Can't get a refund due to faulty smart meter?

Thanks for the further information.

You still haven’t explained just how you are seeing ‘split billing’ with a credit for gas and a debit for electricity?
That just isn’t the way that OVO bills are laid out.
Whilst my bills do ahev a “Cost for Electricity” and a “Cost for Gas” there is not a seperate balance for each.

Were you previously an SSE customer that got transferred to OVO?
(Note for others - I’m wondering if this could be one of those ‘problem’ SSE accounts that still hasn’t been fully transferred?)

However putting that to one side for now.
If if it is your actual gas meter that has a blank display then it needs to be replaced before any refund will be issued.

No energy supplier will issue any refund when the billing is estimated.
WAnd wthout actual meter readings being in place then billing can only ever be estimated.

My best advice would be to take a step back and stop trying to get multiple things done at once, it’s just confusing things.

Do things in order, and one at once. Get one issue fixed before moving on to the next ones,

If your meter is not sending readings, and you have no dispay so cannot send your own readings, that that is your starting point.

Nothing else can be sorted out until that display/reading problem has been fixed, which means that the meter needs to be replaced before anything else that you want to happen can happen.

I suggest that you stop talking about credits/debits/refunds, because that is only confusing things.
Stick to the one thing and only the one thing - that you need the meter replacing ASAP.

Tthanks for your reply,  I don't get how you don't understand my electricity and gas are 2 different bills, do you work for Ovo? I will kindly provide evidence of a different bill every month for both gas and electricity with 2 different account numbers to the same house. I am not trying to do everything at once, think it's pretty simple tbh, give meter reading, if entitled to refund, send money. Smart meter doesn't work, fix smart, get meter reading and sort refund if entitled to, is that too much to ask?

It isn’t that we don’t understand you, it’s just that it would be very, very, unusual - and that is why we are queriying it.

You are insistent so I believe you that for some reason your particular bills are still seperate for each fuel.

Looking back through my own bills from OVO they have always been combined into one - except for the very first ones after I was moved from SSE to OVO in January 2023.
Those January 2023 bills were seperate and both said “SSE part of the OVO family” at the top.
 

Every bill that I’ve had since then has been one OVO bill for both Electricity and Gas, with one overall  balance for both fuels, and one DD payment for both fuels.

Apart from those problematic old accounts that I mentioned above I can’t think of any reason why yours should still be split billing.*
However if it is one of those problematic accounts then that could also explain some of the other problems that you are having.

PS. No I am not employed by OVO, I am one of the “Power Zero Hero” Forum Volunteers here.
Being in that group does give us some extra insights into how things operate at OVO, and extra access ‘backstage’ as it were.
*I will ask ‘backstage’ if there could be another reason for your billing being split like it is.

Ah ! ​@unhappychappy that helps enormously, you have two account numbers - one for each of gas and electric!! That’s what you meant by split bills. That is unusual but obviously not impossible. Maybe just contact the customer service and only quote the gas account number to get an engineer to replace the meter, and not even mention the other subject.

Hey ​@unhappychappy,

I'm really sorry to hear that you're having trouble with your meter and that it's affecting your refund. It’s quite rare for someone to have two account numbers, and I totally understand how that's already caused some confusion! This can sometimes happen depending on how we source supply from different providers or if you’ve switched from an older platform, which can lead to these kinds of mix-ups.

There is an easy solution, but it’s up to you if you'd like to go for it. We’d need to carry out a process similar to moving you out and then back in again. This would wipe any usage history but would allow us to combine your accounts into one. Thankfully, your two accounts may already be linked internally, so the current setup shouldn’t cause too many issues besides just having the two numbers.

As for your meter, since it’s operating and you’re not off supply, we can certainly arrange to change it out for you. Just a heads-up, you might have to wait a bit for an appointment since winter is a busy season for our engineering team. We’re also working on a project to replace meters affected by the RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service) shutdown. We’ll do our best to get you an appointment as soon as we can!

After we switch out your meter, we'll need to do a billing recalculation to ensure everything is up to date. Once that’s taken care of, we can issue your refund!

We just want to make sure everything is done right and there are no hiccups along the way. Have you heard back from the Support Team about any available appointment slots yet?

It isn’t that we don’t understand you, it’s just that it would be very, very, unusual - and that is why we are queriying it.

You are insistent so I believe you that for some reason your particular bills are still seperate for each fuel.

Looking back through my own bills from OVO they have always been combined into one - except for the very first ones after I was moved from SSE to OVO in January 2023.
Those January 2023 bills were seperate and both said “SSE part of the OVO family” at the top.
 

Every bill that I’ve had since then has been one OVO bill for both Electricity and Gas, with one overall  balance for both fuels, and one DD payment for both fuels.

 

Apart from those problematic old accounts that I mentioned above I can’t think of any reason why yours should still be split billing.*
However if it is one of those problematic accounts then that could also explain some of the other problems that you are having.

 

PS. No I am not employed by OVO, I am one of the “Power Zero Hero” Forum Volunteers here.
Being in that group does give us some extra insights into how things operate at OVO, and extra access ‘backstage’ as it were.
*I will ask ‘backstage’ if there could be another reason for your billing being split like it is.

HI, thanks for that, don't know why, but this has always been the way we've been billed  so have never queried it.

It isn’t that we don’t understand you, it’s just that it would be very, very, unusual - and that is why we are queriying it.

You are insistent so I believe you that for some reason your particular bills are still seperate for each fuel.

Looking back through my own bills from OVO they have always been combined into one - except for the very first ones after I was moved from SSE to OVO in January 2023.
Those January 2023 bills were seperate and both said “SSE part of the OVO family” at the top.
 

Every bill that I’ve had since then has been one OVO bill for both Electricity and Gas, with one overall  balance for both fuels, and one DD payment for both fuels.

 

Apart from those problematic old accounts that I mentioned above I can’t think of any reason why yours should still be split billing.*
However if it is one of those problematic accounts then that could also explain some of the other problems that you are having.

 

PS. No I am not employed by OVO, I am one of the “Power Zero Hero” Forum Volunteers here.
Being in that group does give us some extra insights into how things operate at OVO, and extra access ‘backstage’ as it were.
*I will ask ‘backstage’ if there could be another reason for your billing being split like it is.

HI, thanks for that, don't know why, but this has always been the way we've been billed  so have never queried it.

Thanks Chris, no I still haven't heard back, just concerned about the length of time this may now take.

Thanks Julia, yeah u haven't mentioned the electricity at all, just my gas account number.

Tthank you, will give anything a try tbh. If it's week 3 and I still don't have an appointment to get my smart meter fixed, scared of how long the timescale will be for all.