High estimated bills - ongoing issue - OVO not helping

 Thank you for taking the time to read our issue i do understand its very long with a lot of information but hoping someone can help resolve.

**Please note that my Mum is the account holder who is 74 and is becoming very ill and very stressed and worried about this and we have provided both written and verbal communication to OVO advising i can speak on her behalf , this has been ignored on every occasion we contact OVO***

We did start a thread on this back in December last year but thought it best to start a new one as i have more knowledge / information regarding the issue as its still not been resolved.

Back in Aug /Sept 2022 we had a  power cut in our area for around half a day , once the power came back on i went outside to check our traditional style meter to provide the readings for OVO and the LCD  display was blank and although our power was still working with no issues we were unable to provide a meter reading (our last submitted manual reading was in June 2022)

We contacted OVO who advised that they were unable to repair our old style meter and that a new smart meter would need to be fitted , we were booked in for a fitting early December  (7th)

Fast forward to December the engineer came and swapped our meter over and left a card 

A few days later we received our paper bill (we are on quarterly  statements)  and to our shock we had an eye watering bill of £3784.34 ,  we looked through the bills and realized form June 2022 to December 2022 we were charged based on estimations , we looked at this forum and found out we could log on the internet and view our account which we did.

The below charges have been based on our monthly ESTIMATED usage being 1874kwh - 2497kwh per billing month.

Prior to this date our bills were as below and despite providing meter readings over the OVO chat some of the below usage was based on estimations (around 800kwh per month) which is still way too high 

Since having our smart meter fitted our bills and usage has been as below

Now since December of last year we have been in contact with OVO how advised that once they have had a couple of months worth of smart meter readings our bill would adjust and settle , come January 2023 we started receiving emails and messages from OVO collections team so we jumped on the phone to discuss , this was a futile exercise as we were repeatedly told to just make the payment of £3784 and we will refund you once the smart meter data settles !!

As we were getting no where speaking to the call center collections team we jumped on the ovo chat and got through to an account manager who said not to worry the bills not real  “we will get this sorted” and she placed a 180day hold on the account :

Image Edited by Mod

Now we thought ok this is all now in hand but it wasn't , around 2 weeks later we started to get chased by the collections team for full payment and when we phoned they had no record or notes on the account and advised us to speak with account management / resolutions team which we did and sent them the above email and again a another hold was placed on the account (we have another email advising this), this seemed to turn into a trend between Jan - March ( being chased for payment).

On March the 18th we contacted OVO again via the online chat for an update on our enquiry and agent named Ian advised there was no record of our previous contact and advised that he would escalate the billing / meter dispute replace the hold on the account and gave us a case #14028326 and someone from the relevant team would be in touch within 3 working days to discuss .

2days later we received an email from a billing agent advising us that they would like us to send in a photo of our meter to ensure OVO are using the correct meter details when working out our billing we done this  only to receive emails and SMS from the collections team demanding full payment (27th March) , again we jumped on the online chat and was asked to provide our phone # to discuss and speak with the resolutions team.

The resolutions team did phone and listened to our complaint , they told us we would need to speak with the care team and would transfer us over … the call dropped and we tried to phone back and ended up on a 2.5hr phone call being passed from account management , care , resolutions back to collections and then back over to the care team … no one could help and just passed us around , in the end we gave up and ended the call.

Around the 5th April we received another letter from collections demanding payment within 14 days so again we called OVO and no body had any record of our contact and we spent a period of time being passed around until an agent in the resolutions team found some notes under the case # and said somebody would be in touch to resolve this hasnt happened.

Here we are 4months into our initial complaint with no progress only constant chasers for money and each time we call to discuss we have to explain the issue again and again.

Now i can just about cope with this but for someone of my mothers age and current mental state (caused by OVO) how would anyone be able to mange the constant chasers for Money which we just don't owe and how long will it take for the bill to settle.

Please let me know if anything is unclear or any other info is required to help advise us the best course of action.

thank you for taking the time to read

Ben