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Joined OVO as part of the Vehicle to Grid (V2G) trial - why is my online account not available and saying switch is cancelled?

  • 24 November 2020
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Switched to OVO on 5th June 2020.  The on boarding was poor.  I cannot access my account and bills.  Spoke to OVO 1 month, they promised to fix it.  When I log in now, it says they have cancelled my switch.  I have been paying direct debits throughout

 

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Best answer by Tim_OVO 25 November 2020, 11:38

Thanks for flagging this on the forum, @Dambrogio 

 

I think the biggest factor by far is your inclusion in the Vehicle to Grid trial. Before we go down the main Support route, I think we need to get an email to the team that look after members on this trial. Drop an email to: smarthome@ovoenergy.com

 

I know that this can cause an impact to billing platforms and switches. If we can rule out any impact there, we can go about finding the cause. Can you pop back here and update us @Dambrogio? 

 

On the bright side you do have a bi-directional EV charger worth thousands of points for free, and set to get a saving on energy usage of over £300 a year due to this V2G charger. So it’s not all bad... 

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Blastoise186
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Hi there @Dambrogio ,

I’m sorry to hear about that, I think I know what’s happened here. It looks like you’re on the old billing platform still and a bug got triggered which has broken your account. I’m really sorry for the trouble this is causing.

I’m going to flag this up with @Tim_OVO so he can try to help you get this fixed up. If you have any more details about what happened, please feel free to keep us posted here.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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6 months not being able to see any details of my account, nor my monthly bills is very very poor.  When asked to fix it last time, my account gets deleted.  As soon as my V2 G trial is over, I am back to Octopus!!!!!  

Blastoise186
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I’m really sorry for the trouble it’s causing. As a forum volunteer, I’m unable to access your account directly myself. However, I can summon extra help from Tim who is an OVO employee for this. He’s a legend when it comes to fixing these things.

I think it seems as if your account might have had an attempted transfer to the new billing platform which failed to go through because it’s not compatible with EV Everywhere yet. But this can be fixed. I can only apologise for the disruption.

If you’re Ok with this, you can try the live chat once again and ask for an agent to get your account back up and running on the old platform. If you let them know you’ve spoken to me on the forums and provide a link to this thread, they’ll know what to do.

 

If you’re still stuck after that, please let us know and we’ll try to help you out further.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Tim_OVO
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Thanks for flagging this on the forum, @Dambrogio 

 

I think the biggest factor by far is your inclusion in the Vehicle to Grid trial. Before we go down the main Support route, I think we need to get an email to the team that look after members on this trial. Drop an email to: smarthome@ovoenergy.com

 

I know that this can cause an impact to billing platforms and switches. If we can rule out any impact there, we can go about finding the cause. Can you pop back here and update us @Dambrogio? 

 

On the bright side you do have a bi-directional EV charger worth thousands of points for free, and set to get a saving on energy usage of over £300 a year due to this V2G charger. So it’s not all bad... 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
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Hi Tim the V2G charger has been brilliant and I have not had any issues with it.  However I can’t see any details of my bill import or export of electricity.  What information do you require?  

Blastoise186
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Thanks for getting back to us @Dambrogio ,

If you send an email over to the smart home team with your account details and a link to this thread, they should be able to start looking into getting your account fixed.

Let us know if you get stuck and we’ll help you out

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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I agree that the switch to smart meter is handled quite poorly. My platform move was ok, but it took 3 months and several support contacts before I got any readings from my smart meter. 

So hang in there, once they have fixed your account, it should be ok. 

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Lost my patience withOVO.  Sent an email this morning to email above,  but come to conclusion this is an incompetent company, who do not care about customer care.  
 

let’s see if i get a response,  given them 1 week and then will raise a small claim through MCOL .  Maybe then they will call me!!!

