Spring Fuel government £150 Payment/Discount???

This sounds like a very suspicious call being made to your home if it was unannounced or not booked by yourself. Did this caller have any identification with him? I do hope other than what you said above you have not revealed any further information to this caller. This sounds very unusual and should be reported both to the police and OVO Energy. Its likely he was phishing for information that could be used for a crime against you or others.

OVO is part of the Spring energy plan.  According to Gov UK reductions don’t need to be claimed but will be deducted automatically. 

Thanks for the info.
I’m assuming letters will be going out to OVO Customers, but you’d think they’d have some information about it on the main website, if only to avoid the confusion or people knocking on doors like I had today.

He was most likely referring to the government announcement that household energy bills will be reduced by about £150 a year on average from 1 April 2026. It’s a reduction automatically applied to your energy bill, not a one-off payment.

Howdy! Got some good news for ya and I wanted to (hopefully) clear up the puzzle.

I can confirm the “£150 Spring Discount” thing has already been applied to ALL energy accounts across every supplier. It was done automatically by reducing the Tariff Rates slightly (usually the Unit Rate if memory serves) without any action from customers. It’s the result of a couple of levies either being scrapped or reduced due to government changes.

If you’re on Pay Monthly, it was done by directly flipping the rates on the 1st April, you should have had a letter or email about it.

If you’re on Smart Pay As You Go, it was done by sending commands to the meter which automatically pushed down the new rates provided your meters are communicating properly.

If you’re on Traditional Pay As You Go, it was done by silently pushing a special code to your Key/Card that was delivered when you topped up and would have reprogrammed the meter with the new rates when you transferred the credit over.

To the best of my knowledge, no-one at your door could make this change.

Hope that helps. I couldn’t find the forum article, so feel free to check out this other one: https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/article/levy-reduction

As said the “average of £150 off energy bills” announced by the government has already been actioned by reducing everybody’s energy rates.

There is no £150 payment as such, it’s a reduction in your tarrif rates.

The caller you had is a scammer, but presumably didn’t think he could scam yourself so moved on to try and find a more likely victim.

They are trying to get peoples bank account details with the promise of the £150 payment, which of course simply doesn’t exist as a payment.

See this Alert/Warning post from Shropshire council:

 https://www.facebook.com/shropshirecouncil/posts/-scam-alert-we-have-been-made-aware-of-a-scam-phone-call-and-email-circulating-a/348230324005088/

It looks like the scammers have moved from the phones/emails to knocking on doors.

Personally I would still report this suspicious activity to your local police, they may not seem that interested at first, but once they get a few such reports will take more notice.
 

Morning ​@DaveThorn76, I hope you’re well.

Regarding the Government levy, this Forum article will give you more information:

As for the person who visited your house, we’ll ask internally as to whether this was genuine and will let you know, but I haven’t heard that we’re doing this….

The post ​@Nukecad has found does sound worryingly similar to what you’re reporting.