OVO Energy Live billing platform and monthly summaries - What do I need to know?

@Chic64 thanks for posting the feature idea. 

Can I ask: to achieve your aim of seeing a day by day split of usage for your billing cycle visualized in the online usage chart, would toggling between any months that the billing cycle straddles not allow this?

I always pay my standing charge on a daily basis in order to help reduce my ultimate gas/electricity bill at the end of each month. 
 

On occasions, this daily change increases several fold, eg if I pay £1.05 say, per day, sometimes it’s increased to say, £5, £6, or £8. 
 

OVO say…

“In regards to your standing charge, it doesn't change, what changes is your daily energy/gas consumption and thus the daily charge can vary.”

However, I don’t submit readings until the end of the month , so how can OVO say it can change daily based on my energy consumption? 

I have problem loging. No I have namber account 

Hi @djshields , if you have a smart meter then the daily readings will be used to show usage. If you don’t have a smart meter or if it isn’t communicating fully, then your reading might be estimated to give you a daily usage total. 
This is OVO’s ‘live billing’ system that does confuse several users

Thank you  BPLightlog 🙏

All of a sudden I’m not getting bills. For December and January I only get the calculated

standing charges and the Direct Debit doesn’t bother to take these amounts. I’ve sent in my meter readings and these are recorded on my account including the Dec 31st readings.

Now somebody at OVO is calculating my monthly costs and usage in the ‘usage’ section,

I can even compare it with last years usage and costs, but no actual bills, anyone else suffering this problem ?

Hey @harryfleming13 

Sorry to hear you’ve been experiencing billing issues.

There can be a number of possibilities as to why this has happened. As we don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum, you’ll be best to get in touch with the Support Team so they can look into the matter and find out why the bills have stopped.

It could potentially be something called a ‘billing suspension’, these can be applied by the system if something like an out of line reading has been submitted. 

The Support Team will be able to check for sure what’s happened here and get that fixed for you too. 

I have linked to a slightly similar topic below that may be helpful, I know you’ve not mentioned having a new smart meter fitted, but the same billing suspension may have been applied for a different reason and so may be of use:

Let us know how you get on.

I’ve tried every avenue of contact, support team, made a complaint, emailed Raman team with feed back. I do think there’s a suspension however I’ve told all the various agencies that I’ve installed solar panels and a battery so by charging my battery and using solar gen I’ve cut down considerably on peak electricity use, Also I’ve made upgrades to my house insulation.

I’m not getting a smart meter because of the bad press but I do send in my meter readings each month and on the day of rate changes and they are all recorded on my account.

If ovo are bothered about the readings then all they have to do is stop being cheapskates and send around a meter reader as was usual with the old Norweb. I’m retired so at home a lot of the time so there’s no excuse on that front. Actually truth be told they are basically a billing company, that’s all they do. They are not suppliers or engineers they produce bills and it looks like they can’t even do that for me at the moment.

Hey @harryfleming13 

If there’s a suspension in place, then there should also be a case to match the issue so the team can pick it up to be resolved, whatever the issue may be.

We’re required to carry out certain checks on your meter every 1 - 2 years. We use ‘Morrisons Data Services’ to carry out these checks so you if you’re concerned you can ask the visiting meter reader for some ID to confirm this. You can find out more information on the topics below:

If you’re on our Priority Services Register, you may be able to register to have a meter reader visit schedule set up. If you’re not signed up to the Priority Services register already, you can do so here. 

Let us know how you get on, and when you get a response on the email to Raman’s team.

Hi Abby

I’ve not to my knowledge had a meter reader from OVO since 2020. A chap did come around a month ago he read only my gas meter, but OVO have no knowledge of the visit, I think he was from Cadent.

I am already on the priority services register, being a 77-year-old pensioner with a heart condition.

I have only had the automatic reply from Ramans team, so I have sent him a letter direct to head office. Same with the OVO complaints team.

After looking at some of the forum members issues it is possible that some of the reports could be connected with my previous problems some 8 or 9 years ago and my current one. This is to do with the history and protocols of connections of legacy  systems. I have a first degree B.Sc. in electrical engineering and from my previous problems of incorrect connection I may be able to help OVO to resolve some of the issues reported.

Hey @harryfleming13,

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

If you’re on the priority services register you are able to contact customer support and book in a free meter reader to come to your property. 

I’ll ask Forum_Support to reach out, please keep an eye on your private messages. 

Hi Abby

I’m getting to the bottom of my bill suspension problem, I now think it has to do with my meter certification which I’m investigating with OPSS.

I have requested a meter reading schedule from priority services, thanks.

H

Many thanks Emmanuelle

I'm new to this app and I don't know where I can find my invoice. help me find it

Invoice for ?

If you’re looking for your energy usage, try looking at this guide 

• OVO Energy online account and OVO app - Tutorial Collection Tutorial

I think I have an answer to all the issues I’ve been trying to get resolved, that is ‘not getting bills’

‘not getting a reply from any OVO customer access’, ‘increasing pressure to book a smart meter’.

My meter certification has run out ! and it was staring me in the face. The meter was installed by OVO on 03/05/2016. but I didn’t realise at the time that it was 2nd hand and only had about 7 years certification left. It was certified on 11/2013. My bills stopped from 11/2023 consistent with the certification running out.

What I don’t understand is why OVO don’t fess up and talk to me to resolve the issue.

I have been advised from the forum that my system has run into smart meter problems but I’m a reasonable chap and would be prepared to help OVO to resolve my issues.

I’m sorry to hear this @harryfleming13. I’ll ask Forum_Support to reach out again today, please keep an eye on your private messages. 

I finally got through to head office yesterday and discovered that my issues are not about the certification of my meter running out! It is a ‘technical issue’ with OVO billing.

This doesn’t fill me with confidence about the tech, I’ve discovered forum tech issues, tech issues with smart meters on my setup now billing issues with OVO billing tech.

Although I shouldn’t be surprised in the las few years I seem to have become a ‘beta teste’r for new tech. I can’t think of a piece of tech I’ve bought in the last few years that hasn’t fallen down in one way or another. Tis a brave new world.

I’m glad that you’ve now managed to get to the bottom of your account issues @harryfleming13, I’m sorry it was such a stressful experience. 

Has anyone else experienced this?? We were requested last month via email to pay our £83 bill. I went online and paid and this put us back to zero. This month we have used hardly any energy but have been requested we pay £415 in 14 days! No idea where this has come from as our usage says we owe them £83 again. Every time we go online our bill and history of bills seem to change and for some reason we now owe them money again. We have seen this a few times but now we have had enough! Can anyone help please? 

Hi @JS2024 , as no one here has access to your account, we can only guess. 
Are there any earlier bills which were from a switch? Were you moved from SSE?

Do you have copies of the previous bills to compare and see what exactly has changed?

From that, it might be possible to get to the bottom of the problem. 

Annoyingly we don’t have much evidence. We do have the emails requesting the 83 that we owed which shows we only owed that amount on our account last month. I also have the payments coming from our account which I could see if they match the online bills or not. 

Is it a + symbol for or a - symbol for credit here?  I can't seem to find any information on it.

Where exactly @chris_baylis2000 ?

Unfortunately, OVO use both in different situations. 
You should see a + where there is a payment into your account but you might also see a ‘negative charge’ (so a - -) on the charge side

So what about when I log in to my account and on the home screen.  It's shows a + balance.  Is that credit or debt?