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Is there an email contact address to resolve complaint?

  • 23 August 2022
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Over several months  Ovo have  claimed monies owed but despite me sending them detailed documentation  i have only received generic reply . Ovo have also stated that the email address used is no longer monitored so i must contact by phone

This is not acceptable as the response i want is in the same detailed form as i provided and a phone call would waste both our times until the figures are presented

My concern is that unless it is resolved i will continue to get bills saying that monies are owed when they have failed to disprove my figures and putting my creditworthyness in question

Does any member have a functioning email address or CEO details as i am losing patience 

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Best answer by Blastoise186 23 August 2022, 21:24

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Blastoise186
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Updated on 28/11/23 by Emmanuelle_OVO:

 

Email us:

complaints@ovoenergy.com

 

In order to raise a complaint please contact our support team:

 

Our Support team’s web messaging and WhatsApp opening hours are:

  • 8am - 6pm Monday to Friday 

  • 9am - 2pm on Saturdays

 

 Our Support team can be contacted by phone on 0330 303 5063 between:

  • 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. 

 

You can see all open contact channels via our Help Centre. 

 

When you raise a complaint with OVO that isn’t resolved at first point of contact with an agent, you’ll be assigned a dedicated complaint handler who’ll contact you about your complaint. They’re highly trained and speak to people across the business to help us put things right.


You can reach us via a British Sign Language Interpreter too. Find out more about how this works.

If your complaint is escalated to the complaints team, and they are unable to offer a resolution you can take things further.

 

Get in touch with our CEO, Raman Bhatia: 
 

It’s important to us that you feel your complaint has been heard and resolved in a way that works for you. If you feel that our specialist complaints team hasn’t been able to sort your issue, you can email Raman’s team. Please include your complaint case reference, your OVO account number, address, and a summary of what has happened.
 

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

We will do everything we can to resolve your complaint as quickly as possible. In a small number of cases it might take longer and if it’s taken over 8 weeks, you can speak to the Energy Ombudsman. We may also write to you with a final decision that you disagree with. This is called a ‘deadlock’ letter and you can also speak to the Ombudsman if you are unhappy with our actions. The Energy Ombudsman provides a free, independent service.
 

They’ll review what’s happened and how we’ve handled your complaint. First, they’ll look at everything we’ve done so far with your complaint. Then they’ll decide if we should have done more – and what we need to do to put it right.
 

Here’s how to get in touch with them:

Helpful to know – you don’t have to accept their decision – but we have to.

 

 

Hi,

The best place to go next would be to use the complaints process at https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback . You should then get a response within a few days.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
T
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Hi, is there an email address for customer services.

Blastoise186
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Hi @teresa.sullivan ,

Sorry, but email is no longer a valid contact option for OVO. It’s been removed so that the team can focus on much faster contact options. If you need to get in touch, here’s your options:

For general purposes, your options can be found at https://help.ovoenergy.com where you’ll also find Live Chat

If you need to send files to OVO, Live Chat now supports this functionality

If you wish to make a complaint, you’ll want https://ovoenergy.com/feedback 

There’s other options too. Could you tell me what you’re after as I might have more options for you?

Thanks!

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
T
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Hi Blastoise186,  I had a new meter fitted by SGN as old was leaking and my plumber found it.  Now I need to give OVO the new meter serial number and related readings but they wont take my word for it. So I have been back to SGN and they have sent me details on an email to forward to OVO confirming the replacement.  But i’m still not convinced that this will be sufficient if not SGN have said OVO will have to contact them!!!

Blastoise186
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I think in that case, you might want to try the contact form at https://ovoenergy.com/feedback and lodge a formal complaint. It’s likely to be the easiest way to resolve this one.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
T
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Hi, Blastoise186

Thankyou for your help, I used the live chat and was told to send a copy of the email from SGN and a photo of the serial number on the meter to hello@ovoenergy.com.  So I am now waiting to see if this is all they need and will except it.  Fingers crossed.

