Does OVO have an out of hours emergency number?

Thank you for this information. I will be changing suppliers when this issue is resolved. I'm so disappointed with them.

Is it acceptable for OVO to make us run out of electricity before they will send an engineer out? We've been told that we have to wait for 3-5 days for a new key to arrive as the one we have won't work at all. We have £4 worth of electricity left in the prepayment meter and no way of accessing the emergency credit. £4 will not last for three days, let alone five, in a family household. All our fridge/freezer food gets ruined and we are told that , that's all "we" can do. I just can't comprehend the logic. Anyone?

It sounds here as if you may just need a new key rather than the engineer call out which will take a few more days. It would be worth calling customer services to see if they can do anything to help. For the future it may be worth looking at moving to a contract for your supply rather than pre-payment so you are not in a position of running out of electricity again.

I do not have pre-payment meters but I do support a friend who does. She lost her key. Her energy supplier (not OVO)then told her which local PayPoint outlets would have a new key. To be honest, although it is no help with your immediate problem, your best bet would be to request a smart meter that you can top up from the comfort of your own home.

Hello and thank you for the responses. To the first, yes we do need a new key, that's what we have to wait three days for, but our energy supply won't last three days. They said we have to run out of supply before they will send an engineer, which to me makes no sense as prevention is always better than the cure and won't cost us a tidy sum to re stock our fridge and freezer. But our loss doesn't matter to them, as they must be fine financially to be able to do that. We already struggle so I don't see that as acceptable as a customer of theirs. 

The lights shouldn’t go out when its not your fault. You’re apparently in the situation covered by ‘discretionary credit,’ so contact Support, explain the situation and ask for it. 

Thanks Firedog but the problem isn't our lack of funds. We manage financially, our problem is the lack of a key that allows us to top up. Ours doesn't work and we're told to wait 3-5 days for a new key. Our remaining supply won't last and they won't do anything to prevent us running out, they'll only send an engineer when we are actually sitting in the dark.

An update on this issue.

They have finally sent an email to my wife saying that they now won't make us run out of supply. Now, once our remaining supply runs out it will automatically go into debt mode and not switch off. 

Obviously this is great news, it just makes me wonder why they felt the need to stress my wife out and send her into panic mode, spending hours on the phone to be told categorically that there's nothing they can do until it runs out, when they could have just done this straight away. Seems unnecessarily cruel. 

But, that's how they want to operate and I am just relieved that it is now sorted.

Thanks for the advice.

Hi ​@Vincethecreator ,

This might be my only response this weekend as I’m currently away and I’ve pinched a random Library PC to write this, as I felt that responding to you at least once was critical.

That’d be Friendly Credit Mode - you will NOT go off supply until at least 9am Monday morning if you run out at weekends.

Your fridge/freezer can actually go for far longer than you might think without issue if there’s no power, so long as you do not constantly open/close them unnecessarily - the more you keep them closed, the longer the endurance will be without your food spoiling.

As for the previous advice… Out of Credit situations = Emergency Engineer within four hours. Other situations are standard appointments. This is why OVO needs your credit to run out first - it’s the only way to get max priority on the engineer visit. Otherwise, your replacement key should arrive in a few days - but I STRONGLY recommend you look at a Smart Meter to avoid this nightmare in future - not least because you can top-up via several methods and OVO could simply dump discretionary credit directly onto the meter for you (and give you a code to speed even that up).

My other thoughts are that PAYG might not be right for you. Please consider whether Pay Monthly may be a more suitable option as I’m picking up indicators you might be better served that way.

Please let me know if you have more questions. If I can answer them, I will (depending on internet access).