@genie53 you can keep an eye on what OVO thinks your annual consumption will be.

It automatically updates over time. 

It is on this page on the website not the app

https://account.ovoenergy.com/plan

"Future Annual Consumption" 

It should have been pre populated with data from SSE.

This is what drives your direct debit calculation.

Does it look similar to your old SSE usage? Or higher? 

If the transfer reading is wrong, it’s strongly recommended to get OVO to raise a Read Dispute as well. This will fix more than just your Direct Debit. If you don’t, you will have more problems later.

Guess I was foolish enough to think a smart meter would meant there’d be no issue with a transfer reading!! - I guess I was wrong? - I never checked the handover reading, just accepted it…  I have to go back and have a look thru OVO’s first bill to me, and see what the first reading was.  It also worries me that having had a look at a couple of my bills for this year, there’s ‘estimated’ entries, which I’m surprised about, given its a smart meter!…

Hey @genie53,

If you are affected by a read dispute, we have a great guide here about this topic:

Your estimated annual consumption will alter over time as you submit meter readings, or we get them from your smart meter. So the most important thing is regular meter readings. 

It’s concerning your readings are saying estimated. Could this be because you are set to a monthly read schedule? If you contact Support they can change this to half hourly or daily. 

If it appears to be a communication issue please complete a smart meter health check:

Hope this helps. 

my balance is £840

my dd was 241

they reduced it to 138

now they say it's not enough

they recon I'm going to be in arrears, and this includes my balance

my monthly charge is always less than my dd.

so, this will never eat into my balance.

so, my conclusion is this.

Ovo need to go back to school and learn some basic arithmetic and reimburse me £800 so that i can earn interest on it instead of them.

thanks for your support

Hi @dog lover,

Can you have a look at this chart and let me know if there’s any bars above the £138 figure? 

https://account.ovoenergy.com/payments/direct-debit/calculator

Here’s mine:

Hello. I'm new to this. I just wanted to ask if anyone is having the same problems with OVO's Direct Calculator. I'm having ridiculous issues that are causing me grief you would not believe.

Only been with them for 4 months and had my DD increased twice. Started at £224, then increased to £254 and now £261. Had to challenge both increases as they wanted to increase to £308, which they actually did but they allowed me to reduce the increase by 15%. My account is currently £554 in Credit!

I'm sure you have seen the Direct Debit Section of your Online Account where it says what you're paying now, how much you'll owe OVO at the end of your plan and what they "suggest" your DD should be. Mine seems to change every day and sometimes twice in the same day!

As at today, depending on which way l access my account, l have two different suggestions based on a predicted debit of £540 or £296. Here's the  worst example of many. Friday I received an email saying they were increasing my DD to £308. I chat AND phone to protest and they agree to reduce the increase to £261. I asked them to provide figures and details to justify the amount. They can't! I get an email confirming my DD is now £261. Later the same day l have another look at the account. You won't believe what my end balance and suggested DD is now, or perhaps you will! My account is predicted to be £789 in CREDIT! YES, CREDIT! My DD should be £163. Hence my email of complaint that I immediately sent which will achieve absolutely nothing. 

The next morning my predicted balance is still £789 credit BUT in the afternoon the prediction has changed to £289 Debit and the DD should be £296. Today it's £540 Debit but the DD can still be £296. I am losing the will to live. Can someone please tell me that I am not alone facing these problems. I think last week l read that OVO had increased someone's DD from £70 something to £1300! Guess what? It was an error!

Help!

Hi,

If you think your DD is wrong, you can challenge it. The Collections Team are best placed for this as they have the power to knock it down, suspend reviews for three months and do other things that you can’t do yourself.

Try 0800 069 9831.

If you’ve only recently joined though, the DD Calculator won’t be fully accurate until at least six months in for some people. It needs a bit more data to truly figure things out!

Hi @MR P Sorry to hear about your issues.

I am just a customer like you. A few of us regularly post if we think we can help.

