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I've just switched to OVO - my first bill was as expected but my second bill was much higher, what could have caused this?

  • 14 July 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 34 views
M

Guys. 
 

been with OVO since may. First bill came in at £140 which was fine as we have a direct debit of £200 per month. 
 

noticed from June to July they have charged us £467. Our electricity is around £4.50 a day but even as far back as may it’s saying we have used £10+ a day. Something is not right. We did change from monthly billing to the smart meter updating every 30 mins. They have charged us 3x as much as normal. 
 

our smart meter is only showing a gas reading nothing for electricity. We have 100% not used 3x as much in June / July. In fact for one week we was not even home
 

any one else has this? Will of course call them on the morning. 

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Best answer by Jess_OVO 15 July 2021, 10:47

Hi @McFarTech - and Welcome to OVO and our great little online community!

 

It does sound like something might have gone awry with such a leap in charges between your first and second monthly summaries. 
 


our smart meter is only showing a gas reading nothing for electricity. 

 

I’m wondering if this could explain things - if your In Home Display is only showing you gas usage information, this could indicate that we’re having some communication difficulties with your electricity smart meter.

 

Have you checked the usage pages of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS)? - if the data is also missing here it’s likely that this statement is estimated (and maybe slightly over-estimated!)

 

Depending on the type of smart meter you have, there are some checks we’d advise carrying out on your meter to help us assess what could be causing the communication difficulties:

 

Secure S1 smart meter health check

Aclara S2 smart meter health check

 

If your meter is another model or these checks highlight an issue, reach out to our Support Team who can help. 

 

Keep us posted if this helps get to the bottom of things - hopefully it’s not a pesky bug causing this, sure @Blastoise186 can help us catch it if so!:bug:

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Blastoise186
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Hi @McFarTech .

This sounds very unusual to me and suggests a possible fault somewhere. I can’t really think of any valid reason as to why this might happen as such a weird reading spike would almost certainly fail validation checks. I recommend letting the Support Team know about this and asking for this to be raised as a dispute. If OVO agrees, they can either completely nuke the erroneous charges from your account, or apply an account credit to the same value as the charges to counteract them and cancel the charges out. Either way would restore your account balance to where it should be at had this not happened.

My only guesses are one of these four:

  • A catastrophic fault somewhere along the way
  • A bug in the billing platform - which I’d have almost certainly noticed!
  • Back-billing for some reason, such as catching up with corrected bills
  • Meter or supply tampering - possibly if someone is tapping into your supply to abstract electricity from the National Grid and force you to pay for it instead without your knowledge
Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Jess_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 7

Hi @McFarTech - and Welcome to OVO and our great little online community!

 

It does sound like something might have gone awry with such a leap in charges between your first and second monthly summaries. 
 


our smart meter is only showing a gas reading nothing for electricity. 

 

I’m wondering if this could explain things - if your In Home Display is only showing you gas usage information, this could indicate that we’re having some communication difficulties with your electricity smart meter.

 

Have you checked the usage pages of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS)? - if the data is also missing here it’s likely that this statement is estimated (and maybe slightly over-estimated!)

 

Depending on the type of smart meter you have, there are some checks we’d advise carrying out on your meter to help us assess what could be causing the communication difficulties:

 

Secure S1 smart meter health check

Aclara S2 smart meter health check

 

If your meter is another model or these checks highlight an issue, reach out to our Support Team who can help. 

 

Keep us posted if this helps get to the bottom of things - hopefully it’s not a pesky bug causing this, sure @Blastoise186 can help us catch it if so!:bug:

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