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Extremely overcharged after forgetting to pay bills

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I moved in my current studio flat apartment around 7 months ago and I have completely forgot about paying the bills. The record said that I provided a reading in Dec which I don’t remember doing. and 

I just went on to my OVO account and looked at the bills and because I haven’t provided meter readings, they were all estimates. Some were reasonable but there were a few months that reaches unbelievable amounts. I live alone in a studio flat and it was shown £1800 in one of the months, which is impossible. I am going to get a meter reading and supply it asap. But my question is when I get my reading, how do I backbill or do a reversal in a way to get my previous bills recalculated.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Best answer by Blastoise186 2 May 2024, 00:33

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Blastoise186
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Hi @Ovo_User_397 ,

Easiest fix: Just submit a meter reading ASAP. Your latest bill will be recalculated automatically and should fix more or less everything. If you’re owed money as a result, the system will figure that out for you and knock it off the latest bill. Do not attempt to get a reversal or modification to previous bills - that won’t help in this instance. Simply feed OVO the data to generate the latest one with instead.

I strongly recommend you get a Smart Meter to avoid a repeat of this issue. Book the upgrade via https://smart-booking.ovoenergy.com .

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
ChristopherS_OVO
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Hey @Ovo_User_397,

 

One of our volunteers, @Blastoise186, has given you spot-on advice here. If you supply us with an up-to-date reading, your account will adjust the billing to the new reading date. You can find more information on our how billing works guide under “Do I have to pay an estimated electric bill?”.

 

Let us know if supplying the readings balances things out for you. 😊 

O
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Hi ChristopherS_OVO, Blastoise186 

I just did a meter reading but when I was about to update it, I found out an issue with the numbers. A previous record in the account is 09081 in Dec, which I don’t remember doing it myself. And today, when I checked the meter, it says 02413 which doesn’t make sense. Does the meter reset at some point or what that previous reading false? Should I still update it? I am really confused and is there any advice on what to do in this situation?

Blastoise186
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You should update it with the latest reading anyway - manual readings override ALL estimates like the ones you saw.

Please also show me photos of the meter itself. It MAY have gone round the clock - I can check for that if I see what meter you have.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
O
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Thanks for the reply Blastoise186. Here is my meter
 

 

Blastoise186
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Userlevel 7
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Ah yes, I see the problem. That meter has definitely gone round the clock and back to zero. OVO’s systems are designed to detect this upon a reading submission and handle it automatically by factoring in the “reset” into the calculations. Submitting a reading now will correct the situation and you won’t see it again for another 90,000 units, by which point that meter will probably be removed from service anyway.

I’d definitely recommend getting Smart Meters sooner or later though, so that you can have the readings submitted automatically - one less thing to worry about. If you aren’t keen on OVO knowing much, you can always set the read schedule to Monthly which would purely send ONE reading a month. For the best experience though, you may want to consider Daily or Half-Hourly readings. You can change the settings whenever you want - just ask OVO Support.

https://smart-booking.ovoenergy.com to get that set up.

If you have any questions about any of this, let me know here and I’ll swing by again.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
O
Rank

Thanks for the reply Blastoise186,
When I entered the most recent reading on Fri, the system says it needs to be verified.
I just realised that the meter reading provided back in Dec is false (instead of the meter resetting as speculated in the discussions above). I probably included the digits in red.

I know this because I just got the meter reading at the beginning of the tenancy from my real estate agent.

It was “2099” back in Aug 2023 (Forgot to provide to OVO)
Then, I provided “09081” in Dec 2023 (false digits)
Now, it’s “2413” in May 2024

How do I remove the previous Dec reading and add a meter reading that was done last August. I do have pics as proof.

Blastoise186
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Userlevel 7
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Ahh ok. No worries - this can be fixed.

Please have a chat with Support, they can investigate and put this right for you. If you get massively stuck with that, let us know here.

You can reach Support via https://ovoenergy,com/help . Feel free to give the Live Chat agent a link to this thread - they’ll be able to read the discussion so far which should save you from explaining things again.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Abby_OVO
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Userlevel 6

Hi @Ovo_User_397 

 

Blastoise186 has left some really helpful advice on this already in that the Support Team can get this resolved for you no problem.

 

I’ve linked below to a similar topic that may be of interest:

 

 

Location: Electric Avenue

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