Indra Lux charger advisory for 4G connectivity

​@Ben_OVO, ​@Mark Thorpe, ​@cfurlong2001, ​@WileyC 

I have finally got an appointment for an engineer to come out to me next Tuesday (28th) to fit a WiFi dongle to my charger.

I feel it is with reluctance Indra have agreed to this and I feel I have been fobbed off since the problem of connection dropping since the middle of May this year when the software was changed for OVO to bring in the ChargeAnytime app.

I have been caught in the middle with both OVO and Indra not accepting responsibility and both advising I get in touch with the other company. It has been 5 months of frustration, inconvenience and stress - I simply don’t have the stamina for any kind of financial claim although it would be nice to have some kind of goodwill gesture to compensate for the above.

I just hope after next Tuesday the issue is resolved and I can get back to enjoying regular, consistent and predictable EV charging, solar included.

Jasmin.

​@Jasmin10 my appointment for them to change mine to a wifi dongle is supposed to be today, no sign so far.. I sent an email to the CEO’s of Indra and they didn’t respond. OVO’s CEO office assured me that the appointment was for today, if they don’t show up I will not be impressed.

I’ll be changing from OVO as soon as I can to get away from them, especially after the charging charges you mentioned.

Indra are a shambles of a company, it’s now over a year since mine started acting up, and I’m still not impressed that they somehow attached my phone number and name to another customers address. 

If anyone reading this is considering getting an Indra charger do yourself a favour and don’t, their products are unreliable and their ‘customer service’ is the worst I have ever experienced.

​@Jasmin10 I have just phoned up the company that I was told was booked in for today by Indra, and there is no appointment on their system, so they aren’t coming to try and fix it.

these clowns at Indra are something else, first they put my name and contact details with someone else’s address, then they book me an appointment that doesn’t exist. 
 

Complete and utter shambles of a company. I have just sent an email to OVO asking for a refund for the poxy thing, I’ll let you know if I get anywhere..

I’m sorry to hear that for you ​@Mark Thorpe, how annoying and frustrating. Is the company ‘Plug-In Stations’? That’s who have arranged my appointment for an engineer to come out next week and to be honest, the limited communication I’ve had with them so far has been poor and disorganised. Doesn’t bode well.

Yes, will be interested to know any progress.

​@Jasmin10 thanks so much for the update, I really hope that the appointment goes ahead what’s been a really poor experience for you.

​@Mark Thorpe this is so frustrating to read, let alone be on the receiving end of. I really hope you get some joy out of this soon…

Please do keep us updated on your progress - and let’s hope progress is made soon.

​@Ben_OVO, ​@Mark Thorpe 

So, surprise surprise, my engineer appointment for today to come out and sort my charger out has been cancelled. I’m furious, I took a day’s A/L from work to accommodate this and have been waiting so Longford it.

The company, Plus-In Stations, seems as much of a complete shambles as Indra at organising anything. Yesterday I had 2 emails within 5 minutes of each other giving me 2 different windows for the engineer arriving today, both of which were different to the original time slot I had been given. I phoned them at 9am today to confirm my expected time slot then less than an hour later I was rung back to be told all the engineer’s appointments for today have had to be cancelled. Really?

I thought I was at the end of my tether with this whole sorry saga but this is new level end of tether!

Are these people not accountable to anyone or regulated by any body? Their customer service and performance are atrocious.

Jasmin

Hey ​@Jasmin10 

I’m really sorry to hear that appointment was cancelled, it doesn’t sound like a great experience from Indra as yet with this.

I would probably recommend raising a complaint with them next if you’ve not already done so. I can’t see a direct complaint route, so you seemingly may need to raise this as a ticket, or if you can, maybe reopen an old one.

Unlike energy, there isn’t a specific governing body to regulate behavior in the same way, but it sounds like it might be possible to raise with Trading Standards if you don’t get anywhere with a complaint. I asked my team for any other advice and we found this article from Which, we think it would fall under this for this scenario, if not something similar - and so Trading Standards might be the next step after Indra. Another option might be Citizens Advice, they cover a great variety of things, and I’m sure if they can’t help directly they will be able to provide resources and experience of similar circumstances.

Do let us know how you get on here.

​@Jasmin10 it was a company called aero EV last week who didn’t turn up, but I found out that Indra had put me down as ‘do not book’ on their system. After a (very long) rant to the clowns in their customer ‘service’ team I got them to take that off, but they still wouldn’t help with getting an appointment booked, saying it had already been sent out.

i went back to the company that had been given my name and phone number against someone else’s address a month or so ago, Crystal electronics, and they managed to get past Indra and get an appointment booked, they have attended today and changed the dongle over and it is now actually working. He did say that they have a huge amount of jobs with Indra chargers. 
 

Good luck with getting your appointment, it may be best to phone the company directly and try and book it in as Indra seem determined to do everything possible to stop repairs from being completed. Indra are a disgrace of a company, it wouldn’t surprise me if they are gone soon.

Hi ​@Abby_OVO,

Thank you for your interest and suggestions.

I had already raised a complaint with Indra and this appointment was as a result of that. My cancelled appointment on Tuesday got rescheduled for yesterday (Wednesday) and an engineer did come out and changed my charger to connect using my wifi rather than 4G. It took him all of 10 minutes. I haven’t tried charging my EV yet using the schedule on the ChargeAnytime app but at least the charger is showing the right colour light now.

I’m still left asking myself, why did Indra not identify this as being the issue back in June when the problems started? I feel like there was a reluctance to acknowledge they knew what was causing the problem or that they knew what the solution could be. Is it a cost thing, perhaps?

Anyway, fingers crossed it is resolved now, will only know when I come to do a scheduled charge soon, then I can put all the stress and inconvenience of it behind me.

I have had an advisory from Indra that the 2G or 3G networks will shutdown soon and I might lose connectivity in my smart charger. Bizarrely they don’t know if mine is cellular or wifi, so I have to wait and see whether it goes offline. I can’t see the charger on my home network, so I suspect it is cellular. Unfortunately they want £65 for a WiFi dongle (far more than a normal price), and say that it needs to be fitted by a qualified electrician. I know there is an ethernet connection in the power cable, and as long as the installer didn’t cut it too short, I would like to fit an RJ45 plug to connect to what is a Raspberry Pi inside the charger as far as I can recall, and a socket at the fuse box. I have a WiFi repeater with a spare RJ45 not too far from the garage.

I see no reason no reason not to do the work myself, as a competent electronic engineer. Are there any anti-tamper devices I need to be aware of?

When I had my indra pro installed the 3G was rubbish and kept disconnecting and my router was incompatible as it was WPA3 encryption. So the engineer ran a RJ45 cable to a WiFi extender/repeater. That's plugged in my garage and works fine. Not sure of the installation process sorry. But it will work 

Hey ​@tony1tf,

We've had a great discussion in this thread about the Indra dongles that you might want to check out. If you haven't seen it yet, I think it could be really helpful. Please keep us in the loop about how things are going for you. It sounds like an evolving situation, and your experiences could really help others who might be in the same boat.