K
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How do you get to talk to the Resolve Team, four times they said we will call you back never do official level 2 complaint made Feb 2022, from initial problem dating Sept 2021 

C
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They must be too busy dealing with other complaints and I would assume they have many due to their inability to tell customers the truth.

 

Found OVO incompetent.

Coco
Tim_OVO
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Hi @Kevinrc and thanks for posting this. 

 

We’ve got a page here which outlines OVO’s complaints process. Where you are on the escalation process determines who you’ll be in contact with, and with what timeframes. 

 

I would say that since the 30th September, the price cap change and energy bill support schemes coming into affect, all energy companies have been exceptionally busy with incoming contact. So please bear with us whilst we get to your complaint. 

 

If there’s anything we can help with here that’s not related to your account, we’ll do our best to help!


Tim

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
K
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Tim 

Stop straight away treating me as a niave customer, giving a 'get out of jail' answer is not a reply. 

My complaint was escalated in Feb 2022, the outcomes have already been agreed by OVO and myself; they are as follows 

1. The return to my account of £552.00 (I have not had any supply from OVO due to an erronus transfer)

2. The honouring of my two year fixed deal which was agreed to start 1st Sept 2021 to start upon my transfer to OVO

3. A discussion on a compensation payment for the hours upon hours upon hours of time and money I have wasted on the phone to you since Jan 2022

I feel after 13months from the error being made and now 10months since the error was brought to your attention I have waited long enough don't you!

I  await a proper reply from you Tim 

 

Regards

 

Kevin

Tim_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hi @Kevinrc and thanks for the reply.

 

Please bear in mind that I’m trying to help, based on the info you provided in your first post. 

 

If your complaint was escalated to our Complaints team, you’ll have a dedicated case handler. They should have confirmed a contact number and email. complaints@ovoenergy.com should get your email forwarded on to them. 

 

If you can’t get a response, come back to let us know and we’ll take some details and find out who’s working your case. 

 

Hope this gets resolved for you,
Tim

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
K
Rank

Hi Tim,

 

The last named contact from the Resolve team was Ella if this helps.

 

Regards 

Kevin

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Kevinrc,

 

Please check your private messages.

 

Someone will have contacted you for some more information so we can get this sorted for you. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
E
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Hi I was in touch with a customer care advisor about a problem with the £66 payment from the government. After a long conversation she asked me to send photo shots of some details. Unfortunately the email address she gave me is no longer in use. Does anyone know an alternative address for hello@ovoenergy.com

Blastoise186
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Hi @Elvis ,

The best way to send them in would actually be via Live Chat at https://help.ovoenergy.com which can now accept file uploads such as photos. Simply ask the agent to link them to the existing case and they’ll take care of it all for you.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
E
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Thank you for your help and prompt reply. It is very much appreciated 

R
Rank

Tried to complain about failed appointment (for the second time) to get ,Ovo experts to come and find out why smart meter would not communicate with Ovo.

tried using their form which I realised would not work as it had iCloud email address which is not recognised on my account.

tried 2 more times using complaints email address at Ovo but no reply to either after a couple of weeks.

how can I escalate do I go to Ofgem?

Blastoise186
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Well, firstly you’re gonna need to use an email address that isn’t iCloud. Please ask the Support Team to change the email address on file to your real email address, not the weird and broken iCloud forwarder thing.

Then try to resolve the issue with OVO during the same call to 0330 303 5063.

Would you mind posting photos of the meter by any chance?

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Emmanuelle_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hey @rkelman,

 

Sorry for the issues you’re having.

 

As @Blastoise186 advised you can call us. We’ll then try and resolve your complaint, if we’re unable to do so, the complaint will be escalated.

 

You can find out more about our Complaints Procedure on our website. 

 

If your appointment was cancelled within 24 hours, or the engineer didn’t let you know it was cancelled you may be entitled to £30 Guaranteed Standards of Performance payment. We have more about this topic in this similar thread:

 

 

Hope this helps.

