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How do you escalate a complaint?

  • 23 June 2023
  • 15 replies
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  • Carbon Cutter****
  • 7 replies

How do you escalate a complaint to stage 2?

I have no final statement for gas after 7 weeks. No one is allocated to produce the final statement so Customer services say that the complaints department won’t speak to me. I wait on hold for 50 mins. They put the phone down without speaking when I finally get through. 

How do you get through to this company? 

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Best answer by M.isterW 24 June 2023, 12:14

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Userlevel 7
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Hi @Jam ,

It’s all documented at https://ovoenergy.com/feedback. Live Chat is the fastest way.

Useless. I went on Live Chat - they say you have to ring in. They are only customer care. 

Care? What care?

 

Userlevel 7
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All the other contact options are listed there as well.

Userlevel 7
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By the way, if it’s about MyOVO not being back up for you yet (which seems likely given your posting history), then I can save you some time there.

No amount of complaints will bring it back up for you any faster. You’ll just have to wait. OVO are working on it but it’s not an instant process.

Don’t worry I switched providers as soon as they took the account away.. I’m trying to get out of OVO now and get my refund from them. They haven’t recognised I’m with another provider or that they owe me money. 

I followed your advice to go on webchat but was told ‘ we are customer care - we can’t deal with complaints - you have to telephone’.

When I telephoned they said  ‘ Complaints dept won’t speak to you as no one is allocated to produce you a final statement’.  

So in other words no one at OVO is available to help me. So I emailed the CEO. 

Userlevel 7
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Send a complaint to the "complaint" email address. Make it very clear that it's a complaint and state exactly what you want OVO to do. Tell them that you expect this to be resolved in 8 weeks or you will take the issue to the ombudsman.

 

If it isn't resolved in 8 weeks raise it with the ombudsman.

Userlevel 7
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@Jam

The ofgem compensation payments under the regulations for all suppliers for switching are pretty clear. Although something strange is going on if ovo are not even recognising the switch. 

So if your final bill was over 6 weeks from your actual switch date you should automatically get £30.

If this isn't automatically paid in 10 days you can claim another £30

If the refund isn't paid within 10 wording days of your final bill you should automatically get £30 compensation. 

If this isn't automatically paid within 10 working days you can claim another £30.

 

I sent an email to the normal address and also *edited by moderator* I had a phone call from the complaints manager within an hour.

*edited by moderator*

Userlevel 7
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Just a heads up. Phone numbers and email addresses for OVO that aren’t officially and publicly listed will usually get removed from the forum if posted here.

Userlevel 7
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His name is openly published on the ovo website and is in the public domain.

https://company.ovo.com/team/3934/

A few posters have reported success getting queries resolved by writing to him

 

HELP PLEASE !!!!

I’ve been going round in circles for 2 years. I had a dd set up with OVO which was more than enough to cover a house of our type. Problems started when we moved to SSE (now OVO). We have never had any problems with any other energy provider - Npower, EON and our LPG provider. After a couple of months SSE/OVO said we owed them £8k despite having a £500 dd in place. This was in 2022. Our house uses LPG for heating and hot water so OVO only provide electricity for lights, washing machine/dryer and cooking. £500 per month should be more than enough. They are saying I now owe £13k and have contacted credit rating agencies because I have not paid this disputed £13k. 

Over the years I’ve dealt with many claims resolutions specialists from SSE and OVO. All of them have been really nice, but we just go round in circles. We’ve had an expert report which noted there were problems with the meter and its installation and everyone says it is impossible for us to be using the amount of electricity they say we are using … but then nothing further comes from OVO other than chasing the disputed debt.  

Even whilst trying to resolve things I kept my dd in place at £500 per month until OVO said it was going to take £8000 out of my account during one particular month. I had no choice but to cancel my dd. I then spoke to OVO who acknowledged the issue and persuaded me to set up a new dd and they said they would not try and take a lump sum. I put a new dd in place. Within weeks they tried to take £9k from my account. Once again I had no choice but to cancel my dd and have not been able to restart it since. 

Their own experts acknowledge there is an issue and they have acknowledged there was an issue with the original readings they inherited from SSE and the original meter and yet they are using the credit reference agencies as a way to put pressure on us to pay a clearly disputed debt. 

Passing information to credit reference agencies regarding people who do not pay their bills is one thing. I always pay my bills and would be happy to pay the correct figure I owe to SSE/OVO but I’m not going to be pressurised with credit reference agency bully tactics to pay a bill I know is wrong and OVO themselves have acknowledged is wrong. 

Is this the next Post Office scandal ?? There seem to be so many people in this boat … do people end up with no choice but to pay up. OVO do seem to be the worst of the energy companies for this sort of thing and for failing to resolve such disputes. 

I have asked over 10 times for details of the complaints escalation procedure with the Regulator and OVO staff refuse to provide this … I asked it again today. 

Am I the only one with problems like this??

How best to break out of the circular OVO complaints system. 

Userlevel 7
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Hi @JWH ,

Sounds like this requires my Joker Card. Please bear with me - this may take some time.

If you wish to see the regular process for now, you can find it via https://ovoenergy.com/feedback 

… thanks @Blastoise186 … any and all help gratefully received … I’ve spent another hour on the phone today with a really nice lady called Zizitho, but after an hour, despite her being able to see that the complaint has been running for nearly two years and that the expert provided a report in October, and nothing has happened since, she could only offer me the opportunity to start the whole “regular” process again from the beginning, as if there is no history to all this … she kindly sent me the link you have above … 

Fingers crossed your Joker Card comes through and helps break this Groundhog Day nightmare !!!

Userlevel 7
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Joker Card accepted. Please wait and someone will be with you shortly.

Userlevel 4
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Hi @JWH

 

I’m sorry to read about the experience you’ve had with your energy accounts. I appreciate you giving us plenty of information so we can understand your journey with this so far. 

 

I have asked our Forum_Support team to contact you so they can help you further with this.

Look out for a private message here soon: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview.

 

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