FAQs on applying for a Refund from your OVO account

thanks firdog yes she is registered on the elderly help scheme - took me 17 minuites to get through security again tonight and stuck on hold again so just hung up 

its all nonsense - i was promised several calls back and non have happened  

still on hold 

have asked could you at least refund the direct debit taken 48 hours prior as the account is substantially in credit (over £4000) and told no because a complaint is open - the complaint has been open for over 10 days and you still took £260 from her bank account the Direct Debit mandate guatentee scheam si not something OVO energy has to determin it is  statutory under law that the last DD should be refunded with no duress 

OVO is driving a Coach & Horses through our laws of consumer protection how on earth is a 84 year old pensioner able to deal with this level of complexity - simple they canot and OVO just keep takeing money and place into a credit balance 

what i find so concerning is nobody is accepting an issue and is almost passing blame to the consumer 

Gonna be honest here… I think you need to lower your expectations a bit. If a complaint case is currently active (which it sounds like there is one), it’s generally best to let that run and wait for the outcome - any refunds due can then be dumped out all at once, rather than creating a messy paper trail that slows everything down further. OVO might also determine that the DD can be lowered and/or suggest other resolutions. By letting the matter get looked into, you’ll have more options once you get a response.

Also noteworthy that you can’t have two refund requests open at once. You must wait for the existing one to resolve before you can raise any others. This to protect you from issues as much as it protects OVO from them. The DD Guarantee does allow for this. It’s likely buried pretty deep in the rules and the Human Friendly summary doesn’t make it obvious, but it exists.

The DD would have been taken per the usual schedule - I don’t see any legal/regulatory/DD Guarantee issues with that - you/your mother agreed to make monthly payments regardless of the account balance and that’s what’s happening which is perfectly normal.

I don’t see any consumer protection breaches here. I will ask other Forum Volunteers like ​@Firedog , ​@BPLightlog and ​@Nukecad for a second opinion, but to me it sounds as if OVO has already started the refund process that’s used for large £500+ refunds and you just have to wait for it to run. This takes longer for various reasons, but it’s ultimately about things like fraud prevention and making sure you don’t drain the account to the point where you go into debt - OVO has to factor in your best interests before they can do it and that’s what these checks are about.

This certainly feels like it’s well outside the FCA remit - it’s the purpose of the payment that counts towards which regulator it comes under, not how it was paid. As this the purpose of that particular DD is Energy and not Financial Services, it comes under Ofgem rather than the FCA (who deal with banks and insurance company stuff).

but that makes no sense surely the whole point of the DD guarantee is to protect the consumer and how can the online system not allow you to reduce the DD to a reasonable amount when the account is so far in credit 

the company i represent would never consider taking a further payment on such a credit balance notwithstanding the OVO systems should have reduced the DD  but in fairness i have just finished on the phone with the call centre and it is a clear as day - its not the staff its the computer, because it is still providing inaccurate data - substantially inaccurate data - and this is the issue - not the staff the computer 

i wold urge all customers to just look at their last 12 months consumption and do the calculations themselves as the computer states now that the DD should be even higher than it was for the last 12 months and yet it created a £4000 credit balance the true monthly DD should be circa £105 a month so the computer is over stating gas and electric by 61% 

someone in the IT department needs to get their act together or find another role 

good luck everyone and il let you know if my mother gets her money back i have made her whole again and she can give it back to me if she ever gets it 

As I said, you need to help OVO to help you though. If you fail to submit meter readings on a regular basis, it becomes nearly impossible to process a refund. And it definitely becomes a headache for OVO to bill you accurately!

If a case is open, OVO will look into it. But you just have to wait until then.

If it goes on for more than eight weeks, the Energy Ombudsman can step in - please review https://ovoenergy.com/feedback for details of that. But unless you reach Deadlock, the Ombudsman requires you to give OVO a chance to solve it directly first.

Ofgem won’t touch this either as they delegated complaint escalation to the Ombudsman, so you’ll need to take it that way.