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
R
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Emmanuelle this is copy of the latest email sent hope that helps.

 

Failed appointment *edited by mod


I sent in a form on Monday 17th October to complain about a failed appointment.

This is the second time this has happened.

You fitted a smart meter months ago but it has never communicated its readings.
You asked me to arrange an appointment for 22nd September to have it looked at and this was done but your expert failed to turn up and I was given a GSOP payment of £30.

You gave me a new date for the 17th October and after waiting in for the four hours no one turned up and no communication from them again.

Can you investigate why this has happened and explain please.

Thanks 

*edited by mod

Tim_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hi @rkelman, I’ve edited out parts of your response as this is a publicly visible topic. It’s best to keep your account and contact info private. 

 

As has been stated above, it’s best to contact our Support team via phone, or even via the digital channels outlined here, rather than email, as we need to get your email address updated. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
R
Rank

Thanks for all the help I have just had a call from Ovo as they got the email.

M
Rank

I am having the same problem as everyone else here.

 

I have more than £1800 credit in my OVO account and yet they suddenly wrote to me two days before Xmas to say they are nearly doubling my direct debit because their algorithm says I am not paying enough to cover the currently predicted costs.

 

I am trying to reduce this balance by offsetting but instead it seems that they want me to keep building up the balance until such time as the costs go so high as to start reducing it.  At the current rate this will well over a year from now. In other words, OVO is trying to get me to subsidise its business.

 

They have admitted they have all this credit but they are insisting that the doubled amount should start to be paid on 12th January.  This is disgraceful. I have emailed OFGEM and a wide range of OVO email addresses. This one seem to work technically but the absolutely dismal, poor quality responses from the guardians they employ is despairing and frustrating: hello@ovoenergy.com. Working to whatever script they have been given they just churn out nonsense arguments seeking to justify their wholly unacceptable behaviour.

 

I also complained because the email they sent me two days before Xmas was worded in a way that would have caused extreme distress to anyone struggling economically, especially receiving it just before Xmas. A very aggressive ‘we are automatically increasing your payments because you have not done so and we are likely to do it again in 3 months time’. Come on OVO - where is your sensibility?  Many people would have seen this insensitive, Scrooge like message as being the last straw in their ability to have at least a little bit of respite over Xmas.  And in my case, was completely unjustified due to the large credit balance Ovo holds. 

 

I have also written to OFGEM about this behaviour:  consumeraffairs@ofgem.gov.uk

and they also recommend consulting the Ombudsman: www.ombudsman-services.org/energy

 

Here are the texts of my most recent emails:

 

Dear OVO
 
I am now formally writing to confirm that due to your failure to act appropriately and that you have a very large credit balance on my account, I have instructed my bank to cancel the direct debit mandate to you with immediate effect. I will be happy to reinstate it to £50 at any time until the balance of credit is reduced to around £500 at which point I will then reinstate it to a higher level to cover costs.
 
Please note, this is not a refusal to pay for the energy I use. It is a refusal to continue to subsidise OVO energy by increasingly adding to the credit figure held on my account. 
 
I would also suggest you employ staff who can actually respond to the complaints that are made rather than copy and paste a script which does not respond to the actual points made in a complaint.
 
For the record, this is the text of my complaint email and attached is the chat record to which it refers. You can see that the reply I received (below) does not respond to the points I raised.
 
Malcolm Russell
 
Dear OVO
 
I am writing to complain about the following:
 
On 13 December you wrote to me to say I should increase my DD from £50 per month to £59 per month to avoid a shortfall because the amount I paid did not cover the predicted costs over the next six months or so. I did not respond because it was clear this is a mistake because I had, at that point, over £1800 credit in OVO
 
On 23 December, immediately before Xmas, you sent me the email below summarily saying that you were going to increase my direct debit from £50 to £88 and another email saying this would happen on 12th January. There was still no recognition that I had over £1800 credit in my account. The wording of this message is offensive and could be extremely worrying for those who are struggling with their finances and to send it immediately before Xmas is hugely insensitive, bordering on Scrooge-like callousness. 
 