Firstly to get some context

1. Did you transfer from SSE?

2. Do you have a working smart meter?

See what this tool says.

https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

3. Are you on the Simpler Energy variable plan or a fixed plan? The direct debit calculator works differently depending on your plan

4. Ultimately your direct debit is calculated using what OVO call your Future Annual Consumption. You can find this on the ovo website not the app. 

. https://account.ovoenergy.com/plan

What does yours say for Gas and Electricity? 

Thanks for your response. Here’s my answers.

1. No. Came from Scottish Power.
2. We do now. Electric been working since installed in July. First Gas Meter never sent a reading. Replaced in September but initially did not send but is now correctly.
3. We are fixed. Better Smart to June 23.
4. My FAC figures in my Plan are Elec. 6560. Gas 11585. Not noticed these figures before. However if they use these figures, why does the DD Calculator differ every day? As I said, on 31st October, predicted £789 CREDIT, today, £540 DEBIT!!

Mr P

Thanks for that info. Have never been advised of this Collections Team or the 6 months issue. If I had I would have phoned them. 

Have had another email from OVO customer services this morning, but basically they say just ring the standard customer number and they can help. Whilst they can, they can only reduce an increase by 15% and can’t do much else I think.

Have replied and asked for a suspension of DD reviews. Let’s see if they agree. If not I will be on the phone.

Mr P

Hi  @MR P

Good questions. 

1. Are you able to check your Future Annual Consumption figures to see how they look compared to your historical usage? Scottish Power have annual consumption figures on their bills if you happen to still have one. Alternatively you may still be able to log onto your Scottish Power account to download a bill, i can still logon to mine.

The Future Annual Consumption figures automatically adjust as the system gets your smart meter readings and it learns how much gas and electricity you typically use and when you use it. As you have only had a working gas smart meter very recently the system is still learning. 

Unfortunately it takes time for the calculations to settle down. OVO typically say 3 months, by i agree with @Blastoise186 it takes 6 months for some people. It depends on usage and how accurate the starting Future Annual Consumption was. Things do start to settle down before then. 

2. Because you are on a fixed rate the Direct Debit calculator should keep automatically adjusting so you are left with a zero balance at the end of your plan in June 2023. You should see this in  the direct debit calculator graph. 

3. If the figures look wrong e.g the. Future Annual Consumption looks too high, then as @Blastoise186 says call the Collections team 0800 069 9831

They can freeze and or reduce your direct debit for 3 months if you provide them with the appropriate information.

They can't manually edit the Future Annual Consumption figure. 

Let us know how you get on. 

Hi Jeffus.

1. The FAC figures are pretty close, my last Scottish Power ones were Gas 11334 OVO 11585, and Electricity 7217 OVO 6560. If OVO know their system is unreliable, why do they use it to increase peoples DDs.
2. I can understand about the figures being adjusted BUT can OVO justify the figures I am getting. Here’s a few from the last couple of days. October 31st in the morning. Predicted end balance was £789 CREDIT. October 31st in the afternoon, £287 DEBIT. 1st November £540 DEBIT and 2nd November £122 DEBIT. That’s what I am so annoyed about.
3. The FAC figures are not bad and there is not an issue about affording the DD. Our account is currently approx £550 in credit and I calculate by 20th of November, will be somewhere near £700. I monitor our use on a spreadsheet, have been doing so for years. That was due to us ending up owing British Gas £1800 several years ago due to Bill cockups! May well phone Collections tomorrow.                              Thanks for your input.                                                                                                                   Mr P (Andrew Pope)

I’m in a long running dispute with ovo.  Yesterday they gave me my credit back £513.90 (it was £660) after saying for a month I was £3500 in debt.  Today my credit is £429.93 - so according to ovo I’ve spent £84 on energy in 24 hours.  Haven’t had me heating on, I’ve been out of the house for 12 hours at work, asleep for 7.  At this rate I’ll be in debt again in about 6 days.  They seem to be able to say what they like on the website.  Another thing you should check is your billing history.  OVO have also changed my billing history - keep everything screen shot your usage and graph every day.  Good luck trying to talk to anyone who actually works for ovo and even better luck trying to get a human who works for ovo to answer your questions.  They don’t.  Well meaning people on the forum answer, but I’m not sure that helps.  

