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Rank 1
May 21, 2022
Solved

Why did OVO financial support team contact me despite my recent payment?

  • May 21, 2022
  • 64 replies
  • 5757 views

I’m interested to hear from SSE former customers and if it resonates Ovo Energy customers.

I transferred from SSE mid January 2022. My billing cycle was quarterly and bills came not long after the billing period. My bill was paid by a direct payment.

At transfer Ovo Energy placed me on a monthly cycle running 13th of the month to the 12th of the following.

Upon transfer my bill fell at transfer and I paid SSE. The money was transferred to Ovo, however my previous billing and usage with SSE was and still is not visible.

For the period 13th March to the 12th April, I viewed my bill electronically I have smart meters and paid on the 13/4/22 shown on my bank statement as the 14/4/22. I paid modestly over the due amount and was in credit at the start of the billing period. A week later I received a bill from a Ovo indicating a debt.

This debt was imaginary as their system appeared not to acknowledge my payment, even though my account did. For that period and into the next. I was harassed by txt and email.

I tried to contact via chat, that system was not available, I tried to call excessive wait times. Eventually frustrated with their harassing communications. I left a trust pilot review and received some rather pointless communications through that platform. That my experience will be taken up with the billing team.

As the next billing period approached the most recent I paid Ovo on the date my bill appeared in my account. There was no notification that my bill had been issued. Instead I receive a rather harassing text message from collections for a debt that had been over due for more than a month. This was and is not the case.

It is likely I will formally complain through Ovo’s complaints process. They have eight weeks to address my complaint. After that it is the Energy Ombudsman…..all in from a consumer perspective it appears fruitless and time consuming. As there is a clear issue with Ovo’s billing process and procedure.

The other option is to transfer to British Gas.

Thanks for reading and commenting if you do.

 

Oh! a screenshot of my account is attached, yes I’m in debit by a few pounds, I’m in a billing period. Sorry wouldn’t allow the screenshot.

 

 

Best answer by Tim_OVO

Updated on 1706/25 by Emmanuelle_OVO:
 

What can our payment support team offer if I can’t pay my energy bill?

 

Our payment support team has supported lots of people in similar situations, and are trained to do so. 

Some of the ways they can help are:

  • They can create a payment plan that’s suitable for your financial situation. A payment plan can spread the cost of what’s outstanding, you can find out more about them here.
  • They can discuss what other payment schemes you may be eligible for. They can make sure you’re getting the support that’s available to you, such as benefit entitlement checks. 
  • Our team is also trained to give advice on energy debt, and discuss what help is available. 
  • They can show you where you can find free, independent advice.

For more financial support, call the team on 0800 069 9831. We’re open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-2pm.

 

What’s a payment plan & how does it work?

 

Using the information you give us, we’ll come up with a manageable payment plan. These payments can be made on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis. 

 

Some of the payment will go towards the outstanding balance and some of the payment will go towards your current usage. 
 

 

Thanks for flagging, @Kenyon graham 

 

 

For the period 13th March to the 12th April, I viewed my bill electronically I have smart meters and paid on the 13/4/22 shown on my bank statement as the 14/4/22. I paid modestly over the due amount and was in credit at the start of the billing period. A week later I received a bill from a Ovo indicating a debt.

This debt was imaginary as their system appeared not to acknowledge my payment, even though my account did. For that period and into the next. I was harassed by txt and email.

 

It’s very odd to see that the payment seems to have affected your balance, as shown in your screenshot, but hasn’t stopped collections activity for account debt. It may be worth contacting our Collections team by web chat, and by phone. Start a webchat conversations or or call with our Collections team here. Also you can see our page on payment support here.

 

64 replies

Newcomer
October 25, 2022

I have been contacting them nearly every week and each time they are looking into it !! Lets wait and see .

Newcomer
November 3, 2022

Shocking company.

I pay by standing order. £115 Payment at the start of August credited to my account ok.

Payments at the start of September, October and November all "lost" - same bank details, amount and reference and I've had collections emailing me telling me my account is overdue.

That's £345 of payments LOST.

I've emailed customer service and complaints with a copy of my bank statement showing the payments and twice since re sent it in replies to them when they replied to me asking to prove the payments  with a bank statement (have they even read my previous emails?!)

