Hello @Mr Unhappy ,

I’m one of the forum volunteers. I don’t work for OVO.

Not sure what you mean by OVO overcharging. Could you explain your points? Also… Just curious but you’ve had your account for a while, why didn’t you post anything at the time?

I wonder where you get this idea from.

The changes in the price cap have been widely publicized, the outcome being that on 1 July the cost of energy for the average household would fall from £2500 to £2074. Many articles called this a 17% fall, which is fair enough. However, the rates fixed by OFGEM show that the maximum gas price fell by 27%, while that for electricity fell by only 9%. Standing charges were not affected by the change in the price cap.

The change in an individual household’s bill will vary considerably, depending on where it is located and how much energy it consumes. You can be certain, though, that the rates you’re now paying are within the price cap.

You can read the official word here: Energy price cap explained | Ofgem or, in simple language, here: How does the energy price cap work?

To answer price cap electric per kWh 30p

OVO are charging 30.99 per kWh so yes over charging 

gas standing charge cap 29p per day 

OVO charging 32.7 per day 

so yes OVO are charging more that the cap and therefore overcharging 

which will be reported to Ofgem. 

So I have checked my account today and the price cap for electric is 30p per kWh OVO are charging me 30.99p per kWh that is a charge above the price cap

gas price cap standing charge cap 29p

OVO charging 32.7p per day 

so now tell me they are not overcharging. 

That doesn’t mean 30p/kWh for Electric and 29p/day gas standing charge is the price cap for your area. In fact, the price cap for your area probably is a bit higher, which would make OVO’s actions fully compliant.

Those posted to the Ofgem website are just averages. Do NOT rely on them.

When I wrote “The change in an individual household’s bill will vary considerably, depending on where it is located and how much energy it consumes,”  I over-simplified the case. There are several other factors involved, so if any of these apply in your case, all bets are off …

• The price change only applies to those on the standard variable tariff. Whether prices on fixed-rate plans go down or not is up to the supplier.
• The cap varies with the payment method; the amounts quoted are for users paying by monthly direct debit. In particular, the standing charge is significantly higher for users on pre-payment gas meters, and rates for users who choose to pay on receipt of bill are also quite a bit higher.
• Official rates are given ex VAT. Depending on where you look, rates may or may not include VAT, but this should be made clear on the page.

You can see the current official price-cap unit rates and standing charges on this page: Energy Price Guarantee (prepayment meters): regional rates, July to September 2023 - GOV.UK.  Jeffus posted a more comprehensive table, where prices are given including VAT: CBP-9714.pdf (parliament.uk) 

It might help if you posted a screenshot of your Plan page so we can see whether anything looks strange. 

Hi @Mr Unhappy

Unfortunately that isn't how the ofgem price cap works.

The price cap rates you have quoted are the average rates across all regions if paying by Direct Debit . Often articles in the press don't make that clear. 

There are different price cap rates for each area of the country and payment type. 

So check the ofgem price cap rates for your region  and payment type to see if ovo have made a mistake. 

Do you work for OVO? Because you seem to be defending them. 
the price cap is a price cap regardless of where you live. 
 

My disclosure about not working for OVO also applies to @Jeffus and @Firedog . Just to cover them in case they stop by, the same disclosure also applies to and protects @BPLightlog and @juliamc , among others. It’s intended to cover all of us. We add these disclosures per our agreements with each other and the forum moderators.

While a price cap does exist across the UK, the value/level of said price cap is NOT the same across all regions.

Oh dear you really seem to have missed the whole point of a price cap. 
a price cap is just that a cap on prices so my point stands that your employer OVO energy are not passing on the price cap to all its customers correctly. 
however I will be following this up with a formal complaint to your employers at OVO energy and if they persist in not applying the price cap to my account correctly I will forward the complaint to both the energy ombudsman and Ofgem for non compliance of implementing the price cap correctly to my account. 
OVO energy are breaking the law by not abiding by Ofgem price cap and reducing the price in accordance with the price on the Ofgem website. 

I stand by what I said. None of us work for OVO. I also have reason to think you’re either not listening to our advice, or you’re not understanding it properly. Neither Ofgem nor the Energy Ombudsman will bite if they’re satisfied with OVO’s prices on your account being above board.

Which actually brings me to another point. I’m finding your forum account seems to be showing signs of suspicious activity, some of which aligns with known sockpuppet behaviours. Part of the tasks that the forum volunteers do is help keep this place safe for everyone. Spam gets picked up by us pretty rapidly and dealt with by the forum moderators for example. Most of that is easy because spammers are so blatant. However, when it comes to other issues, it’s more complicated. I rarely talk about my detection measures publicly to avoid sneaky bypasses. I also have a long memory, and I’m getting the feeling we’ve seen you here before on another account.

My biggest concern is the fact you created your forum account several months ago, yet you’ve only started to post in the last 24 hours. Why is that? It’s not normal for people to have sleeper accounts here (and there’s not much benefit to having a lurker account either), so I’m just curious of what your plans were.

Your advice is incorrect. Your assumptions are also wrong. 
I have posted here before and no one ever answered. 
you are not listening to me you are jumping down my throat telling me OVO  are correct when it is quite clear that they are wrong. 
If you notice  I am quite specific with the 2 points on overcharging the price per unit of electric and the gas standing charge the standing charge for electric and the price per kWh of gas are in line with the price cap. 
I did not want to be with OVO energy they were thrust upon me by taking over SSE. 

however I am now unable to change supplier which I will do so as soon as possible. 
I will be contacting customer services today to make yet another complaint. 

