FYI - I did notify OVO that I moved in on the 1st September

I can see from the 2 bills I've been issued, they have deducted my last £50 top up (energy I used) from the outstanding balance and my £25 added on the account switch over to smart meter so try explaining that. (See highlighted yellow for my payg top ups that came off the bill)

I have also been issued a new September bill so obviously decided to change their mind on the made up usage and pushed for a slightly lower amount. 

Bear in mind, I came off payg on the 26th October and they've charged me £139.13!

So 139.13 plus the new Sept bill 107.49, minus my top ups they think are payments and we reach the grand made up total of £171.62 to pay and clear my name..

I appreciate you commenting, it's actually the 1st sign of human I've experienced so far. If there is anyway you can help to get this resolved I would be really greatful. Even if you can get my account updated to show it's no longer on PAYG so I can leave this awful company asap and stop any further accumulation of invoices that I will be fighting for a long time no doubt. Happy to share my account details etc or give you my phone number. 

Hey @CJJ,

Really sorry to hear this,

If you’re off supply for gas and unable to top up our pay as you go support team should book in an emergency appointment for you. 

These topics may be helpful:

How to get in contact about my OVO Pay As You Go account

• The best way to get in touch with us is via chat here. Just click the green chat icon on the bottom right of your screen. We’re here to help anytime from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 2pm on Saturday.
• Or call us on 0330 175 9669 during the same times.

If you’re with Boost

• Find answers or chat with Boost at boostpower.co.uk/help
• Or call them on 0330 102 7517.

Keep us posted!

Hey @LukeM,

Really sorry for the issues you’ve had,

Unfortunately, we don’t have access to customer accounts on the Forum, but can give general advice. 

The fact that you’ve been issued with a statement suggests to me you’ve been switched to pay monthly. 

I’d advise contacting the support team, they’ll have access to your billing information and can explain your charges in detail. It may be  that you were put in a non disconnect mode during the switching period from pay as you go to monthly which has accrued some arrears. 

The easiest way to get in touch with the team is via webchat. 

How can I accrue debt on a pay as you go meter!

Your IT system is cleary broken and judging by the multiple complaints I've read, I'm not alone and OVO needs to be held accountable for having the ability to get it so wrong and cause immense stress for customers. If I don't now put the work in to resolve this fault, my credit rating is going to be destroyed because of your broken system. It's totally unacceptable and I cannot believe you get away with it.

I can understand not paying a bill and incurring debt/charges but PAYG simply means if I don't top up my electricity goes off. 

This isn’t anything to do with OVO’s IT systems.

Siemens Quantum has been a thing for over 30 years and pretty much all Traditional Prepayment Meters run on it. It’s that which supports Traditional Prepayment Meters and by design, the meter itself enforces debt collections where needed. IIRC the functionality for Free Vend Mode and Non-Disconnect Mode has existed in Quantum from the start. These are just two ways you can rack up debt on PAYG, others being emergency credit usage and insufficient credit to pay Standing Charges.

If you run out of credit, you do NOT escape those charges - they rack up as a debt instead and the meter claws them back over time.

Same story with Smart Meters in Prepayment Mode - the meter itself enforces the debt.

Another trigger is that your Smart Meters are temporarily switched to Credit Mode while changing supplier for safety reasons - any charges racked up during this time get added as a debt on the meter once it switches back. Failing that, you get sent a bill instead if memory serves.

It’s nothing to do with IT systems.

The bottom line is I moved in on the 1st September and paid roughly £30 a week until the 23rd October. It's a 2 bed with 2 adults and 1 child with no heating turned on so there is no way I owe an additional £250 plus for a 6-8 week period. 

If you think the bills are wrong, you’ll need to discuss that with OVO - I can’t access other people’s accounts.

We have recently been migrated to OVO from SSE. 

The process of moving customers from SSE to OVO has been ongoing for over 18 months since the “Merger” and we have consistently been told we had to do nothing as the account would be transferred as it stood. 

Can someone please explain why it is taking so long for Answers to E Mails etc.

