Historical bills changing without explanation?

Hey @puffin,

If you have a suggestion you could post this as a feature idea? That was other community members can vote on it and we can gauge the interest 🙂

I am feeling desperate and hoping to find some help!

Ovo are consistently over-estimating our usage, despite giving meter readings.

When we have given readings in the past, the bill seems to be revised in their system. Our opening meter readings on subsequent bills no longer follow on from the previous closing ones. We have not received any revised bills. No bills are showing for these periods in the billing history in the online account. 

How can I reconcile the usage, cost and VAT without a full billing history?

Has anyone had similar issues, and if so, how were they resolved?

Not quite sure what you mean @DisneyCupcake .

Have your previous bills been removed? Or is it that they’ve been updated?

All bills (including any amended) should follow closing and opening readings. There have been cases where bills have been updated without notification but the updated versions should be available.

Yes, they are no longer showing. Account opened in August but that bill is no longer there.  I have had a reply from support now with a few things to try, so I will see how that goes!

[Sorry, this crossed with your latest post.]

Your bills as they are now should be available at the account website. If you want to compare a previous bill, e.g. a PDF emailed to you, with its current version, just use the Download bill button to get a copy. The date it was generated is at the top of page 1. 

Any historical change will cause the opening and closing balances of all subsequent bills to change accordingly, even if the charges all remain the same. 

To help make sure your bills are accurate, try submitting the closing reading for a billing period in the morning of the first day of the next period. This will be recorded at the preceding midnight and should be used to generate the bill without using an estimate. 

Apologies for the confusion. 

I don’t know if this helps at all, but you can usually specify the dates of bills you’re interested in when downloading. For example,  https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/bast/bill/nnnnnnn?from=2023-09-22&to=2023-11-21 might retrieve one of your missing bills after you change nnnnnnn to your own account number. It won’t if the bill really has been taken down, though. 

Hello

I received a very brief email saying

“I’m Chaitrali, a billing agent here at OVO. I’m getting in touch today to let you know that because of an error on our system, your bills were missing some charges. I’m very sorry about this.

We’ve fixed the problem and your energy account has been updated with your latest balance.”

I have now downloaded a copy of every bill I have ever had and compared with my own copies taken over the past 3 years. It appears that in Sept and October 2022, OVO incorrectly calculated the cost of my gas usage and brought forward the wrong balance from my previous statement. They have now changed every monthly bill I have had since to reflect the change to the invoices in 2022. I cannot believe that this is legal as surely they would have to raise a credit note and then re-issue the invoice and advise me of this. 

Fortunately for me it it is a small amount of money but if everyone elses invoices have been changed it will make an enormous difference to OVO. 

Can others please check to see if their invoices have been changed?

Regards

Bob

Not sure they can do this according to Ofgem

Interesting. I too have a similar experience dating back to 2022 where a ‘technical error’ has necessitated OVO closing my old account and opening me a new one. On porting over the balances of my past bills from the old to new accounts they seem to have calulated using unit prices based on  ‘On Demand’  instead of ‘Direct Debit’. It makes a couple of pence difference per unit but calculated over 2 years it’s a significant loss for me. After nearly 8 weeks it’s still not been sorted.

I asked one of the 11 (yes eleven!) representatives I have contacted as to whether there was some sort of system change in 2022 and that I wasn’t the only one having problems but was told  no changes and it was just my account… I’m not so sure, Smells a bit like The Post Office.

Definitely. Everyone should check past invoices. Good Luck!

Hey @bobsheppard and @Kilgore,

I’m sorry for the issues you’re having, 

This is our backbilling process, let me know if the following information helps:

What is a backbill?

We send a backbill, or ‘catch-up’ bill, when we haven’t charged correctly for energy use. This can be through inaccurate bills or not being billed at all. Backbills can be for any amount, and may be a result of:

• A technical or human error on the customer's account has resulted in a delay in receiving a statement within the usual timeframe
• The customer has supplied a reading that exceeds the previously estimated readings used in their statements
• There is a discrepancy between the information OVO has and the current meter setup, such as crossed meters (where multiple properties have been billed for each other's usage) or a meter exchange not updated before joining OVO, which requires a corrected bill to be issued.

What is a Backbill Write-Off? 

Where we've issued a backbill for usage over 12 months old, not covered by payments made at the time and the reason for the delay in this billing is not the customer's fault, we'll apply a write-off. This backbill write-off will be a credit applied to the account to cover the difference between the updated usages and the payments made at the time.

The main situations where we'll write off usage prior to 12 months ago are: 

• We haven't billed the customer
• We've billed an account but not for all usage at the property i.e. only one fuel was billed
• We've billed the customer inaccurately due to a technical or administrative error

Charge Adjustment Write-Off 

If we discover an account where we realise a customer's previous bills are incorrect this can sometimes mean we have to rebill a customer's usage that is older than 12 months. In these situations, once the account is correct and ready to issue an accurate statement, we'll look to bill the customer back up to date. However, for any usage over 12 months old (from the date we fix and statement the account), we'll need to review the customer's eligibility for a write-off.
 

12+ Months Write-Off

There are occasions where a customer hasn’t been accurately charged for a period longer than 12 months. Although we work hard to ensure this doesn’t happen we have a process in place to rectify this when it does come up. In these situations, once the issues that prevented us from billing are resolved, we'll look to bill the customer up-to-date. However, we'll need to review the customer's eligibility for a write-off.

If we find the charges of our write-off statement would not have been covered by the payments made (or payments leftover), we write off the difference. If the charges have been covered, following backbilling guidelines, we're not required to perform a write-off. Once we’ve added (or not added) a write-off transaction, we then run the write-off statement. Afterwards, we run an up-to-date bill to the most accurate reading available for the customer's usage within the last 12 months. 

Ofgem rules

You can also read Ofgem's explanation of the back-billing rules, covering these topics:

• What are the back-billing rules
• If you get a back bill
• If you haven’t had an energy bill in over a year
• If you can’t pay a back bill