If you show us the meter reading history on the Forum, we may be able to spot some clues to help figure this out. In particular, I need the meter readings, the date of submission and whether they were Manual, Smart or Estimated.

no they are all estimated and they are analogue meters which really surprised me as it a block of apartments with elderly residents most are on Zimmer frames or in wheelchairs guess it would be best to prioritise those on the PSR or who should be on the PSR may be the government should spend more money on identifying them rather than doing advertisements on TV 

the complaint is not about the money for my my mother is ok now its the lack of empathy for the elderly that has caused me to feel so let down, i would not allow staff in my business to frustrate a resolve  especially with elderly client's 

also empty promises - i have had three pre agreed telephone calls not happen and then it takes another hour or so to get back and ask why ? we will see what tomorrows 8 am scheduled call delivers should it happen 

my real dismay is the algorithms of the IT system its not difficult to  look at annual usage the bills are there - its not difficult to allow a DD to revert to say minimum charge when the account is in credit more than a months value of DD or even prompt a call or meter reader to attend and what i think is also so wrong with the  system is that even today its switch tariff algorithm is using false data to show a  client saving which does not exist, this is a OFT no-no and why i think the regulators need to know about this - and consumers need to be warned that the systems are not reliable and the should not rely on the suppliers data or price saving as it may not be accurate ? there is no waring at all in point of fact it states “you will save” which is a false statement.

so the conclusion - don't trust the OVO computer and if you are of an age where its complicated for you, seek assistance from a neighbour or a family friend who can resolve the situation on your behalf. 

most of all for those like my mother, do not stress, and if the money has left you short and it is a credit balance contact your bank and they can reclaim the DD within 48 working hours, do not go without necessities because the energy supplier is not refunding the money and continues to claim DD     

Then the root of the problem seems pretty clear-cut to me. It ultimately boils down to:

• You’re taking a large (possibly huge) refund that requires manual review
• All meters in the building are Traditional Meters, no Smart Meters are currently in use
• No actual Meter Readings have been submitted for some time - this is the killer factor*

What that creates is a perfect storm regardless of customer demographics. I have Autism myself and I can tell you that OVO adapted to that pretty much as soon as I disclosed it shortly after I became a customer. ALL of their Support Team agents get alerted pretty much as soon as they answer my calls, chats or emails. My PSR status also flags up too. I also have a Smart Meter - I had one put in pretty fast after I moved in - and it has been sending readings pretty much every day for the last four years no problemo. My bills have, as a result, been 100% accurate the entire time.

As an interim solution/workaround, you can request OVO to arrange an engineer to visit on a regular basis to capture and Meter Readings on your behalf while you wait for a Smart Meter upgrade - it’s a free service that’s part of PSR. But you MUST request this explicitly otherwise OVO won’t know you need it.

OVO seems to do a pretty good job of assisting vulnerable - or potentially vulnerable - customers they know about. However, OVO is NOT psychic, doesn’t have mind reader powers and they don’t have crystal balls either. You need to tell them about vulnerabilities by signing up to the Priority Services Register if you want to 100% guarantee having it on record.

As for the Direct Debits, I’ll let OVO themselves answer that as the existing guide seems to be pretty well written. You can check that out here. Likewise, I would like to remind you of OVO’s refund policy and refund help guide, which do mention that refunds over £500/£599 require manual review.

Please note that taking a refund can cause your DD to increase in some cases, especially if insufficient credit remains to cover upcoming charges. That doesn’t mean it will increase, just that you may want to keep this in mind.

I wish to re-affirm that it sounds like you’re not understanding how some of this stuff works. Please be careful about just randomly throwing more regulators into the mix - that just reinforces my thoughts you’re potentially not thinking this through.

Just so you know, the OFT, or Office of Fair Trading, no longer exists. It was abolished in 2014 and the primary functions were transferred to the Competition and Markets Authority - though the Financial Conduct Authority absorbed the consumer credit sector instead of the CMA. Please make sure to do your research so that you’re using current information. It helps a lot to double check.

OVO can - and does - issue Clawbacks of invalid DD Guarantee Indemnity Claims which effectively reverses the refund. I strongly recommend you don’t just submit them randomly and ONLY do so if you truly believe the DD payment(s) in question really was taken in error per the DD Guarantee rules - those are the only reasons for which an Indemnity Claim is allowed. Gemini does a pretty decent job of explaining, so I’ll copy in its response:

Long story short, if you abuse the process, you risk triggering a Clawback. I’d personally argue that since OVO will have almost certainly taken these payments correctly and per the terms of your contract, it’s quite likely that the bank would side with OVO and trigger a Clawback - which would return the money to OVO. The bank will not factor in your OVO account balance into this decision - they will assess it purely against the DD Guarantee rules.