Specifically 6 weeks ago We had a telephone coverstion with an operative who wouldn’t speak to my wife as she was not shown as the account holder, I as the named person was dragged in to the conversation, (All very commendable from a security point of view), and confirmed to the operative that My wife was to be the administator for our dealings with OVO.  This was confirmed as now in place. We then, as asked, sent an e mail with signed consent to OVO for this to happen.  This e mail has never been answered or confirmed despite showing as received.

We were cocerned and very upset therefore  yesterday when My wife phoned to query a billing situation to be told the operative who was very dictatorial and brash that he could not speak to my wife as she was not the account holder. It took a lot of toing and froing before he even understood what we were saying and admitted even he could not add the export reading to the account. He eventually said he would raise a complaint but we do not know what the content of that is!

The second part of this question is Our 3 Phase meter is a remote reading device with a built in communications module. We have been used to SSE reading this device for Export purposes (for some reason only known to them not for import). We have come to understand through this Forum that this meter is not considered a “ Smart meter” but that appears to mean that OVO, can not or do not want to read it remotely as we have just received an export statement with Zero export for the last quarter! This was the reason for my wifes telephone enquiry yesterday only to be informed we had not submitted an export reading.

There is no box or input screen on the meter submission page thet asks for Export reading and we have not been informed that under OVO we have to manually send this data.

Can some one please take ownership of this and bring it to the relavent department for immediate action, I am using the Forum as this seems to get reasonable results time wise when all other methods take at least 4 to 8 weeks to resolve,  Are other members/ customers having the same issues?       

This comment was left by a Forum Volunteer

Sorry, but the OVO Forum isn’t able to assist with account-specific matters like this one. No-one here can access your account.

Please see https://ovoenergy.com/feedback for your options.

Hi @Colin Wheeler 

You may already have seen this.  I don't work for ovo, am just a customer like you.

You will find a bit about the complaint process and how to escalate if necessary to the CEO team here

https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

You will find a bit about the FIT process and the quarterly emails you should be getting to provide readings here.

https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/article/feed-in-tariffs

The general advice is if you don't get the email any quarter then phone up the FIT team and give the reading to the FIT team that quarter rather than waiting or emailing. There have been instances of this reported.

There is no where on the app or website to submit FIT readings

I suspect you haven't got a 3 phase SMETS smart meter so domestic suppliers can't read your import readings. You are welcome to post a picture if you like. It is what it is unfortunately. Only recently have 3 phase SMET smart meters gradually started to roll out. You see if OVO can fit one for free

https://www.ovoenergy.com/smart-meters

The FITS email address  is fits@ovoenergy.com but replies are not quick.…

The OVO email address is meant to be two days.

Make sure you only ever email from the email account registered with OVO. Don't ever attempt a different email address.

 I would try chat for general queries or phoning for FIT if you haven't heard back to email.

If you need to speak to the FiT Team you can call 0330 303 5063 and selecting ‘4’ when the IVR instructs you to do so.

I have tagged a couple of recent FIT posters in case they can give you some recent info about their experience. Otherwise search the forum you will find others you can tag or post questions in their threads. You may get a reply that way

@mshealey @DesB  @StillWaiting 

A number of customers have switched due to the FIT issues to EON Next and Octopus for example. The OVO moderators openly recognise the capacity issue with the FIT team and have suggested the option of switching to other suppliers many times. I suspect the capacity issues will continue for some time so that is something to think about.

Hey @Colin Wheeler,

Really sorry to hear of the experience you’ve had,

I can see our community members have given some helpful advice here.

Just wanted to add, in order to add a customer to an account, we need both parties verbal consent. If the second party wishes to discuss matters such as billing they will need to be named as financially liable. 

There is more advice on this topic here:

Hey Emmanuelle, 

You missed the point, We gave our verbal consent over 6 weeks ago to one of you operatives who assured us this was thenin place, we backed that up with a signed email as requested at that time so were very shocked to be told yesterday this was still not in place. How long does it take?  

Good evening, 

To set the record straight, I was not expecting someone on the forum to access my account,  but for the forum managers to perhaps flag some issues to the management for discussion etc. as I have seen them do with other posts.

The whole point of forums is for  companies to keep abreast of what their customers are, discussing,  thinking or needing, can save time, money and misunderstandings surely!  

Hi @Jeffus 

Thanks for info will take a look at the links.

I have raised an idea for box to be added to page for meter inputs.