Sorry - I feel your pain. 

Hey @MR P and @jenna5jess,

It’s really difficult to comment on these scenarios as I don’t have access to your accounts.

We do have a live billing system so whenever you submit a reading or we receive one from your smart meter your account balance will update. So it could indeed cause you to go from a large credit balance to a debit balance or vice versa. 

Another thing that could cause a re-bill would be if the opening reading on your account (if you recently transferred) was incorrect and needed disputing. 

Are you both able to send screenshots of the meter readings shown on your Online Account?

As @Jeffus advised you can call the Collections Team if you disagree with the direct debit and they can put a review hold on for 3 months, meaning the direct debit isn’t reviewed or altered for this period. 

Let’s try and get to the bottom of this!

Hi. What period of readings would you like. Monthly or dailys or perhaps “half hourly” ?

Mr P

I’ve sent all my pics and trying to speak to anyone via any sort of ‘customer service’ is  - in my experience- a waste of time. I do appreciate that new readings being uploaded will cause the credit/ debt to fluctuate, but not by £4000 surely 

Hey @MR P,

Thank you for your response.

If you send a screenshot of what you’re seeing on your Online Account under meter readings. I’m not sure what your read schedule is, but it should give us an indication of what’s going on.

As your account balance will change according to the meter readings it’ll give us a much clearer picture so we can advise you accordingly. There may have been an incorrect opening reading that has caused as large Estimated Annual Consumption for example. 

Unfortunately, as we don’t have any visibility of your account it’s hard to give advice without getting more information.

@jenna5jess, the readings could absolutely cause a balance of £4000 if the opening meter reading is incorrect. We don’t have access to your account so can’t advise unless we get more information.

If you send some screenshots showing your meter read history we can investigate this further for you, and advise accordingly.

Hope this helps. 

Hopefully l have sent you some screenshots of my meter reading section.

MR P

Thanks @MR P, 

I can see that those smart meter readings are regular and incremental for both gas and electricity. So a jumpy Direct Debit prediction is unlikely to be due to a period of estimated readings followed by an actual reading. 

What is the Direct Debit calculator chart looking like? https://account.ovoenergy.com/payments/direct-debit/calculator

Does it change as regularly as the recommended amount? 

I’m conscious of not asking you too many questions as ultimately, we can only suggest and guess here. As Emmanuelle pointed out, our Collections team are able to agree a payment amount with you for the next 3 months if you’re not trusting the system: 0800 408 6699

My current direct debit was £100 per month.

My last 4 bills were:

£65.12

£63.24

£7.73 (after £66 came off)

£25 ish (after £66 came off, a few days to go on this bill)

I’m £419 in credit.

OVO just put my direct debit up from £100 to £112. I can’t understand why. We are getting£66-£67 a month until March, in non winter months my bills are even smaller then what I shown above, hence the £400+ in credit.

I tried to put my direct debit down but they say that the minimum I can pay is now £112… 

Why do they even think my DD needs to go up ?

If they say that I need to pay £12 a month extra to avoid going into debt, then take it off my credit… It will take 34 months to get through the credit.

@swstein

Try phoning the ovo collections team

0800 0699 831

They can freeze your direct debit for 3 months 

Don’t forget that from April we’ll all be paying a higher rate than the current EPG and we won’t be getting the £66 each month. That £12 extra per month may be used up in no time.

We have gone from 114 since joining in april to 293 we live in a one bedroom cottage.i phoned they reduced it to 243 but we are over 400 in credit back on phone on monday

Thanks,  ill call them on Monday. I trued to reduce it back to 100 via website, but it says 112 is now the minimum my dd can be.