That’s not part of my role here. I won’t say anymore, but this forum is not designed nor intended to replace the Support Team. It sits alongside them as another way to get general advice.

It’s just a £20 bill and you’d have more than a week from today to resolve it. There’s no need to get so worked up - fixing this isn’t too tricky.

Just to make it clear for anyone reading, this complaint is not solved as claimed.

But the question here is.

The Solved status doesn’t relate to whether your complaint to OVO is solved. It indicates there’s an answer to the question posted to this forum and removes it from the pending questions queue.

Hey @RoadRunner7354,

Sorry to hear this, 

If you had an email address on your old account, and never agreed to or received paper communications. Our Support Team should be able to reverse these charges. 

Hi Emmanuelle,

Thank you for your reply. After struggling to get through to the right person all day managed to speak to someone who was extremely helpful just now, nothing but praise for her.

What’s happened is Boost have made a mess of the switch from themselves to Ovo in March 2022 and all these charges date back to then. I assume they forgot to add 1 day’s standing charge around the time of the switch and forgot about it until now. In addition, I would never have agreed to receive my bills through the post if I was to be charged each time for them, so the paper communication charges are also a mess up. 

In addition, Ofgem rules state that I cannot be charged for this as it is more than 12 months old and I was not notified of these charges until well past that 12 month deadline.

Finally, the date of the bill is the 18th March 2023, but that date is incorrect as it was confirmed today it is a Boost bill and as explained above I left them in March 2022. I really hope this error wasn’t deliberate in order to make it look like the bill was less than a year old.

I have been advised I will be contacted within the next 3 working days by email.

Thank you again Emmanuelle.

P.S. Blastoise186 - To say it’s “just a £20 bill” is unacceptable. £20 may be loose change to some people but it can make a huge difference to others, like myself, who lives on my own. I would advise you to be more careful with your choice of words in the future.

I’m glad to hear you found a helpful advisor to look into this for you, thanks for popping back with the update @RoadRunner7354.

Fingers crossed it all gets sorted ASAP!

Hi @Big Kev ,

Sorry, but this is not the place to raise complaints related to Boost. Please see https://boostpower.co.uk/feedback .

Thanks for your understanding

This does sound a painful story. However, it’s worth noting that this isn’t a direct route to OVO, Boost or anyone else in the energy group. 
This is a public forum where no one has access to your account and so cannot follow up here. Your complaint will need to follow the procedure laid out on the website. 
 

I just posted what I have been through with Boost and there lack of help in the removal of the gas meter. I have already contacted the energy ombudsman about it. I have a complaint registered with them. I hope no on has to go through this. Waiting in each day for appointments and no one turning up.

I’m really sorry for the experience you’ve had @Big Kev, it sounds very stressful. 

Unfortunately, as the other Community Members have advised, you’ll need to contact Boost directly about this issue. Their website outlines the full complaint procedure here. 

I had a problem which included both BOOST and OVO. 

This situation became apparent when my power was cut off unexpectedly on a Saturday morning last December. In the flurry of calls to get the power restored it became clear that I had an OVO account I did not know about, and the payments to BOOST were going nowhere.

This is when my problems really started. I had days of ‘chats’, and a few emails, to both companies, but no results.

All communications with BOOST ended with them telling me I needed to talk to OVO.

All communications with OVO ended with them telling me I needed to talk to BOOST.

I was getting nowhere.

The solution to this problem came when I sent an email to someone who could actually do something about this ‘dual company’ problem, Stephen Fitzpatrick.

Immediatley my £400 was moved from BOOST to OVO, and I got a £60 goodwill credit as well.

RESULT !.

( Well, nearly. BOOST are still taking £80 a month, but this time I know who to talk to. )

So a big thankyou to Stephen ( although I suspect he never saw my email ),*edited by moderator*

Hi @Buzby 

I’m sorry you had such a lengthy and difficult experience with this, but I’m glad you were able to get things sorted out there in the end.

I did have to remove agent names from the post so that it fits with our house rules, but I’d be happy to pass along the feedback to those you had mentioned. 

@Abby_OVO 

Hi Abby,

Yes it was a fairly good result, but I think I only got a response because somebody higher was included in the email. All previous agent level comms were useless, each side telling me they couldn’t help.

I said it was a fairly good result, I got a refund, but BOOST are still taking my money !.

