Meter readings, usage and estimates

If you haven’t had smart meters installed, we’ll send you a meter reading reminder a few days before your monthly summary is created. The easiest way to submit these readings is on the ‘Meter readings’ page of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS):  

Similar but different issue here. With other suppliers (gas or electricity) if a reading is sent late, then it is taken into account and the balance adjusted.

OK if OVO don’t do this, but why if I send in a reading one day late is there no message to say it won’t be recorded? Not even a warning that it’s too late.

Thanks for raising that issue @AlisonH - good point!

The new Billing System is still in it’s early days. Unlike many other Energy Suppliers, OVO have developed their own system. That means the programming team are still working on it and can add features.

Their first priority was to ensure that it fully complies with Ofgem’s guidelines, which it does.

So let’s ask the duty Moderator, @Eva_OVO, to see if your suggestion can be allocated a “ticket” and passed to the programmers in London.

We’ll record the reading, @AlisonH, but it won’t be recorded on your summary if one has already been generated. You’ll see the reading on your next month’s summary.

I don’t agree. I know I have been submitting readings, but the record still shows as Estimated. I have also raised this with the on-line chat and had the same answer. 

I will just have to make sure I submit absolutely on the day in future and take a screenshot. 

I believe I understand what you’re saying @AlisonH. Let me just repeat this back to you so I can be sure we’re on the same page:

If the submitted reading is just beyond the cut-off date/time then that month’s bill will be issued based on usage which is 100% estimated.

Let’s say that you then submit the following month’s reading in time. Since the Billing System only needs to note the cumulative total, there is no mention of the previous actual reading which you gave.

Am I correct so far?

Now @Eva_OVO (who is a Forum Moderator) states that “You’ll see the reading on your next month’s summary”.

Here's an example (from one of my gas bills in Sept last year) showing what Eva suggests you should see:

Now this is a particularly ‘silly’ Bill because my meters were part of a test being done by an OVO Engineer, and the estimate is therefore way out!

Nevertheless you can see that I should’ve provided a reading by 13th August, but I didn’t do so until two days later.  As a consequence my August Bill was entirely estimated.

My September Gas Bill therefore shows the late Customer Reading, and then yet another Estimate because I didn’t provide that September’s reading in time either.

Now if I turn to the electricity Bill for the same period I see this:

Never mind that this ran to 18th Sept instead of 13th. The important bit to notice is that there is no Customer Reading shown for 15th August, despite the fact that I submitted readings for both gas and electricity together online.

Is this what you are seeing?

I have had enuf of ovo. I send reading on the day reminder is received. So no excuse about estimates when units added by a heck of a lot, readings totally ignored and changed so that I am being charged for electricity I haven’t used and pay extra vat. Never had a problem with SE in all the years  I was with them now  billings are a mess.

Should have been enough. Don’t want to be cast as  uneducated 

Hi @kitkat ,

I’m really sorry for the trouble there. Could you get in touch with the support team in the morning to provide your actual meter readings? They’ll be able to override the system and get you an accurate bill. If you’ve used less energy than you’ve been charged for, you’ll also be able to get the excess payments refunded as well.

You didn’t mention whether you’re on the new billing system, as this might be a possible clue. I’m happy to help you with some advice though.

Thank you for replying and I certainly be phoning again if it is not constantly engaged again. My gripe is about the discrepancy in my meter readings and why they are not used and have a great mount of units added to them.

I can understand you there.

When it comes to contacting OVO, Live Chat tends to be a bit faster and more reliable than phone. If you let the agent know you've spoken to me here on the forum and provide a link to this thread, they’ll know what we’ve talked about already.

Oh, and if you log into MyOVO before firing up Live Chat, you might also find a little surprise - you’ll instantly clear security and won’t have to go through that with an agent. I hope it helps.

The support team can override the system with your readings, which should force an update to go through.

I have been sending the picture of my meters (both gas and electricity) to Ovo on the last days of my billing period via e-mail. However the closing reading  on my bills is constantly much higher than the actually physical reading of the meters.

The most reply I get that “working on the Smart reader issue.”

It seems I am being massively overcharged constantly on the bills.

Anybody having same issue?

Hiya!

It sounds like you're getting estimated bills because you're not submitting readings quickly enough. When you put readings in manually, it's best to either phone them through, go via live chat or use self service options via MyOVO or the OVO Energy app. That should fix your bills. :)

Emails take a while to answer and I'm afraid that the turnaround time isn't fast enough for sending meter readings.

Sorry to hear of the issues you’re having within inaccurate estimated readings being used on your monthly summaries, @AgSz.

As you mentioned emailing these in, I’m wondering if you’ve managed to login to your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS) yet?

Logging in and heading over to the ‘Meter Readings’ page is the easiest way to submit meter readings - what’s better, it will also update your balance straight away, which is really helpful if the estimates used have been too high.

Hoping this helps get the issue sorted - but as ever we’re always here to give advice if you’re still having problems. 

I just received my bill for Oct - Nov, it is done on the 18th of the month. This month I gave my reading on the 17th, OVO go on to add a bit (estimate) to round it up to the bill day, the 18th.

