Historical bills changing without explanation?

There’s been some corrections recently to fix a few things - you should have had an email about it.

To query this further, please contact support via https://ovoenergy.com/help . Forum volunteers like myself cannot access the account - and doing so isn’t something this forum can offer.

No, because this shouldn’t happen. I suspect you’re seeing the results of a recent discovery that a few OVO customers had been over- or undercharged in recent months because of a mistake in applying the price cap. You should have received, or will shortly receive, an email explaining what happened if this is the case. When this sort of thing happens (and it’s by no means common), there will usually be a consolation prize, which might explain the unexpected extra credit you’re seeing. Can you not see it explained on your latest bill?

Not as yet .. my last bill notification from OVO was 22nd July (which is one of the historical bills that has changed since then) but my bill for 14 Jul - 13 Aug is now pending so I guess just sit tight and see if there is an explanation with that. 

The extra credit is fully explained by the changes to the charges on the historical bills and therefore the quiet change to the opening balance for the period 14 Jul - 13 Aug. 

Definitely no communications about this … the only communications from OVO since my last bill are three marketing emials trying to sucker me into signing up for the new fixed rate tariffs. 

Thanks. Yes, I was also going to comment on that glaring fault with the dates too, but thought I’d stick to one issue at a time ;)

It is somewhat ironic that when there were several versions of the same bill on my old SSE account, all of those versions are accessible through my OVO billing history, but not when there are several versions of an OVO bill. 

@MCH59

As others have said, it could be related to this where two suppliers were highlighted by ofgem for not correctly applying the Energy Price Guarantee to all their customers. 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/good-energy-limited-and-ovo-energy-limited-pay-ps4-million-overcharging-customers

As per the ofgem statement

• Between October 2022 and March 2023, a total of 10,987 OVO Energy customers were overcharged £1,492,917 above the Government’s Energy Price Guarantee, brought in last winter to protect consumers as households struggled to cope with rising energy prices. 

The specific ovo information is here. 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ovo-energy-limited-pay-ps2000000-energy-price-guarantee-overcharging

If you were impacted you should also have received a goodwill compensation payment in addition to correcting the error. If you were on the priority service register the automatic compensation is higher. 

"In addition, the supplier has paid £498,838 in goodwill payments to affected customers, and a further £10,000 into Ofgem’s voluntary consumer redress fund for reporting failings, equating to a total package of £2,001,755." 

I copy my bills each time they are created. The next time I look at the bill, readings and charges remain the same, but the brought forward and carried forward balances are changed. Surely these should be fixed at when the pdf version of the bill is first generated.

Hi @puffin , what can happen is an update to the gas charges due to calculations on the calorific value. 
I’ve been suggesting that they signpost changes better here

Just to point out that when viewing the details of an earlier bill, a click on the Download bill link will generate a new PDF with the latest data and today’s date at the top. 

If an adjustment was made to the balance at some earlier date, all subsequent statements will have to be updated to reflect the balance change. If a change is made, you should be informed about it, unless it’s really trivial. Here’s an email I received recently:
  

How much of a change is involved in your case?

Thank yu for your suggestion BPLightlog.

The readings and calculations are correct and remain unchanged.

I have just gone through an accumulation statement covering  the last few months that I received this morning. Here the closing balances for each month do agree with the next month’s opening balance. I note that each bill was regenerated today!

The problems are with the running bills, where the opening balance never agrees with  the previous month’s closing balance. I imagine that OVO are keeping a correct running value, so have rather been ignoring it. I do not understand why the values are changed by a regeneration of the bill, surely carried forward balances should be fixed?