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I have an outstanding problem concerning FIT payments for several periods whilst my smart meter was faulty and subsequently replaced. Despite sending numerous emails and trying to make contact by phone, I am getting no answers or response. Is there a problem at OVO

@EMMeadows given that this is a public forum where no one has access to your specific details and most posters are simply trying to help, I’m not sure why you’re responding as you have - it seems pointless 


There is access. I have posted ongoing issues. 


There is access. I have posted ongoing issues. 

@BPLightlog speaks the truth. Even the Forum Volunteers here do NOT get access to internal systems. Even I don’t have access and I’m the longest running active forum volunteer on this forum.

In actual fact, it’s an agreement we all made with the forum moderators and with OVO a long time ago. To help protect OVO from the nightmares of giving random people access to internal systems and protect us forum volunteers from liability headaches, we don’t have access to any internal systems. The closest we get is a special set of hidden forum groups where we can chat between ourselves and the moderators whenever we want (which is pretty standard stuff) and also the ability to do calls with OVO’s experts every month about particular themes. That’s it.

If you need to speak to someone who does have access to internal systems, this forum is not the place to come to. You need to talk to OVO directly via https://ovoenergy.com/help or 0330 303 5063.

I’m sorry this isn’t the answer you want to hear. But we will always signpost folks to the Support Team if we feel that the resolution requires internal systems access of any kind.


So may posts and threads on this.  But I have finally found a solution that works for me - Rather than retype, a link to another thread on here;

 

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-account-140/feed-in-tariff-fit-payment-delays-what-are-the-contact-details-for-that-team-10969?postid=97931#post97931


I posted a reply to this with a link to a solution that worked for me on another thread on this forum.  But on posting, it says it has to be reviewed by a moderator, presumably as it has a link in it. 

Based on previous moderation on here, that will be invariably deleted, so I suggest you search for the thread “Feed in tariff (FiT) payment delays - what are the contact details for that team?”


Links alone aren’t usually enough to cause a post to be swallowed by the AutoMod (especially those to other threads on this forum). However, it will block those that are known to be malicious or dangerous.

It’s more likely something you said in the comment that triggered it.

It's worth noting that anything and everything that's within the house rules but gets snared by AutoMod will be released and published. It just takes a while sometimes because a moderator has to go through the entire moderation queue to get to it.


 
Good morning, 
I am a new customer having been transferred over from
SSE. I need someone to explain to me why this payment of£178.37 ** is being classed as an overpayment and is being taken off of me? 
The amount in question was what I would have expected to receive around that time and my records would match. The anomaly seems to be a lesser payment which I wasn’t expecting of £48.12 *on May 31. My contest is that historically I have a payment not far off said amount around that time and so is it not the 48 pounds that you are wanting back rather than the big number? I have tried ti get explanations by email, by chat room and by phone however nobody can explain it. A girl explained my tarrif changed, but by that much? And why did she said it was a duplicate of a September payment that doesn’t exist. Historically my payments from SSE around the end of May start of June are as follows
May 23-£48.12*
June 23-£178.37**
May/June 22-£178.47
May/june 21-£159.20
June 20-£178.13
May/june 18-£153.10
May/june 17-£141.11
May/june 16-£135.98

Which one looks out of place? If this is not a mistake on your part then do I have a fault with my hardware? as nothing has changed differently my end except to receive a much lower payment. Please advise.

Hi @scoosh , just so that you know, this isn’t a direct communication channel to OVO and no one here has access to your account. It’s mostly other customers trying to help out. 
Which tariff are you on ? Direct debit, pay on demand or something else?

The uplift from your 2018 period payment and checking the level of 2020, 21 and 22 don’t look too far out to the June 23 figure you quote. I’m not clear what May 23 shows? An extra payment made/requested?

Edit: I’ve just realised that you’re talking about FIT payments .. I thought they were paid every 3 months so perhaps the May figure is the odd one out. There have been tariff updates, depending on when your system was installed. Ofgem have tables to show those


Thanks for letting me know and keeping me right. Yeah it’s my FIT payments  and I think the may figure is too low. Going by historical payments I was expecting around the 178 or near enough but they say that is an overpayment and they want that back. I haven’t had a clear explanation as to why from anyone at OVO which is why I came here. It’s really confusing. I understand it must be difficult to transition customers over but communicate with them fully when taking money off them. 


I've just come to the end of my 11th year of FIT payments, all bar the last were with SSE, and I am now with OVO following their takeover of SSE.  

Throughout those past eleven years I have maintained an Excel spreadsheet, recording the meter readings, date taken, the amount of power I’ve generated, the FIT rates, export rates and which calculated the amount that I was expecting to receive.  In that 11 years, no physical payment has been more or less than a few pence away from my calculation…. until now. 

