How can OVO help in the event of a bereavement?

How do you report the death of a customer and sort out what to do next. The bank have already cancelled the direct debit but I want the account to carry on until the house is sold

Hey @Jagobaby,

I’ve moved your post over here, take a look at this topic for more help.

I hope everything is okay!

Hi,

My Mum was with OVO for her gas and electricity supply. Unfortunately she passed away in February. There has been some delay notifying the relevant people as we did not have a cause of death, meaning post mortem investigations needed to be carried out before we could get a death certificate. We now have an interim death cert enabling us to begin to sort things out. 

My question to you is this; my mum’s house is now stood empty while we sort things out. We do however need the supply of gas and electricity to the house to continue until the time comes that it is sold. What is the best way to go about this? 

Many thanks

Julie

Hello @Julie72 

I'm very sorry to hear of your loss.

The best thing to do would be to speak with OVO on the phone and explain the situation. I'm sure they would understand, especially with times like this.

Best contact number would be: 0330 303 5063

Kindest regards

Matt

Hi @Julie72 I was faced with a similar situation about 5 years ago. I realised that the standing charge for maintaining the gas and electricity supplies was far greater than the small amount of energy which would actually be consumed.

My solution was to shop around for a tariff which had no standing charges. The cost per kWh was very high, but the overall result still saved me over 80% of what would’ve been charged if I’d stayed with the original Supplier and Tariff.

I did consider having the gas temporarily removed from the property because some substantial refurbishment was required. However, I later learned that this would’ve been an ineffective saving due to the reconnection charge and the need for a gas-safe engineer to purge the pipes.

Thank you for your responses. I will contact OVO today and find out what kind of tariff she is on.

Kind Regards,

Julie

Since They took over SSE they have started to send Bills to my Dead Father I notified SSE at the time and everything was fine until she got transferred to them.  This has upset my Mother No End. He Died 3 years ago.

Sending out 2 Bills 1 to her and 1 to him. Tried phoning myself yesterday at 12.15 only to get a message that they were closed yet supposed to be open until 2pm.

Sent an email to address shown on account and got a reply saying it is unmonitored. What is the point of putting the email address on the account.

As far as I am concerned they are totally Useless.

Hey @Crap Service,

I’m sorry for your loss and the issues you’ve experienced with your mothers account.

As this is account specific and I don’t have access to any notes I can only make suggestions. It sounds like during the move from your previous supplier to OVO, your father’s name was sent across as a financially liable contact, instead of being removed, which is why a letter was sent in his name. 

You can contact our bereavement team directly on bereavement@ovoenergy.com or by phone if you prefer 0330 175 9683. They will be able to remove your fathers name from the account to ensure this doesn’t happen in future. 

I hope this helps. 

Had account in my father's name, he passed away so closed account. rented his house out and then we sold property, been making payments monthly to bank based on bills recd. It said on most recent account no payments made, however the ref no I used to pay bills was my father's old OVO account. I have sent emails, I have called, I have made a complaint nothing has been done. I sent copies of my bank statements to show payments made, and provided old acc no (same address) so no idea why you cannot check his final bill account and see if the money is sitting in a closed account?

Hey @tracy1964,

I’m really sorry to hear this.

It’s a very account specific query so I'll get someone to contact you. Look out for a message in your your Forum inbox. 

Hi, I’ve tried to contact the bereavement team repeatedly by return email of their first response to me, but getting no reply for a month now. My mother died in August, I’ve been paying her account ever since and now probate’s been granted. You tried to raise the DD from £63 to over £200 when I took over, so currently it’s being paid month to month on the actual bill (way lower than £200!). I have queries both about the amount and about transferring the bill to the person actually living there. I’ve sent several emails and earlier I waited 15 minutes to be transferred to “Apollo team” with no response so am trying here.

Can you just go online and select the option that you’re moving out ? Then the new resident can created a new account etc. 

If not the Apollo team are the people in Sunderland who deal with customers on the old billing system. They were very helpful with my account. If you need to ring again ask to be put straight through to them as the new billing system is quite different.

Hey @LisaP ,

Sorry for your loss. Based on what you’ve posted, I’ll take this backstage now and notify the forum moderators. They’ll respond in this thread when they can. This requires a different process from simply moving out, so I’m not sure that’ll work.

Thank you!  You’re quite right that the moving out procedure is not relevant and won’t deal with the overcharging attempt either. Apollo failed to come back to me earlier when someone tried to transfer me, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it was just a post-Christmas hitch.

You’re welcome. I’ve just sent that message off now so please monitor the forum as a moderator should see it by this time tomorrow.

Hey @LisaP,

Really sorry to hear of your loss,

If you’ve already informed us of the bereavement and the account is in your name or the name of ‘The Executers’, provided your email address is on the account you should be able to log in to the Online Account to do things like submit readings, view bills and ‘move out’ if the property is being sold.

Unfortunately, as @juliamc as you’re on our old billing system you will need to hang on and wait for the ‘Apollo’ team. It’s our legacy system so there are now only a few agents with access so only they can answer account specific queries. 

The bereavement team who you can email on bereavement@ovoenergy.com should respond within 4 working days, the Christmas period would unfortunately delay that as we’ve had reduced opening days, if you call Support they also have the option to transfer you through. 

Keep us posted with how you get on. 

My late parents home was sold on 12 th January this year and I forwarded final bill reading to our solicitor who is administering the estate . He in turn advised OVO who produced a bill six weeks later. This was incorrect and he queried it. I have spoken to the solicitor today and he advised he has still not had a response. This matter is holding up the finalisation of my parents estate and according to my solicitor there is nothing we can do about it. Can anyone advise what if anything can be downloaded be in this situation.

That should read done in this situation.

Good evening @Christopher 1 ,

I’m one of the forum volunteers. We’re sorry for your loss.

This sounds like something that might need a bit more knowledge than we’ve got. I’ve gone ahead and placed a marker against this thread to ask the forum moderators to stop by. They should see it when they next check in.

If I can help with anything else, please let me know

Thank you for your assistance.

Hi @Christopher 1

Sorry to hear that. 

While you are waiting for one of the moderators, probably tomorrow morning now. 

You may already know this, but in case it helps there is a dedicated email address and phone number that may help

https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/bereavement

6 weeks for a final bill is the maximum under the ofgem rules, shame there were queries about it. 

Thank you for responding.  My solicitor wrote over six weeks ago querying the final bill. When I spoke to him yesterday he had had no response and was basically saying its the way it is with energy companies. I appreciate  there is a standard time to produce the initial bill but to be able to ignore a query for a further six weeks seems excessive.

Hey @Christopher 1,

Do you know how the Solicitor has attempted to contact OVO?

The best way to contact us is by calling our dedicated team on 0330 175 9683 or emailing bereavement@ovoenergy.com.

He has been in contact by both letter and phone on several occasions. All of which will be billed to the estate.

He spoke to OVO on Friday and now believes  OVO have finally acknowledged  their mistake and have agreed to producing another final bill. Coincidentally ,following the advice received  on this forum , I have raised the issue with the Bereavement dept. and am awaiting a reply . Hopefully  between us we will receive  a response.

It really is the last thing any family deserves following a bereavement. There should be far stricter regulation around final bills relating to deceased customers. Our solicitor advises us that it is all part of the "appallingly  low standards" he regularly  encounters from energy companies.

Hi @Christopher 1 

Would you mind sharing what the actual issue was with the final bill your solicitor received. 

It may help other people who visit this customer forum in the future about what to watch out for.