Hi @Tatty and thanks for flagging this one. I’m sorry to hear of previous experiences where your mother’s hearing has led to difficulties managing her OVO account. 

Someone who is a second contact on the account (as opposed to the account holder) is able to perform some actions but not all. By the sounds of it, your mother is on a fixed contract and wants her Direct Debit reduced beyond the recommended amount. Setting up a payment arrangement like this directly with our Collections team is a type of financial action that only the account holder or someone named as a ‘financially liable’ contact can request. Usually this can be done over the phone when both are present, as verbal confirmation from both is preferred. If that’s not possible, please get your mother to email collections@ovoenergy.com to name the second contact as the person she wants to be financial liable. Then, the son can call up to provide verbal confirmation that they are happy for this, and the arrangement can be put in place:  0800 0699 831.

As you mention, the Priority Services Register is also recommended. 

Thanks Tim but we don’t consider making a representative financially liable for her bill appropriate. No disabled person should have to make someone else liable, just so they can manage an account.

My mother is not on a fixed contract as that finished a few weeks ago. 

Please would you tell me how my mother can discuss direct debits with Collections without having to telephone?

thanks again.

If she can use Relay UK, then 18001 0330 303 5063 is a possible option.

Thank you @Blastoise186 it’s good to know that’s a real option. 

No worries. OVO is definitely interested in improving accessibility and I think there’s plans to make Relay UK support more obvious. In actual fact, the product team responsible for OVO Help is working on it.

If you’d like to see that idea made real, feel free to upvote it!

And if you’ve got any other ideas about how to improve any of OVO’s online services (and yup, this includes online help systems and OVO Live Chat), definitely feel free to suggest them too!

Already upvoted that @Blastoise186 
 

Maybe those who register as hard of hearing could be provided with the various WhatsApp numbers to contact about Collections, or other departments  Live Chat is unable to deal with?
 

I got my husband to listen to the telephone options using my mum’s mobile (she’s been visiting), and got her access to WhatsApp Collections that way but it’s not an ideal process. 

Feel free to drop that comment on the idea as well, the product teams will then hopefully see it! :)

Summary: OVO refuses to accept and act on signed letters; OVO Live Chat will not accept instructions or authorisation to add second account holder; OVO Live Chat staff refuse to arrange for Ovo customer service to ring you back; OVO Live Chat staff refuse to let you chat to supervisor or manager; OVO Live Chat staff say they will accept a formal complaint

I’d like to add my two cents if I may. Unfortunately, Tatty’s experience sounds all too familiar.

Now in my mid-sixties, I've moved back to my childhood home to look after my widowed ninety-year-old mother. In 2021, we wrote a jointly signed letter to each of our four main service providers: electricity; gas; water; sewage. We also wrote to Fareham Borough Council re the general rates. In each instance, we instructed our service provider and FBC to add my name and liability to my mother's service account.

My mother is very hard of hearing. I'm hard of hearing too, have been diagnosed with severe depression, social and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), in part secondary to metastatic melanoma.

FBC refused to add me to the rates. Said they had no provision for it. Typical public sector bureaucracy. Two service providers went ahead without further ado, added my name and liability.

What did OVO do? OVO wrote back to state that OVO refused to deal with customers in writing, that all such matters had to be sorted out over the phone. But it was impossible for me to get through to OVO, despite waiting on the phone for hours. What sort of business in the middle of a pandemic refuses to accept instructions and authorisation in a written and jointly signed letter from the existing primary account holder and the new secondary account holder?

By refusing to accept our written and signed instructions and authorisation, OVO is discriminating against those with hearing and/or speaking impairments, those who are cognitively impaired, those who suffer from clinically diagnosed severe depression, acute social anxiety and GAD.