Blastoise186
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Hi @Dambrogio ,

I’m really sorry things aren’t going well for you, it’s been tricky for the team to keep up recently as they’ve been swamped with a massive increase in emails recently. I’ll see if I can ask @Tim_OVO to step in here and help you get this one resolved faster.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Tim_OVO
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Hi @Dambrogio and thanks for sharing the latest with us. 

 

The OVO smart home team will be getting to that email with the latest. and whilst I appreciate it’s not gone well in your case, please bear in mind that this is a trial of the V2G technology. The first of its kind anywhere in the globe. Truly unique.

 

It includes a free charger worth thousands of pounds, and an average annual saving of over £300 on bills. The benefit to OVO is we are able to trial the kit and its supporting software and experience, learning from things that don’t work, or could be better. The experience was never going to be that of a pre-tested commercial proposition. 

 

I’d welcome your thoughts on this one, and saw value in resetting expectations about this 300 odd cohort of trialists...

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
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Update - wrote to the OVO smart home team and received a response from Ashley (Smart Home Expert), saying sorry they cant help.  She did raise a ticket so it can be investigated further.  I have since heard nothing back from OVO.

I can’t access my account (over 6 months now with no online access).  I believe I have made £100s of pounds in overpayments as a result of OVO blocking me access to my account - but can’t access so don’t know for certain.  
 

In January 2020 they were fined 8.9million GBP for overcharging customers, it obviously has not stopped this practice (maybe it’s deliberate or it could be incompetence - neither is good).

 

i have today issued a small claim against OVO Energy for the losses I have incurred, let’s see if they ignore court documents.  I will keep people updated.

 

Blastoise186
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Good evening @Dambrogio ,

Sorry I didn’t manage to reply sooner. Today is one of the first days that most places have reopened following the Christmas period, so I’ve been catching up with a lot of different things on my to-do list.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve not heard back. Quite a lot of team members took annual leave during December as they’re entitled to, so many of them are probably only just catching up with what’s been happening since.

I’m afraid I’m not really in a position to comment on any pending/active/ongoing legal matters or court cases, since I’m only a forum volunteer and don’t have any connections with OVO’s legal team. Something like that technically goes beyond the scope of this forum and is probably better kept private until it’s resolved.

However, while your online account might not be working properly, you might still be able to manage the account via phone/live chat/email with the Support Team and use the automated phone system to submit meter readings if needed. These options do still remain available even if your online account isn’t working properly.

As for the financial penalty, while it is true that OVO did pay £8.9 million following that investigation, it was not paid as a fine. In actual fact, that payment was voluntarily made to a fund which supports vulnerable customers. As part of the agreement that was made with Ofgem, the financial penalty itself was reduced to just £2 on the basis that OVO had contributed to the voluntary redress fund, as well as taking steps to correct the error and issuing refunds to affected customers at the time.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Tim_OVO
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Sorry to hear this hasn’t been resolved, @Dambrogio 

 

i have today issued a small claim against OVO Energy for the losses I have incurred, let’s see if they ignore court documents.  I will keep people updated.

 

My advice instead would be to use the complaints mechanism available to each and every energy customer. Internally and if need be via mediation with the Energy Ombudsmen. Please see OVO’s complaints procedure here.  

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
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Hi Tim and Blastoise, thanks for the responses.  Small claims has now been issued, so can’t be changed.  At least OVO can’t ignore the court documents and hopefully they will respond to the court and offer a rapid resolution. 

Blastoise186
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Good evening @Dambrogio ,

Thanks for letting us know. In that case, unfortunately I must step back at this point as I don’t have the authority to get involved with court cases and legal disputes involving OVO. I also can’t intervene in any other way that may disrupt such cases which could be seen as acting on OVO’s behalf.

As such, I’m afraid I won’t be able to assist you further on this issue until after the case is either closed or resolved. I apologise for the inconvenience. If you need help with anything else that’s not related to the case however, I might still be able to help with that.

Thank you for your understanding.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!

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