 

Oh and by the way I have no idea what the heck a sock puppet is. 
Is this an insult you have just sent me at 70 years of age this forum stuff is where I thought I would get help not insults. 

There is nothing further to discuss. We’ve already gone through everything.

Have a nice day.

Hi @Mr Unhappy

In case it helps the price cap data for each region and payment type is on page 25 (inc VAT) 

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9714/CBP-9714.pdf

This is an example of a briefing given to MPs to help answer their constituents questions. 

There are other sources of the data

For example Moneysavingexpert has created a tool (inc VAT) 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/

And this page on the government website (ex VAT) 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-price-guarantee-regional-rates/energy-price-guarantee-prepayment-meters-regional-rates-july-to-september-2023

If you are not sure what region you are in this page should help. 

https://www.energybrokers.co.uk/electricity/pes-areas/search

Okay this forum is pretty useless and I have wasted enough of my time I will now have to contact OVO direct as Blastoise186  only wants to insult users and not off help as I was informed this is where we get help. 

I made this suggestion earlier: “It might help if you posted a screenshot of your Plan page so we can see whether anything looks strange. “

The figures you quote correspond with a total annual cost of £2074 for the average household on a standard variable tariff paying by direct debit. For those paying on receipt of bill, the price cap is £2211, so unit prices and standard charges will be correspondingly higher. 

Can you please confirm that you are on a standard variable tariff (not a fixed-price one), and that you pay by monthly direct debit? 

My plan is simpler energy on the standard tariff 

I pay standing order

In that case, you are paying the higher non-Direct Debit rates, which means the quoted rates on the Ofgem website aren’t valid anyway.

Standing Orders are not supported, you can’t get the DD discount that way.

Hi @Mr Unhappy 

So you need to look at the Standard Credit Column for your region. 

These are the ofgem figures 

(from page 25

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9714/CBP-9714.pdf

)

You can find your region here

https://www.energybrokers.co.uk/electricity/pes-areas/search

These are the maximum figures including vat. Suppliers can charge less.

You can also find the figures here (ex vat) 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-price-guarantee-regional-rates/energy-price-guarantee-prepayment-meters-regional-rates-july-to-september-2023

And here (inc vat) 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/

I suspect regional differences will be even more dramatic over time as renewable power generation is increased. Regions are likely to be subdivided for some tariff in the future.

As hopefully you can see in the screenshot, if you switch to Direct Debit you could pay less. 

Thank you. I think you’ll find that paying by standing order, as opposed to direct debit, counts as ‘standard credit’, ‘payment on demand’, ‘payment on receipt of bill,’ or ‘payment by cash or cheque’ to give the method some of its many names. Whatever it’s called, it costs the consumer more than otherwise and is the most expensive payment method. The average household would pay around £150 a year extra for the privilege of not paying by direct debit. 

This is very probably the reason why your rates appear to be higher than the ones you see quoted both by Ofgem and in the press. 

Sorry I was a bit late to this party with my post. However, there is one other thing you should be careful about: you have compared these figures:

They aren’t comparable, not only because of the payment method, but also because you haven’t allowed for VAT. If you check the table @Jeffus thoughtfully provided courtesy of the House of Commons for the rates for your region (South East?), you’ll see for Standard Credit customers:

lThe HoC figures are taken from Ofgem’s, then the VAT is added and the result rounded to one decimal place. This gives a misleading result as the figures in the last column here show; OVO is using Ofgem’s mandated ex-VAT figures for your region, then calculating the rate to two decimal places. In fact, I think you’ll find that they use four decimal places for the greatest accuracy.]

Don’t forget to allow for VAT!

So this is very complicated for a simple price cap so I will be taking it up with Ofgem as they are in charge of this fiasco. 
So who do I complain to regarding the insults that were sent to me by Blastoise186 

thanks. For those who helped. 

Hi @Mr Unhappy 

As per the Ofgem webpage ‘What is the energy price cap?’, “the Energy Price Cap is set at an annual level of £2,074 for a dual fuel household paying by direct debit based on typical consumption, which reflects recent falls in wholesale energy prices”, and “* Figures are for typical domestic consumption paying by direct debit, and will vary based on actual household usage” This means that they are showing an average, and that prices will vary based on things like how you pay and what you pay for.

There are a number of reasons why energy prices are different across the country such as; how much energy suppliers can sell to customers in that region, how much energy suppliers buy from the national grid or how much the local energy distributors in the region charge suppliers for that energy.

Rates can also differ slightly by supplier and by tariff, so some tariffs with additional perks for example may have slightly cheaper rates.

The EPC and EPG are always the same for everyone across the country; this doesn’t vary at all, so no matter whether someone is in a slightly more expensive region for their rates, they’ll not pay, on average, more than the EPC/EPG for their actual bills.

Still seem a mess and a bit of a fiddle to me as energy companies are still overcharging as the cost of gas has reduced on the wholesale market. 
There is also the issue around price rigging as there is no compitition  between energy companies. 
I hate OVO energy they were thrust upon me be SSE now I can’t go to a better company.