Some of us don’t have, want or need smart meters, as we are capable of managing our own systems. I know this might go against government dictats but we can be more efficient than the one price fits all mentality.

Our system predates 2019 and was deemed too large fo SEGS when it was installed. There would be no benefit to us to be billed this way, We will contine with our FITS and Export sytem for the 25 years of our original contract.  

The other points of my post was to get Forum managers to flag issues to Company management for discussion as I have seen them do in other posts, If an e mail or some other issue has not been dealt with in 6 weeks when it is supposed to be done in 2 days then perhaps managers would like to know and feed back this, which is what a customer Forum can do!

Thanks once again

C 

The forum was basically setup for customers to share ideas between themselves and to  help each other out.

The moderators read all posts but don't respond to all posts.

Forum volunteers respond to many but not all posts.

If you’d like to share feedback – good or bad – of a recent experience you’ve had with OVO, you can email Raman’s team,  include your OVO account number, address, and a summary of your experience.

The idea for FIT features to be added online was rejected, you are better off switching your FIT payments to another supplier if you want something like that. I don't think OVO will ever meet your expectations around FIT payments.

"This isn’t something that we’re going to be looking into at the moment - this is due to Feed in tariff accounts (FiT) being run from a different backend system which isn’t integrated in the same way that OVO customers’ domestic billing accounts are.  

Also the number of customers on fits means the total population of customers is relatively low.  The idea was raised previously in house and was rejected due to the above reasons."

It is also worth mentioning that many Forums of this type are intended for peer-to-peer support, not as a way to yell at the company running it. In actual fact, even the forum provider of this forum, Gainsight has one. But that one is - just like the OVO Forum - intended for community based peer-to-peer support.

@Jeffus 

Morning, Thanks for that info, 

The quote you provided from past posting sheds a lot of light on why we are seeing the problem. Do you have a date for the quotation as this was clearly a policy from a certain time and i need to ask (and will do so)of management, if this is current policy!

Thanks for the illumination  It’s is only because of the forum that these insights come out so has been rally helpful in us understanding what is really going on.

again many thanks

C  

@Blastoise186

Morning, apologies if i have trodden on you toes or offended, I see that you submitted this “idea” in the past (maybe i didn’t use the right search criteria or tech speak) but it did not come up when i searched previous ideas.

I fully accept that the Forum is peer to peer among customers but your previous submission of the idea ellicited the response that Jeffus provided in his answer, so clearly my intention of Forum managers flagging to company or being able to access company policys had the desired effect then and should do so now!

However  I should point out that not all customers  do not uses android or online systems to run their business affairs as i don’t.  Past experiences have shown me the value of keeping trusted records. This may not be the “modern” way but has stood me in good stead over the years so I will continue to press for “ hard records”. 

Ovo is not the company it was, it has grown so must change to meet it’s greater customer base and their needs as well!

Thanks again to all forum members who dedicate their time and help us newby’s get aquainted with the company and it’s character via the many posts and diversity of questions etc.

C.

sorry typo “do not uses” should read “use”

A fact that is very much worth remembering - you should never expect forum staff or the community to take up your complaint on your behalf.

The Scottish Power Community fell for that most basic of traps. It was overloaded with people using it purely as a shoutbox for moaning and complaining, with very little activity from the staff. We’ve been watching it fail for years because hardly anyone in that community helped out in the way that we do - and the forum staff there purely acted to help deal with spam, rule breaking and little else. Partially, perhaps, because they got paralyzed by the sheer volume of complaints.

Even my own knowledge and skills wouldn’t have been enough to turn it around.

We’ve never seen any threads on there in which a member of the forum staff jumped in to solve anything. And for reasons that weren’t to do with its staff, that community collapsed and self-destructed into a big unusable mess.

Alas, it has now closed and been wiped so everything is lost to the sands of time.

That is why you should never come to a forum like this one with the expectation that the forum moderators are forced to respond to every complaint.

Hi @Colin Wheeler 

Have you made any progress on a potential way forward?

Hi @Jeffus

No further forward as of now, waiting for Ramans team to come back to us.

As above. Hence why I’m having to telephone you now!

Any chance you could get this sorted out instead of getting people to go on to your forum.

This is NOT customer service.