This has apparently been put right for some customers, but there seems to be no established procedure for checking what precisely is wrong and then for putting it right. As far as I’ve been able to make out, these stars all have to align:

•   The tariff. The name, rates and especially peak/offpeak timings have to be as agreed with the customer;
•   The meter’s TOU matrix, which dictates precisely at what times the peak and offpeak registers are recording;
•   The order of the TOU register tiers (shown as rates). Rate 1 must be peak, Rate 2 offpeak.
•   The ALCS calendar, which specifies at what times the dedicated heating circuit is switched on and off.  

All of these things can be checked both by the customer and by OVO staff remotely. Any necessary changes can be made without the need for an engineer visit.

UPDATE!!!!!

Yesterday I called Ovo and the two I spoke to were not very helpful and fobbed me off with ‘send photos’. When pressed to ‘what would you like me to send photos of?’ The call mysteriously dropped out.

I had a web chat that was much more productive and they said they are aware that some customers have this problem and they said they would fix it within 7 days.

Lo and behold, just now my afternoon off peak period began and the meter is reading the correct charging rate.

I just checked emails and they have sent one through saying the issue has been fixed and I should expect a statement shortly.

This is good news on the rates/timing aspect of things going forwards but I am now interested in what they propose to do about the last 18 months where we have been overpaying. I’m not sure what formula they will use as each month varies so much. I’ll see what they come back with. I do have history running back some years as to our monthly peak/off peak usage so may need to employ that if they are not recompensing what I consider to be fair.

So my story at least has been dealt with quickly. I only realised our off peak timings were mis-aligned on Saturday and here we are on Tuesday lunchtime with that at least sorted out.

Ant

@Shads_OVO Hi, many thanks for asking about this. We are 95% sorted. It took a huge effort and unbelievable patience and self control in the face of total incompetence and customer service failure from OVO. Edited by Moderator] in the customer complaints team can fill you in. I’ll just say that after 8 months since raising this issue my father only last month got his overbilling totalling around £1000 credited to his account. The meter has been replaced (the golden bullet I was told, some hope) and got incorrectly configured for economy 7 instead of economy 10. That got fixed very quickly and then I noticed the meters internal switch to bring in the dedicated off peak circuit for night storage heaters wasn’t turning on. I know, completely unbelievable and the worse of it was that these additional problems only got noticed by me and not OVO. Sooo tomorrow, the 2nd of October, we have another engineer coming out to (hopefully) fix the off peak circuit switch. If this gets done successfully we should have everything back to the way it was last successfully working which was when SSE had the account. Fingers crossed

Hi @Ntomkins,

Thanks for coming back with an update. I’m glad to hear that this has been sorted for you now.

Hi @BruceH,

I appreciate the response. I’m really sorry to hear that this has been your experience. 

Hopefully the engineer will be able to get this 100% sorted for you today. Please let us know how you get on.

@Shads_OVO 

Hi, 

Thank you for your response. Well the engineer’s visit today was a complete waste of time and my 90 mile round journey to my Dads with regard to sorting out the problem with the internal switch not switching on the dedicated off peak circuit for the storage heaters. As soon as he arrived he said I can’t open the meter to look at the switch and I can’t change the configuration of the meter to make the switch operate, that has to be done remotely by OVO by sending the configuration to the meter ! 
 

I have to ask, do OVO even have a clue as to what the (contract) smart engineers can and can’t do or about what the OVO team can and should do to fix these problems remotely. Why did they even bother to send an engineer !?@Firedog I think OVO ought to read your last message and pay you a consultancy fee for telling them how to do their job, not that they will listen or even care.

BUT the engineer did find a massive safety problem with part of the installation of the new meter that was fitted in August. See attached photo and you’ll see that one of the grey live circuit feeds is showing its bare copper conductors beneath the meter ! The engineer gave it a gentle tug and it came out in his hand WTF , they can’t even employ competent people to do safe installs. I have never ever dealt with a company over anything that have displayed such appalling levels of incompetence, unbelievable.

Hi,

Based on that paragraph, I’m escalating this matter to ALL Forum Moderators. This almost certainly needs to be checked out. Hang in there for a bit!

Hey @BruceH 

I’m really sorry to hear about this.

It sounds like all that’s needed is the remote commands to be sent to the meter, we’ve seen this quite a few times through the Forum so there’s a handy topic here about what’s needed: 

Are you named on your dad’s account? If so you can speak with our Support Team who’ll be able to send out the remote commands. Let us know how you get on, and if you’re not named on the account let us know and we’ll see what we can do from there. 