I just sat down and calculated how much they ‘estimated’ and it is way off, in this instance we are only talking about 24 hours use, but the extra added is much higher than any reasonable calculation could reasonably add. For gas, they added 12 units and considering the actual reading indicates for this month we used a total of 58 units, about 2 units a day? The same goes for the electric, OVO added 30 units for approximately a 24 hours period, when the recorded readings show the usage this month to be 8-9 units a day. This affects our positive credit status, doesn’t it? I am willing to concede I may have got this wrong, my maths can be a little wayward. But if I am not wrong, then why do OVO not just use a simple percentage to estimate the excess since the readings were given?

Divided the given readings difference, by the number of days, to give a usage per day within the billing period.

Hey there @Pierssy !

Hmm… That looks like the legacy billing system to me. Do you still use an OVO ID to login to your account? I don’t need to know what the ID is, just whether you’re using one - that helps me to know for definite which system you’re on.

While the new billing platform is custom built in-house by OVO’s sister company Kaluza, the legacy billing system is actually a third-party product that OVO purchased from another vendor back in the day. OVO doesn’t really have much control over the latter as only the vendor for that one can fix an issue like this.

My understanding is that a lot of these issues from the legacy system have been fixed in the new one, so this shouldn’t be a problem once you’ve been migrated over (the new one is a lot more accurate in general).

However, the Support Team will be happy to discuss this with you, as they might be able to optimise your Estimated Annual Consumption values to better match your actual usage and (hopefully) squash these estimates down a bit. It may also result in your payments dropping slightly at the next Direct Debit Check-In or when you come to renew. It’s definitely something that I’d recommend asking them about, as it may help to smooth things out a bit more effectively.

Either way, you’ll only be billed and pay for what you actually use, so the bill you get next month will technically “fix” the estimated usage for that one day and reflect it in the following bill. Technically, it could cause minor quirks in your credit balance, but it’s probably not too bad given that it would probably remain fairly stable anyway.

While Smart Meters can also resolve this even in Monthly mode, I can understand if you’re not ready to upgrade right now. I’ll drop the link here just in case you are interested, but feel free to hang onto your current setup in the meantime if you’d rather keep things as they are.

Welcome to the OVO online community, @Pierssy -

See you’ve already met one of our top volunteers around here, @Blastoise186 who’s given some great advice which might help explain why you’ve noticed the difference between the actual readings you submitted and those estimated readings that were generated the following day.

In case you wanted more information on the ‘Estimated Annual Consumption’ (EAC) figure that was mentioned we’ve got a great guide to this here.

We’d also second the recommendation to consider a smart meter installation - this really helps ensure that your billing is based on actual readings received from your meter rather than estimates generated on your billing date as well as offering some more great benefits.

Have you been submitting you meter readings on your online account? As @Blastoise186 we’ve been updating all our members to a new online account which should look something like this (your account should be updated shortly if it’s not already!):

One of the great features of this new online portal is the ability to calculate your balance on a daily basis - any time you submit a reading here you’ll notice your balance will update to account for the up-to date usage, a great way to check things following an estimated statement. We’ve got a full guide to help you get to grips with the way this works here.

Hope this information helps - Do pop back if you’ve got any more questions, we’re always happy to help here! 

Many thanks @Blastoise186, It’s not really a huge issue, and yes I log in with an ID. Just odd that the top up estimate should be so wildly excessive. 

All the best

Piers

I am relatively new to Ovo & have the same problem with not being able to get meter readings in late enough and ridiculously high top up estimate being used.  Used only 23 metered units or whatever they are called from 28 to 29th of the next month &  and Ovo add 4 extra estimated units  for one day?  So it seems as well as getting penalised for not having DD customers also get penalised for not having a smart meter, as this seems to be the only way to avoid an estimated top up to bills.

You only pay for the electricity you use so as long as you're providing regular meter readings I wouldn't worry about the estimates that OVO apply to the end of each month. Any inaccuracy in the estimate will get cancelled out when you give your next reading.

Estimates are done by an algorithm and 4kWh for a days use isn't unusual. We use a lot more than that every day.

4th October.iv just submitted my meter reading via automated phone service.will my previous months be charged at new rate?am I to late??thanks

Hi @Donald MacDonald ,

Nope. You’re just in time for OVO to accept that under the previous rates.

Since June 22 we have been over billed by ovo for our electricity we sent them  photos of our meter readings they keep saying they will sort it out but they still haven't we always paid our bills on time now they are asking for £766 for one months electricity we only live in a one bedroom flat we had no heating on only cook no TV or radio on  ovo customer service is so rude  unhelpful very incompetent at they job  as anyone else had problems with over 

Hi @Toliver92 ,

I’m afraid this is an account specific issue, so it’s really hard for us to offer advice here. You might want to try https://ovoenergy.com/feedback .

Hey @Toliver92,

Sorry for the issues you’re having.

As @Blastoise186 has pointed out, we don’t have access to your account so can only speculate here.

It sounds like something more must be going on in this case. If you aren’t able to simply submit your reading to the Online Account and get an updated account balance, it may be that the meter reading you're submitting if far higher or lower than our estimates.

This might be caused by a read dispute, we have a great guide on this topic here:

You can check if this is the case by looking into your opening reading and seeing if it is out of line with your subsequent actual readings.

Or, it may be that you had a meter exchange at some point which hasn’t been updated yet. You can check the meter serial number on your meter against the one on your account and statements. This similar thread might have some helpful information:

Hope this helps.