I received an email 2 weeks ago regarding the payment for my June reading, which I still haven't received, giving me a payment of £10 less than expected.  I know why its happened, as in the past I always submitted a reading to SSE in early April which coincided with the FIT rate change, however OVO now want them in March and June, (Sep & Dec) and then estimate how much of the generation between March and June are at the old and new rates.

I’m in the process of writing to OVO to ask how the estimate is done and if the change in dates from April and July to March and June was their decision or something imposed on them by Ofgem.  Depending on their answer, I have my pen poised to raise the matter with Ofgem.

If I'm £10 down, I wont be the only person, and that could be a nice little earner for OVO.  I would be interested to know if anyone else has experienced a similar issue.

Thanks 


Actually, suppliers make basically no money out of FiT/SEG - it costs them an absolute fortune to do it.

You can’t go to Ofgem over this, that’s not how it works. Please see https://ovoenergy.com/feedback for the actual process.


I too have been claiming FITs since 2011, and take daily readings so I gave my reading to SSE on the 1st April so that they would not have to estimate my generation.

OVO were out by 1p for me so not too bad. But I have still not received my FIT payment for March, April May yet.

I asked the FIT team what would happen if someone decided to pay their OVO electricity bill with the same laissez-faire attitude, would they be happy with that and got a stony silence.

 

I know Blastoise186 says that OVO make no money on this scheme so either OVO are so desperate for money they are sitting on the FIT money in their bank as long as they can, or they are totally incompetent! 😁

 


Orrr... There’s reason 3 (which is the real one). The team that deals with this has been massively swamped by dealing with thousands of FiT/SEG accounts migrated from SSE.

Not everything is about money in this world.


Important point - I am not blaming the staff in the FIT team that do the work.

 

Well, if you take on “thousands” of FIT/SEG accounts and don’t plan and prepare for it properly, that make you incompetent…


It was planned for and I’m told the team has exploded in size to keep up along with making changes to help improve the service.

Not everything is incompetence - things happen and the whole system is a lot more complicated than just “Take reading, submit reading, get paid”.


…the whole system is a lot more complicated than just “Take reading, submit reading, get paid”.

- Well until OVO took over it was that easy for me.

 

I agree not everything is incompetence, mistakes genuinely happen - but (and this is crucial) how you deal with the error is critical.

 

Did they contact the customers about the potential transfer - NOPE

Did they explain to customers that this transfer might affect the FIT payments? - NOPE

Did they explain what they were going to do to mitigate the possible delays? - NOPE

Did they explain to me what was going on when I contacted them? - NOPE

Did they explain to me when I might get my payment? - NOPE

 

You don’t have to worry though I will be leaving OVO as soon as I can!


Actually, OVO did notify customers in various ways - not least on both the SSE and OVO websites. Surely you must have noticed?

Arguably… You’ve also had six years advance warning that this was going to happen. SSE first announced their intention to quit the market and sell to npower back in 2017.

As for the other stuff… This forum has been open for over five years now if memory serves. Plenty of time to have stopped by and asked questions…

And you only choose now…?


Actually, OVO did notify customers in various ways - not least on both the SSE and OVO websites. Surely you must have noticed?

 

I only had a FIT account with SSE and they paid mostly on time, why would I visit their website or ask on their forum (that I didn’t know they had) about something I didn’t know was going to happen?

 

Arguably… You’ve also had six years advance warning that this was going to happen. SSE first announced their intention to quit the market and sell to npower back in 2017.

 

No I was not aware - I don’t follow the news on SSE.

 

 

As for the other stuff… This forum has been open for over five years now if memory serves. Plenty of time to have stopped by and asked questions…

And you only choose now…?

Why would I have been on the OVO web forum years ago when I was not one of their customers and I was not aware that years in the future I was going to be transferred to them?
 

I have never received a notification from OVO about the change. The only contact I had was they sent and email to my wife about the change on the 31st of May 2023 saying My move is now complete. My wife’s email address is not associated with the FIT account! 
 

Let’s get back to the main point, I still have not been paid. All the “we started the payment on 31st August and it will take 3 working days to arrive in your account” excuses are now no longer valid. They just need to just pay up.

 

 


Hey @StillWaiting and @Space Cadet,

 

Really sorry to hear you’ve had such a negative experience.

 

You can contact the FiT/SEG Team on fits@ovoenergy.com or seg@ovoenergy.com.

 

Alternatively, you can speak to our FiT Team by calling 0330 303 5063 and selecting ‘4’ when the IVR instructs you to do so.

 

If you’re not getting anywhere there’s always the option to raise a complaint. There is more information about our complaint procedure on the website. 

 

Hope this helps. 


Hello Emmanuelle,

Thank you for the suggestion, but I have already spoken with the FITS team a couple of times to no avail, and I have raised a complaint, but am still waiting for them to get back to me.