Hi @Abby_OVO , this is potentially so helpful. Yes I am named on my Dad’s account and already have a dedicated complaint handler: {Edited by moderator] , who is dealing with this case. I have just spoken with her following the failed visit of the engineer yesterday and have asked her to find ‘the metering expert’ at OVO who actually knows how to configure the meter correctly and make sure the issue with the dedicated off peak heating circuit switch inside the meter not being turned on is addressed. If you are able to communicate this information with her that would be really helpful. 

Many thanks

Bruce     

Hi @BruceH,

If you have a dedicated complaint handler already looking into this then I’m afraid we’re limited in how we can help via the forum. It sounds as if your complaint is already at the highest point of internal escalation. Your complaint handler should be in touch as soon as they have an update on this for you.

What update did your complaint handler give you when you got in touch?

Here’s some more information about our complaint procedure: https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

Please keep us in the loop.

I am amazed to see that this issue has been marked as “Solved”. It isn’t!!

Ovo have accepted - eventually - that there has been an error with the meter which meant it was working to an E7 tariff while my heaters were working to an E10 tariff’ and they have offered me a sum of money which they say addresses this overcharge plus a sum for “compensation”. However I have not accepted this - it does not come anywhere near the true figure. The overcharge that they have calculated only takes into account the difference in price between the E7 and E10 tariffs during this period - it makes no allowance for the fact that we were charged for more peak usage than we should have been. In fact we have been charged for twice the number of peak time units because - as I have repeatedly explained - we were only receiving 5 hours of off peak electricity not 10.

And all of this is separate from any compensation that we are entitled to for the time, energy, worry and stress that this has caused - not least because it took them 8 months to agree with my initial claim that the meter was set incorrectly. 

Even then there is no allowance for the fact that were targeting the energy use that we could control (mostly laundry) at the wrong time, which I appreciate is hard to quantify.

I have put my rejection and all of these arguments to them in writing and re-sent it twice but still have had no response. I have tried to phone twice and both times were told no one was available but that I would be called back. Needless to say nobody has.

Should I take this to the Ombudsman?

@Oceantrader . Hi, It has taken me 9 months (since first reporting it in Jan this year) to get the problems with my Dad’s Economy 10 meter and incorrect billing (off peak usage being billed at peak rate and vice versa) sorted out and for him to be credited for the overpayments. I don’t know if going to the Ombudsman will help, I decided not to. 

What is an absolute must is to look at the OVO complaints process on their website and request your complaint to be escalated so that you have a dedicated complaint handler assigned to you. This is what I did and it meant that I got out of the completely ineffective process of trying to deal with multiple different customer service agents. 

After a multitude of technically incompetent attempts by OVO to fix the problem, including the unnecessary replacement of the meter which resulted in it being configured for the Economy 7 tariff and times I ran into a very similar problem to you. Basically they then reconfigured the new meter to Economy 10 tariff BUT it was still switching (via the meter’s internal contacts) the dedicated night storage circuit in the flat on and off at the Economy 7 times. I found out by own sleuthing on other forums and by writing to the manufacturer of the Aclara (5 port) meter that the times which the night storage circuit turns on and off inside the meter is controlled by the ECAUL configuration which is a separate configuration to the Tariff configuration. In the end I had to write to my dedicated complaint handler telling them to instruct the technical team to remotely correct the ECAUL settings. This was done about 2 weeks ago and now the meter is finally working (Tariff timing, Billing and night storage circuit switching) as it should be.

I have now escalated the complaint further (per the complaint process) to the CEO with a request for a written apology, recognising OVO’s incompetent handling of our case and a level of compensation that is appropriate to the time, energy and complete hassle and anxiety that OVO have caused to my Father. We’ll see what happens. 

Howdy!

I’d like to give you a heads up that the Solved Status of a thread on the OVO Forum does not relate to whether or not the original problem is solved - it’s always been deliberately separate and will always remain completely separate.

It is used to indicate to other visitors a potential solution that may help them, given that the Forum is intended to help original seeker of knowledge and the wider community who might not post here. We almost never know whether the original issue got solved because over 99% of folks never come back to tell us - which would otherwise leave over 99% of questions dangling and stuck forever in indefinite open status.

If you think the status is wrong for a particular thread, please let the Forum Moderators know. However, please be advised that it will not be reverted if they believe keeping the currently tagged Best Answer active is the most appropriate thing to do.

Thanks for understanding.

Blastoise186

Forum Volunteer - The OVO Forum

Hi @Oceantrader,

I’m really sorry to hear this. This is definitely not the experience we want for our customers.

It seems that BruceH has given a really in detail reply about the process that he went through to get this sorted. 

If you are wishing to go to the Ombudsman then your complaint would need to be open for at least 8 weeks. Have you already raised a complaint and been given a complaint number? If you haven’t done so already it may be worth escalating your complaint.

This is a link to our complaints process:

https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

Please let us know how you get on.