Is there an email contact address to resolve complaint?

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. 

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

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:

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.

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

I have said this many times, but sending emails to the CEO won’t work as they just get intercepted by another team.

Thanks Blastoise

I have sent it to their office and personal email accounts.

But I don’t mind if some other department intercepts the email as long as it results in it being dealt with by someone senior enough to be above the gatekeepers and guardians who rely only on the script they are given to bat away enquiries.  

It seems all the usual and previous email addresses for OVO have been closed. One of the statements on the OVO website suggests that this is to make communication with customers more efficient, which in real-speak seems to mean making it as difficult as possible so that fewer can actually contact OVO.  This channels everyone to the ‘call centre’ which comprises these guardians and gatekeepers and to get anything actually done the trick is to find out how to get past them.

I have added below another email which seems to work. Perhaps this will circumvent these outer perimeter defences that OVO has constructed to shield itself from customers, and thereby isolate itself from their feedback over where things are going wrong. It may make for a quiet life in the short term, but it also leads to the decline of a company because it does not know what is actually going wrong with its products and/or services.

This email seems to work: *edited by a moderator: email address not in use*

Hey @MalR,

Sorry to hear of the issues you’re having, this sounds like a very frustrating situation.

We don’t have access to customer accounts on the Forum, but there are a few things to check in this scenario. To see if there may be something unusual on your account for the algorithm to come to that that figure when you have such a large surplus credit...

When you check your Online Account and take a look at the Direct Debit calculator what does the calculation show?

Have there been any out of line meter readings on your meter reading history?

Have your recently migrated from another supplier and could your account be either eligible for a read dispute or the estimated annual consumption be incorrect? 

How long have you been with OVO and do you get regular monthly statements? This refers to the PDF bills not monthly summaries.

Do you submit regular meter readings or is your account estimated? 

Have you recently come out of a fixed tariff? Prices have increased significantly so if you’ve previously been in a fixed plan you would have been protected from the last few years of price hikes. If you’re now on the variable tariff your direct debit would be worked out over a 12 month period. This means your credit balance would be taken into consideration as part of the calculation, but it would be worked out to ensure your current amount wouldn’t leave you in arrears by the end of the year period. 

If you contact our Collections Team they can put your account on a 3 month direct debit review suspension meaning your direct debits won’t be reviewed or increased for this period. 

Hope this helps. 

Hello, I’ve just joined this forum and am a victim of the transfer from SSE. This discussion interested me in that after an initial flurry of activity by OVO in sorting a wildly inaccurate estimated gas bill, I have heard nothing for a month now.

A couple of phone calls and I was fobbed off by saying the “case” is still open. Nothing against the people I spoke to - they’re just reading from the script and are not in a position to resolve anything. As a result, I, doubtless along with many others, are passed along from pillar to post.

What this thread told me and I confirm that there is no way of contacting OVO by email. This bad for for all customers as it denies them to lay out their case in a coherent fashion and of course provides OVO with the opportunity to confuse, obfuscate, deny any such conversations took place and not provide any kind audit trail for the customer should matters need to be taken further. I can only assume this is a deliberate ploy on the part of OVO to take away the right of customers to argue their case satisfactorily.

I could record phone calls (with due warning of course) or take photos of webchats which is straightforward as they are painfully slow, but other than signed for snail mail, has anyone found a solution to this problem? I do intend to send information to what must be an internal email address: hello@ovoenergy.com in the future, just for my record

I feel a complaint coming on, but looking at the complaints procedure as described on their website I don’t know how this can be done satisfactorily and importantly with an audit trail, without email. It’s bizarre how I now pine for the good old days with SSE...

Sorry for the screed!

PH

There is an email address that can be used in fact. Two of them actually. hello@ovoenergy.com will get a response for anything that isn’t better resolved via other channels.

complaints@ovoenergy.com will always get a response. HOWEVER, emails sent to it will be intercepted by the main Support Team if you don’t have an active case open.