 

I have an email from OVO on 16th August with my statement. The web site says that I will receive payment 7 to 8 weeks after the reading month, which would have been 25th August at the latest.

OFGEM say “You should receive this payment within 90 days of the date you provided the meter reading.” Which would have been 30th August.

 

Very frustrating, with the current meter readings given on 1 September, which I probably won’t receive until well into 2024, OVO now owe me a total of over £600. If I was with EON like my mother is I would have already received the September payment, they tend to pay within a couple of days.

 

it is very frustrating trying to get OVO to even acknowledge an issue let alone sort it out. As I said above to Blastoise186 mistakes happen, but it is how you deal with it and learn from it which is the crucial thing - and well I am not impressed so far.


Hey @StillWaiting,

 

That sounds really frustrating, 

 

If your complaint hasn’t been resolved, there is an escalation process. After that, you can escalate to the Ombudsman. Hopefully it gets resolved before this though.


Hello Emmanuelle,

Thank you for the suggestion, but I have already spoken with the FITS team a couple of times to no avail, and I have raised a complaint, but am still waiting for them to get back to me.

 

I have an email from OVO on 16th August with my statement. The web site says that I will receive payment 7 to 8 weeks after the reading month, which would have been 25th August at the latest.

OFGEM say “You should receive this payment within 90 days of the date you provided the meter reading.” Which would have been 30th August.

 

Very frustrating, with the current meter readings given on 1 September, which I probably won’t receive until well into 2024, OVO now owe me a total of over £600. If I was with EON like my mother is I would have already received the September payment, they tend to pay within a couple of days.

 

it is very frustrating trying to get OVO to even acknowledge an issue let alone sort it out. As I said above to Blastoise186 mistakes happen, but it is how you deal with it and learn from it which is the crucial thing - and well I am not impressed so far.

@StillWaiting did you resolve your issues in the end


Hello Emmanuelle,

Thank you for the suggestion, but I have already spoken with the FITS team a couple of times to no avail, and I have raised a complaint, but am still waiting for them to get back to me.

 

I have an email from OVO on 16th August with my statement. The web site says that I will receive payment 7 to 8 weeks after the reading month, which would have been 25th August at the latest.

OFGEM say “You should receive this payment within 90 days of the date you provided the meter reading.” Which would have been 30th August.

 

Very frustrating, with the current meter readings given on 1 September, which I probably won’t receive until well into 2024, OVO now owe me a total of over £600. If I was with EON like my mother is I would have already received the September payment, they tend to pay within a couple of days.

 

it is very frustrating trying to get OVO to even acknowledge an issue let alone sort it out. As I said above to Blastoise186 mistakes happen, but it is how you deal with it and learn from it which is the crucial thing - and well I am not impressed so far.

@StillWaiting did you resolve your issues in the end

Hi @Jeffus,

 

They finally paid me, nine days later than the latest that they should, but no apologies, contact or anything. Sigh.

I gave them, the next FIT reading on the 1st September and still have not heard anything from them yet.

I have asked to be transferred to Octopus but this is an ongoing process with lots of questions and paperwork. Funny how SSE can just pass me to OVO without even telling me but I have to jump through hoops if I want to transfer!


Just had my email from OVO detailing how much I am owed etc. it is the 13th November.

This is for the readings I gave on the 1st of September!

And they say I “should get my payment within four weeks” - if I don’t get the payment before the end of November then they are again outside the time frame specified by OFGEM but OVO don’t appear to care , don’t reply to complaints or anything. I am now telling everyone how bad they are and not to join them for anything. 


I've just come to the end of my 11th year of FIT payments, all bar the last were with SSE, and I am now with OVO following their takeover of SSE.  

Throughout those past eleven years I have maintained an Excel spreadsheet, recording the meter readings, date taken, the amount of power I’ve generated, the FIT rates, export rates and which calculated the amount that I was expecting to receive.  In that 11 years, no physical payment has been more or less than a few pence away from my calculation…. until now. 

I received an email 2 weeks ago regarding the payment for my June reading, which I still haven't received, giving me a payment of £10 less than expected.  I know why its happened, as in the past I always submitted a reading to SSE in early April which coincided with the FIT rate change, however OVO now want them in March and June, (Sep & Dec) and then estimate how much of the generation between March and June are at the old and new rates.

I’m in the process of writing to OVO to ask how the estimate is done and if the change in dates from April and July to March and June was their decision or something imposed on them by Ofgem.  Depending on their answer, I have my pen poised to raise the matter with Ofgem.

If I'm £10 down, I wont be the only person, and that could be a nice little earner for OVO.  I would be interested to know if anyone else has experienced a similar issue.

Thanks 

How did you get on @Space Cadet ?


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