energy goes in to the car, but due to not knowing that, OVO give the customer a credit for the energy even though they never paid for it in the first place.

Seems that the chargers left on the list can provide the data and also explains why they now want the energy usage to come from the car for those of us that have the now incompatible chargers.

Don’t expect the above to be confirmed at all, but can see how it could be worth the commercial upheaval if they’re currently paying people to charge their car.

Ok. Perhaps sensible advice to not go down Section 75. Allthough I'd be sorely tempted. 

What would you do?