Not even had my complaint acknowledged even though I have specifically emailed the complaints team.

 

 

 

juliamc
Rank 20
Rank 20
November 3, 2022

@kay_p I understood OVO don’t accept Standing Orders as a means of payment, but yours worked in August? That’s interesting, though obviously bad that further payments haven’t been allocated to your account. How long have you been paying by standing order ?

Newcomer
November 3, 2022

@kay_p I understood OVO don’t accept Standing Orders as a means of payment, but yours worked in August? That’s interesting, though obviously bad that further payments haven’t been allocated to your account. How long have you been paying by standing order ?

Hiya, since August. I found their details somewhere as a means of paying and what ref to use, when I set it up I called them and told them and the customer service operative said they'd note it on my account, didn't say they wouldn't accept it. The first payment went through no problem so cannot understand how they have lost three others unless their admin is just shockingly bad. 

juliamc
Rank 20
Rank 20
November 4, 2022

What do you think @Blastoise186 ? 

Blastoise186
Super User
Super User
November 4, 2022

Hmm… Ultimately I think the Collections Team are best placed to try and fix this. They have the power to locate lost/missing payments and try to link them back up to your account if memory serves.

If doing so means that any outstanding debts/debits are cleared out completely, they can then arrange to recall and shut down any ongoing debt collection activities.

But you REALLY shouldn’t rely on Standing Orders for this exact reason. I’ve said it until I was blue in the face that OVO does not support Standing Orders and that if you disregard my warning and use them anyway, it’s at your own risk - and it’s technically your fault if the money doesn’t reach your OVO account as a result of using unsupported payment methods.

The only ways to guarantee that payment correctly reaches your account are:

  • Direct Debit
  • Credit/Debit Card (VISA and Mastercard usually work best, AMEX is not recommended)
  • Google Pay
  • Apple Pay
  • Giro Bank Slip
  • Cheque
  • Manual Bank Transfer via Faster Payments - please don’t use CHAPS though!

Use of any other payment method not listed above is either unsupported or prone to failure. For the avoidance of doubt, Standing Orders are officially Unsupported for OVO’s purposes. Use of an unsupported payment method is entirely at your own risk.

For anyone who thinks Standing Orders are treated the same as Faster Payments by the banks, I can tell you they are not. Faster Payments shows up as an instant transfer on a bank statement, usually with the code FPI for incoming or FPO for outgoing. Standing Orders show up as, well, Standing Orders with the code SO. OVO can tell the difference between the two, as can just about everyone else. Remember, they’re not treated the same despite common misconceptions!

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juliamc
Rank 20
Rank 20
November 4, 2022

Also this is a real illustration of why direct debits are cheaper to process and hence are at a cheaper tariff.

Blastoise186
Super User
Super User
November 4, 2022

Yeah, DD is totally automated apart from a tiny bit of human involvement to set it up. After that it’s just chuck enough cash in the bank each month and leave it there.

Card Payments are also mostly automated and fairly quick too, since that can just be hooked up to a payment provider and then take action based on whatever response comes back. If it worked, credit the account, if it failed, do nothing. Same applies to Apple Pay and Google Pay too, just ever so slightly different ways to get there!

Giro Bank Slips, Cheques and Faster Payments (aka manual bank transfer) require human involvement to process, but provided the customer does them correctly, they’re fairly reliable - just REALLY slow compared to the automated options!

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Newcomer
November 4, 2022

Hmm ok, so I'm new to this forum and have not seen warnings about standing orders. I pretty much pay my other bills the same way with no issue. Why is it Ovo does not support them? Genuine question.

I don't really understand why they didn't say something to that effect when I called them and told them I was setting up a standing order. Surely if they didn't support it then their operative should have said? 

Maybe naivety on my part, but they've had the money and my bank can verify it. 

Blastoise186
Super User
Super User
November 4, 2022

We have mentioned it to quite a lot of visitors. Here’s a previous answer by @M.isterW .

OVO isn’t alone either. No energy supplier has ever been known to officially support Standing Orders.

I maintain my stance. Proof of sending is not proof of delivery. Proof of delivery is not proof of receipt. If you want automated regular payments to reliably show up every month, you must use Direct Debits, NOT Standing Orders.

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