Billing issues due to crossed meters

People often make mistakes when copying or entering names, addresses and numbers, even their own. You say you have an ‘adjoining neighbour;’ is it impossible to get the two properties muddled up? There are national databases that try (and succeed most of the time) to keep track of every electricity and gas meter in the country, matching up information from suppliers like OVO, from electricity distributors and gas transporters and from the Royal Mail address database, so it’s not surprising that it doesn’t always work flawlessly.  

I don’t think there’s much to gain from trying to find someone to blame - the energy it took would be much better spent on just getting the error corrected. IMHO.

PS I realize I didn’t address your last question. A visiting engineer could at least establish once and for all which meters are yours and - assuming your neighbour is at home at the time - which belong to someone else if you haven’t managed to work it out by yourself. He may also be able to see whether there’s wiring that needs to be changed, or whether sorting out the crossed meters is just a tedious administrative exercise back at headquarters. If you have a time for the engineer’s visit, could you persuade your neighbour to be present?   

Morning ​@BK1981 

Without seeing the National Databases and the full background of your account, we can only speculate as to what has caused this issue. Our Support Team will be best placed to deal with this. I would recommend speaking to them about the appointment that you have booked. If there is uncertainty surrounding which meters should be on file for your property, then it may be best to get this appointment changed to a ‘site investigation’ or ‘fuse finder’ visit. Again, our Support Team will need to fully diagnose this on their side before making this decision. 

Hi All, thank you ​@Firedog ​@Ben_OVO for your responses, much appreciated.

The SMS engineer has come out and indeed confirmed our meters are registered to the neighbour and vice versa.  Can you advise on which body OVO have to contact to rectify the swap and the practicalities of this?

The SMS engineer relayed the information to OVO via online chat and again was told the customer had to phone up as a follow on.  I have done this and again, rather than picking the batten up, all I was told was your query is being dealt with…..that’s it!  It starts from scratch every time I contact OVO – is there a way of acquiring a department or persons in OVO that can close out the case rather than avoid dealing with it?

Once OVO has been made aware via the correct route, I think you can just leave it to them to make the necessary arrangements. It effectively has to be handled via various parties across the industry and not just OVO so this may take some time.

Please be patient during the process - you’ll be notified of any updates.

I moved in current address in August 2024. OVOE offered direct debit due to crossed meters. OVOE has been providing my next door free electricity but demand me to pay. I had at top up meter when I moved in so I had been paying Scottish power. SPOW later on converted it into a smart meter so I pay as you go for my own electricity. I had to train my meter when I ran out of credit. Been twice OVOE sent an engineer around and both confirmed I was not with OVOE. My IHD and smart meter both display another supplier. The meter reading from OVOE is taken from my next door's meter. OVOE never let go. Their customer service hardly have native English speaker and I have to spent at least half an hour for the whoever to slightly understand what was the situation but most of the case the line was cut or transferred me to someone who said they not related to my problem. I told this to the energy ombudsman and the evidence from OVOE revealed so many mistakes they done internally. The key problem is the national database got my MPAN registration crossed with my next doir’s MPAN. What OVOE doing is affecting my credit score and I would not be able to stay in this country. I can not go back to where I came from. I had arranged living will and has started inactive in my life circle. I have no family or next of kin. I have planned to empty the flat and donating everything. My life is coming to an end as I am not able to resolve this with the darkness in OVOE. 

I’m sorry you are experiencing this.

I’m surprised to hear that “Their customer service hardly have native English speaker”. I don’t know if things has changed, but when I was contacting them their English was clear and easy to understand. Are you sure you were contacting OVO? 

Regarding the wrong MPAN – you need to contact your energy supplier ASAP. 

Another point I found confusing is that OVO affecting your credit score and you will not be able to stay in this country. Firstly, does OVO send letter on your name or just your address? If your name is not mentioned, that means you formally have no responsibility for the bills. And even if it has your name and badly affects your credit score, I don’t see how it could affect your ability to stay in the UK. From my understanding, the Home Office doesn’t check anyone’s credit score.

Have you spoken with Scottish Power? 

Hey ​@Yvonnelam 

I’m sorry to hear about the issues you’ve been facing with this, though I’m glad to see Costeek was able to stop by with some helpful advice and questions here so we can try to help as best we can.

Have Scottish Power taken the necessary steps to have the National Database updated? This is something only the current supplier can do, and if we’re not the supplier, as you mention, then Scottish Power will need to take care of the request to the National Database.

Costeek also raised some really good points about the credit score, as well as our contact centers. Are you sure it’s OVO you’ve been in contact with? 

I’m curious as to what Scottish Power have had to say about this and what steps they’ve taken so far to get this resolved. There’s a handy Ofgem guide here that details how they should be taking responsibility of this as the energy supplier which may be helpful. 

We’ve also got a handy guide for OVO customers who’re in a similar circumstance, the process may differ slightly at Scottish Power, but it may give you a better understanding:

Let us know how you get on.