Updated on the 29/08/25 by Emmanuelle_OVO:
Good morning @Elwell1624 ,
Please note that I am a Forum Volunteer. My responses are NOT official OVO replies and cannot be used for legal purposes as I write in a personal capacity
It sounds to me as if you’ve been put on a Billing Suspension while OVO figures this out. You’ll still need to make payments in the meantime, but once OVO has managed to calculate what you should have been paying, they can re-bill you which can sometimes result in a pretty healthy refund.
You don’t normally get interest I’m afraid but OVO may choose to add some compensation for the trouble at its discretion. If they do, you’ll get that added as well. IIRC it’s usually added to your account balance where you can either leave it to pay bills with (highly recommended if you’re on Pay On-Demand) or dump it back to your bank account. How much compensation you might get isn’t something I can advise on but if OVO deems you eligible, they’ll do the number crunching - this would be in addition to any refunds that may be due.
The snag is that OVO needs to gather enough data from the new meters to try and calculate your previous usage and they also need to wait for the industry to agree with the new calculations - the energy industry isn’t known for being speedy about that unfortunately and OVO cannot speed that up.
Sorting this out can, on average, take around six to eight weeks after you raise it.
Please do not try to report this matter to Ofgem - that’s the wrong direction. If you’ve already raised a complaint about it via https://ovoenergy.com/feedback and don’t get a solution after eight weeks, go to the Energy Ombudsman.
Legal advice/action is not recommended - the Energy Ombudsman is free for you but they will NOT authorise any reimbursement of legal fees/costs you incur under any circumstances because the idea of their service is that anyone can do it without being an expert. The Ombudsman route is also the fastest way to get results with the lowest possible risk and is strongly recommended over other options.
I can’t stop you taking legal action anyway, but if you don’t go via the Ombudsman first, it may hurt your case later.
How do I perform a Creep Test on my electricity meter?
If you’ve been unable to get to the bottom of an increase in our usage by locating a greedy appliance, the next step would be to carry out an initial check on the accuracy of the meter with a ‘Creep Test’. To carry this out: turn off the power to your fuse box and check if the meter continues to clock. If the meter clocks (more than 1 - 2 units which could be down to residual power in the wires) then it's either faulty, or clocking someone else’s usage.
