Hi ​@Tazzyy74 ,

I’m a Forum Volunteer here, so I don’t work for OVO. We don’t judge so please don’t worry - we’re here to help!

Thanks for bringing this up. In order for us to give advice, please post a few photos of your meter and everything around it. We’ll use these to see if we can figure out what’s going on here, but we may need to ask a few more questions too so we can understand the context a bit better.

Hi ​@Tazzyy74 ,

I’m a Forum Volunteer here, so I don’t work for OVO. We don’t judge so please don’t worry - we’re here to help!

Thanks for bringing this up. In order for us to give advice, please post a few photos of your meter and everything around it. We’ll use these to see if we can figure out what’s going on here, but we may need to ask a few more questions too so we can understand the context a bit better.

 

 

 

I had a bill for 2.5 months for 814.00 the following month was 30.12 how is that possible I'm living with no heating on all my appliances are off till I use them it's 11°c in my house and lower at night were freezing I'm scared to cook I'm scared to shower yet they won't check my meter just tell me to do a creep test so I've turned the mains of but the switches are all still on unless I turn every switch off in the trip box .....  

 

The maina are off but the sockets are still on if I turn anything else of I won't have anything running were now sleeping downstairs and my house feels damp it's so cold but I'm getting billed for what ? I  don't even use my oven just an air fryer once a night to scared to fully boil a kettle no rooms upstairs are used and everytime I argue it with 🐙  I get ignored and asked about the bill which I'm refusing to pay.

I've sent readings in but their still coming back estimated well some I'm disabled and single parent I just know somethings not right with the meter it can't be 

Ok, I see. It doesn’t look like the Meter has been tampered with - everything seems fine in that regard. However, I note that it’s a Pre-SMETS L+G E470 originally installed by British Gas in 2012. Given that it’s Pre-SMETS, it’ll never work again as a Smart Meter (long story) so we can’t use any data it might be gathering to help figure this out. TBH it’s probably scrap at this point so may be best just swapping it out anyway. But if we do that now, it’ll confuse things further so I can’t recommend that just yet.

I am also incredibly disappointed to hear that Octopus doesn’t seem to have thought about this stuff already. I have informed the Forum Moderators about this as I’m concerned about your welfare. If anything, it just proves that they are NOT 100% perfect which goes against what so many people claim. No Supplier is 100% perfect as that’s impossible, but there’s a ton they SHOULD be doing in these cases to be - at very least - more empathetic.

I will ask ​@Nukecad to step in as well regarding the billing matter. His advice may be well suited to that.

I’d like to ask you to do a few checks including a Creep Test for now though. This will help identify if the Meter has become inaccurate and if it has, it’ll give us very powerful options for you to explore.

Please follow these steps taken from this guide.

Locating energy gorging appliances

1. Leave the main breaker on.
2. Turn off all individual circuits (on the fuse board, for example).
3. The electricity meter should stop clocking usage. If not, there could be a short in the fuse/breaker panel box or an appliance connected without fuse/breaker protection. An electrician will be needed to investigate this.
4. Turn on one individual circuit.
5. Watch to see if the electric meter starts to clock usage.
6. Turn off that individual circuit and turn on another one. Again, watch to see if the electric meter is clocking.
7. Repeat step 6 until all individual circuits have been checked.

You’re looking for a circuit that causes the meter to clock a lot of usage, compared to the other circuits. There could be a problem with an appliance or a connection on that circuit. We’d recommend contacting an electrician to check the appliances on this circuit, particularly if there are any old or potentially faulty appliances plugged in.  Find out the average usage for each appliances on this great guide and some great energy saving advice on the Centre for Sustainable Energy.

Performing a Creep Test

If you’ve been unable to get to the bottom of an increase in our usage by locating a greedy appliance, the next step would be to carry out an initial check on the accuracy of the meter with a ‘Creep Test’. To carry this out: turn off the power to your fuse box and check if the meter continues to clock. If the meter clocks (more than 1 - 2 units which could be down to residual power in the wires)  then it's either faulty, or clocking someone else’s usage.

Please tell me about the results of both tests - especially how many units were racked up during the Creep Test - and I’ll try to advise on what to do next.

Additionally, I’m pretty concerned about the lack of heating and I feel there’s more to this than what you’ve said so far.

Please complete the check at https://www.safelincs.co.uk/hfsc/ as I feel your local Fire Service may be able to assist you. I don’t make any money out of you doing that check and I don’t get to see what you enter - it goes straight to the Fire Service in your area.