Essentially, OVO has the same business model as Virgin Media, with whom we also made the mistake of doing business, both of which are at their core 100% American and predatory. All that matters to these folks is the bottom line, the returns to shareholders, the obscene bonuses to board members. Minimise labour costs. Off-shore all customer service to workers called Grace, Mavis, Devi and co in Kolkata, Mumbai, Jakarta and Manilla. Do away with UK customer service where you have to pay a minimum wage. Instead, pay third-world workers much less than a pound an hour who can't ring you back even if you ask them to do so, as we did via OVO Live Chat just a couple of hours ago.

(Meanwhile, Lloyd's Bank and US hedge funds are buying up new-build in the UK and the USA. The only jobs for youngsters are in the gig economy. In another twenty years when my grandchildren will be trying to earn a living, we'll all have returned to being renters, just as we were in the late 1800s and early 1900s).

Thank you OVO. You and VM exemplify predatory capitalism here in the UK at its finest.

If you have access to Relay UK, you can use 18001 0330 303 5063 as a workaround. My understanding is that OVO’s policy is to accept these calls and will treat them as if they’re coming from you even though a interpreter is speaking on your behalf.

Thanks Blastoise. I tried to install the Relay UK app a few days ago. It was very frustrating. The UK Gov website where I started said I could download the Relay app onto my iPad, which I'm using as I type. I followed the link, tapped on the Relay download page. This took me to another Relay page that informed me that the app was not compatible with my device. I'd been directed from the UK Gov page to the wrong page. I was on the Relay page for MacOS. Finally, with some difficulty I found the Relay iPad app page. Tapped download. Got the all too familiar message that the app was not available for my region or country, which I get 90% of the time in the UK, because I don't dare change the region set up on my iPad from Australia, where I've been living for the last 30 years, to the UK because then I can't access most of my critically important Australian accounts, some of which use their own proprietary authorisation apps, rather than region free apps such as Google and Microsoft Authenticator.

I emailed Relay UK. Their customer service representative was utterly indifferent to the point of active hostility. She took no notice of the information I gave her that the UK Gov webpage was misdirecting iPad users to the wrong Relay app page. Given that many using Relay are likely to be quite elderly, I doubt if most of them would be able to find the right Relay page for their iPad if they have one. My eyesight is also bad so I can't use my iPhone because the screen is too small. Blind, deaf, dying and dumb. All I can do is write, but that faculty is also rapidly disappearing.

As I'm sure you know, Relay is a BT service. We're with BT. BT are equally indifferent. Nobody cares. The elderly can't now get their earwax removed by their local medical centre. They have to pay £80 for both ears to a private ear wash unit. OK, strictly it doesn't irrigate, it sucks out the wax. But I think I like the phrase ear wash better than ear suck. Many elderly can't afford £80. My mother can't. But that was all that the Portchester Practice was willing or able to offer her. In principle, a GP can refer a patient to an audiology unit who will remove the wax under the auspices of NHS England. Moreover, according to the Minister at question time, local GP practises can still choose to group together to offer ear wax suction. But they no longer have to because ear wax removal is no longer an essential NHS England service. Ergo they don't. Just another carve up by one of a thousand cuts, which is this government's preferred strategy for dismantling and destroying NHS England by stealth.

It tends to be easier on Android tbh, since there’s just a single app for it that works on all Android devices, rather than lots of different ones.

There’s only one possible workaround I know of as you have an iPad, but I can’t provide it as it requires using very deeply buried features that can cause serious damage to the device if they’re not used properly.

Hey @Richard Mahony,

Really sorry to hear this, it sounds like a very frustrating experience. 

For your mother or anyone who’s deaf or hard of hearing, OVO have web chat and WhatsApp digital channels to speak to our Support team, and an online account which allows many actions to be performed by the account holder. As @Blastoise186 suggested we also have Relay UK if online services are not an option:

Unfortunately, if you’re not named on the account as financially liable we won’t be able to make any financial changes with you. Do you have Power of Attorney for your Mother? 

Please advise what does she need changing on the account? This may be able to be changed online, I can confirm for you. Or, she could call up with someone who is more hearing abled who can assist her as we’d just need her to pass data protection. 

There is always the option to raise a complaint if you feel there has been a shortfall in service. 

Hope this helps.