*If you fail to send meter readings on a regular basis, then it can cause bill shocks and other issues as a result of estimated bills - which have a 100% chance of being wrong. Unfortunately, this is technically considered to be your fault rather than the fault of the Supplier, because you’re supposed to send them in regularly. This is why Forum Volunteers here often recommend upgrading because it helps eliminate estimated billing.

I will crunch the rest of your comments and provide further insight shortly.

That is true - but the DD Guarantee ALSO protects the Merchant too as it works both ways.

It is also fair - and part of the rules - that OVO can require a minimum monthly payment amount to keep you out of debt and ensure the bills get paid. If you don’t supply the data required to make that accurate, that’s on you and the best resolution is to basically get a Smart Meter fitted and run it in Daily/Half-Hourly Mode.

​@Blastoise186 how often do meter readers come and take readings these days? Eg if a customer hadn’t submitted a reading for years, or customers on the priority register ?

If memory serves… Where a PSR request for it is active it’s either once a month or once a quarter. I don’t know how it works for the stragglers/disengaged customers though - I suspect OVO would eventually trigger a re-engagement process once a threshold is reached.

With that being said… The dis-engagement thing shouldn’t be relied on and definitely isn’t a valid excuse for not submitting meter readings at all for extended periods. OVO can simply point to the Core T&C which do state pretty clearly that you must submit a reading at least once every quarter/every three months* and that if you fail to do so (and OVO can’t get one themselves), you’ll be kicked over to estimated readings.

It does also state that if OVO is forced to send someone out because you persistently refuse to (or fail to) give a meter reading, then they can charge you for the visit to cover their costs - this fee is waived for PSR Requested Meter Reader Visits and the Bi-Annual Safety Check thing as OVO will swallow the costs for those.

*I’m kinda tempted to suggest OVO changes that to once a month, but in some ways… I’m not sure I should make that suggestion…

Then again, with the changes to Monthly Billing for basically everyone, I am tempted to propose putting that suggestion forwards - thoughts?

Trying to inject one more practical point here: if there have been no regular meter readings for a long time, a single reading may not be enough for those trying to make sense of the account to base their calculations on. There is sometimes a requirement for two readings to be submitted, two weeks apart. If it’s two weeks since you last submitted readings, I’d suggest you repeat the exercise so at least that requirement is satisfied.

Two readings two weeks apart will give a clue to the consumption pattern. It can’t hurt, and it might help to move things forward.

How have you been submitting readings? I think the webchat option gives the ability to submit readings without having to speak to an agent.

Also trying to be practical here to help move things along:

• The DD guarantee protects the consumer against unauthorised DD's being taken, or DD's being taken on the wrong date.
• Whilst you may feel that the DD amount is 'incorrect' it is the amount that your mother has authorised them to take.
• Your dispute with the biller (OVO) over the DD amount is not covered by the DD guarantee.

See the link and quote below.

As far as I can see the DD's in question are still authorised. (hint)

in the circumstances the correct way to do things is to request that a hold be put on any future DDs until your complaint is resolved.
They can (usually) do that over the phone, I have myself had a DD hold applied while a problem was sorted out.

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/help/your-rights-and-safeguards/

Hey ​@Mark Ansell 

I’m really sorry to hear of the issues you’re having.

Your mother can request for the direct debit to be reduced & a hold to be put in place until the account issues are resolved. This will be call the ‘direct debit exceptions’ list. As we don’t have access to the account on the forum it’s hard to advise what is going wrong here. It may be that there is an out of line estimated annual consumption. 
 

• Estimated Annual Consumption (EAC) - What this means and how it affects your OVO Energy account? Tutorial

I’d try checking her readings on her statements or online account. This topic might be helpful:

• Questions about your energy use? Check out our handy FAQ F.A.Q.

It may also be that the billing isn’t accurate so the credit balance isn’t accurate. The complaints team will investigate & get to the bottom of this. For the time being though i’d advise asking for the direct debit to be put on the exceptions list at a lower amount until the account issues are resolved.

Hope this helps.