I tried to phone OVO on 23 December to complain but despite the website saying the phone lines were open, they were closed. I was, however, able to use the online chat. I attach the transcript. After over an hour on chat and a subsequent telephone conversation with the Agent Aicha (who said the only way to raise a complaint was for her to phone me rather than via chat) I got virtually nowhere. Please read the transcript carefully. I do not give authority to increase my Direct Debit above £50. It must not be increased - to do so is in breach of the Direct Debit Guarantee Scheme provisions and I will complain to OFGEM.
 
Aicha promised me that a member of the 'Resolutions Team' would phone me to resolve this problem and read out to me the complaint she had drafted to ensure this happened. She told me that my complaint reference is 13429114 and that I would be telephoned by the Resolutions team at the latest by 30 December (ie today). I have deliberately waited around for the call every day this week but no-one from OVO has phoned.
 
I received an automated email from OVO on 28th December with my current bill and confirmation that I had over £1800 credit.
 
My complaint is:
 
1.  The email on 13 December is incorrect and should not have been sent to me.
 
2.  The email on 23 December is also incorrect and should not have been sent to me and there should NOT be any increase to my Direct Debit and I demand that no action is taken to increase my Direct Debit, ever, unless I agree to it in writing
 
3.  The tone and approach used in email of 23 December is completely unacceptable. It could cause huge distress to people who are already struggling to meet their energy costs even at the best of times, and especially so 2 days before Xmas at a time of serious economic hardship for so many. This could be a serious threat to some people's health and wellbeing - having to sit over Xmas with the looming prospect of a massive direct debit increase early in the New Year to which they had not agreed and which is nearly double the amount that had previously been advised would be needed. 
 
4.  Your website on 23 December said the phone lines were open but they were not. The chat service was slow and tortuous and the staff on it could not deal with the problem, but instead took me round in circles several times. In the end, I left a clear instruction that no DD increase should happen and the operative promised that someone would phone me between 28 and 30 December to make sure this was followed-up. I took care to be around on all these days but no-one phoned. This is a waste of my time and has left the situation unresolved but with OVO under clear instruction not to increase my Direct Debit. 
 
5. This comes days after having a visit by one of your engineers (on 19th December) to install Smart meters. He arrived and said he could not do it because he needed access to the incoming mains switchboard before it reached my flat. There was no indication from OVO when I booked this engineer visit that this would be required. The engineer said this happened many times a week. Another wasted journey and wasted morning for me.
 
I should be grateful for a written response to this complaint and for confirmation that you will not be increasing my Direct Debit by 5th January

 

 

Blastoise186
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You should have tried Live Chat on the 24th December instead. It was absolutely clear that day with basically no-one getting in touch.

All I can say is that you cannot raise formal complaints via the forum, please see https://ovoenergy.com/feedback instead. The complaint you raised here is invalid and will not be responded to if you purely rely on the forum alone.

To be honest, it sounds like you may have left it too late to contest the change. While you get 10 days advance notice, you only have seven at most before the updated data is sent to the bank.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
M
Rank

Hi Blastoise

 

I did use livechat on 23 December and have the full transcript because I copied and pasted it. The person on the chat was pretty much useless and sent me round and round in circles with nonsensical arguments and then, after an hour, admitted she could not do anything about direct debits other than offer a 15% discount. She did, however, insist that if she phoned me she could put in a formal complaint on my behalf (can’t be done, she said, via the chat). So she phoned, I outlined my complaint and she gave me a complaint reference number and said that someone from ‘Resolutions’ would contact me on 28th, 29th or 30th and they would sort out the problem.

 

No-one phoned so I emailed complaints on 30th and the above is the outcome. I have emailed complaints again and copied here so that everyone can see the awful service that is being given. I have also cancelled my direct debit.

 

Maybe someone from OVO will read this and I will get a sensible email reply.  I have also found the email addresses for the Chief Executive so have mailed him too

 

 

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