Today I phoned OVO, and spoke to an agent, I’ll call her ELL. ELL was very, very, helpfull, far more than any other agent I’ve dealt with so far.

!!!! ELL could see both my OVO and BOOST accounts !!!!

This was a breakthrough. No one before has ever been able, or admitted to being able, to view both systems.

Although ELL could see my BOOST account, ELL could not make changes to it, which is fair enough, I can accept that.

So ELL transferred my phone call to BOOST, and it all went downhill from there. I didn’t get the agent’s name, I’ll call him USLSS.

USLSS said he couldn’t see any payments to my BOOST account because there was no DD associated with it.

Argh !!!. How many times do I have to tell them !.

There never was a DD for the BOOST account, it was a CPA from a debit card.

All the details, card type and number, payee reference, etc. were provided in the email I sent on 13 Dec, the one that resulted in the £400 refund, so somebody must have read it.

I told USLSS the payments were shown leaving my bank account, he wanted screenshots.

So I asked USLSS, the agent from BOOST, what email address to send them to. Guess what address that was ?

It was hello@ovoenergy.com

I didn’t send screenshots, I sent a list of payment dates, and asked them to look at my email sent 13 Dec again.

OVO sent me a Red Letter in February. They can whistle for it !.

I’m not paying a penny till they stop taking my £80 pm and squirreling it away somewhere !

All my frustration is not helped by the fact that I’ve never been able to create an online account. It’s all well and good saying ‘phone this number’, but it’s so slow. ( Unless of course, you’re one of those ‘special people’ who can get through in 30 seconds, direct to a dedicated Account Manager )

One of my reasons for switching from BOOST to OVO was the fact that BOOST did not have an online account, but OVO did.

If I don’t have an online account by the time this payment stuff is sorted, I will jump ship.

I think I may have solved part of this problem myself !

When I was with BOOST they had an app for my phone. I downloaded it, tried it, and never used it again, it was seriously crap.

Today I tried it just to see if it might give me a clue.

The home screen said I had a debit of £2.14 as of 13 Dec 2023. That’s weird, as I got a final closing balance payment from BOOST on 9 Aug 2023.

Undeterred, I proceeded to find a way to pay this ‘debt’, and it then showed me the scheduled payment currently active, i.e. the £80 pm they have been taking since the account was closed in July.

This page had no buttons on it, other than an ‘Add New Schedule’ button. There was a green block with the word ‘Active’ written vertically at the side of the screen.

This green block did not look like a button, but I pressed it anyway.

It was a button !. 

I could now see the details, including my card number and the amount. Even better, it had a ‘Cancel Schedule’ button.

I pressed ‘Cancel Schedule’, and, after a confirmation screen, the schedule was marked as ‘Cancelled’.

The app is still crap, but hopefully it will have stopped the £80 payments.

Now I just need to wait for the refund of the latest set of £80 payments, although I wouldn’t be surprised to get a Red Letter for £2.14 first.

Another result ! ( Maybe )

Hi @Buzby,

I’m glad to hear that your issues have now been resolved.

Please reach out if you have any further issues and we’ll get forum support to look into it for you.

I’m not counting my chickens yet …

Let’s see what my next statement, and card bill, show.

I can’t be sure the problem is fixed. I’ve been told before it was fixed, but it wasn’t.

Forum Support did ask for my account details over a week ago, but that I think was about online account access. I’ve not had a reply yet.

im using the boost app and since april 2024 i cannot top up the electricity more than £15 per time.if i try to top up more it is declined.the boost web chat told me the electricity providor has capped the payments .

“Thank you Trevor, the meter was capped to a limited amount of top ups, usually the council needs to have it uncapped however please do contact any of these numbers for assistance to have the meters uncapped, 0800 328 1111 or 0800 6783 105.”

this is the first i have ever heard of this.

ps my bank say they are not declining payments.

Hey @golfinblack, 

I will say this is the first time I have ever heard of this. Unless there is something we can’t see without access to your account the official guidance from Boost is “If you’re topping up at a PayPoint, you can buy any amount from £5 to £49, and if you’re topping up through the app, online, by text, by phone or by auto top-up, it’s £5 to £99”.

The numbers they provided are for the Distribution Network Operator who supply the energy to your home. You can find more information about them below. I would suggest calling the 0800 6783 105 number as this is the general enquiries line and asking them directly. 

Keep us updated with any new findings you have.