Submitted meter reading wrong, I put some of the numbers the wrong way round - how to get it fixed?

Thanks for the correction, @Jeffus … shame I didn’t look at more of the numbers, eh?

Ah well. I’ll get my coat, etc.

Simon

Honestly I was going cross eyed looking at it, i kept checking as i couldn't believe that could happen... 

So, my meter readings are

R1 - 4982.2

R2 - 7817.4

Hi @PollyG so as i understand it, R1 is the day time reading and R2 is the night time reading.

So this does look like the smart readings you see on the website from 25th Oct onwards.

But different from the smart readings you see before that. 

@Emmanuelle_OVO @Tim_OVO what do you suggest?

1. Simply leave it now as the bills look correct?

2. Ask OVO to remove the "Other" reading on the 24 Oct? 

3. Ask OVO to investigate the flipping of smart meter reading?

Am almost tempted to say leave it if the bill is working and a change may cause other issues.... What do you think? 

Hey @Jeffus,

I’d advise @PollyG that because we have an agile, live, billing system so as long as the smart meter readings are now corrected (and you’re sure the registers are the right way round) it should be fine. 

• OVO Energy Live billing platform and monthly summaries - What do I need to know? F.A.Q.

I think what’s happened is an estimate was created (perhaps the smart meter read was slow to come through) but transposed the readings so that day and night were the wrong way round. 

We have a great guide here which explains about how to do a ‘load test’ if you think your peak and off peak registers might be the wrong way round:

• Everything you need to know about an Economy 7 (Eco 7) energy plan F.A.Q.

If it happens again definitely contact Support, with the results of a load test. 

Hope this helps. 

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it 

It seems to have been corrected now. Thank you for all your help

Hi Polly, looking at your 22 October and 25th October meter readings, the day meter reading has become night meter reading and vice versa. This happened to me around 19th Sept to 23 September and I was charged £388 for a single days use of electricity in my bill. I rang and reported it, followed by a second call to them about a week later. And then emailed them at help@ovo???ure of exact email. They replied with the following :

Hi Shashikant,

thanks for your email.

My name is James and I'm part of your account management team here at OVO.

Apologies for this ongoing issue with your electricity meter readings, the issue was caused by system error rather than human error in entering readings.

The issue has been raised with the metering operattion team to resolve, they have the information and need to fix this to then be able to re-bill your account correctly.

I can't give a timeframe for the operations team to resolve the issue sorry, once completed you will be re-billed to the correct costs with updated billing in My OVO.

I hope this helps to clarify things, but if you do need any more help from us, please let us know as we do have other options and additional services. If you or someone in your household needs extra support – for medical reasons or otherwise – there’s a lot we can do to help. Find out more about who we can help and how by clicking here. Or sign up now by filling out this form. 

If there's anything else we can help with, we're here to support you. Remember that you can always: 

• Visit our Help Centre (you'll find lots of handy answers quickly in there)
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Thanks for your time,

James

Hope this helps Polly. I can't understand how a system error like this can happen. They only replied when I emailed them. 

Here’s an intriguing puzzle. I have a SMETS1 smart meter that provides readings to Ovo every 30 minutes and that is clearly visible in the USAGE section of my online account. I noticed recently on my account that for one days electric usage it showed that I had used 15.65KWhr but was being billed £2030.64 for that one day!!! Clearly something was wrong. Looking at my online account more closely I noticed that METER READINGS were now showing readings every day, whereas normally they show up just twice monthly. The most intriguing point was that on the day of the £2030 bill, the day and night online reading values had swapped over!! ie: if Day was showing ABCDEF as a value and Night UVWXYZ as another value, they had swapped over, so now Day was UVWXYZ and Night was ABCDEF!! Hence on the day in question there was a significant change in the daily meter reading values and I got a huge calculated bill for that day. The good thing is that my 30 minute daily USAGE data clerly shows the correct consumption across the day taht totals 16.65KWhr. Note this is all automatic data collection by Ovo’s Smart Meters and telemetry. Nothing to do with me enterring a value wrongly. It’s all Ovo’s ownership. The intriguing thing I find is that with the online values swapped over, the Day consumption (R02) is still incrementing according to the day time usage and the Night time consumption (R01) is still incrementing according to night time usage. Effectively they’ve just swapped indices. However when I manually read the SMETS1 Electric Meter over the last few days, the R01 is now incrementing according to daily usage and the R02 is now incrementing according to night time usage. So the SMETS1 meter values have swapped over.

I can only guess that there’s been a software update and this seems like a pretty significant software bug to me which should not have got through certification. If correct, I’d be surprised if I’m the only one seeing this.

I expect OFGEM would be interested in this issue. Come on Ovo, let’s see how quickly you can take ownership of this one.

There is the SMETS update process currently in place (not by OVO) but it begs a question on data integrity https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/current-programmes/smets1-enrolment-and-adoption/

Thanks for the links and seeing it has been happening to others too is reassuring in a way. But I’m kind of surprised that the telemetry system can mess up like this. It really shouldn’t and it should be properly tested out. I am intrigued whether it is the handover to the DCC that is causing this.

I’m just dreading Ovo billing me more than £2000 and automatically shoving up a DD to compensate.

Thanks for flagging this, @Beprecise. 

I’ve raised this internally and highlighted that this has happened more than once. 

Can you please make our Support team aware so we can get a fix put in place?  

Hi @Beprecise back here with a really quick update. 

I’ve been advised that this is a known issue that’s caused by a first generation smart meter (SMETS1) being upgraded and enrolled to the DCC. That’s a lot of jargon but it means your smart meter behaves like a second generation smart meter and therefore can communicate with any supplier. 

When your meter gets enrolled, you should’ve had an email or letter to advise of enrollment and that the readings will swap over. I’m checking to see if the fix is automated as part of this. Either way if yours do swap and you get charged to this, our Support team are able to fix this issue once notified. 

I’ve chatted online with the account team and they have handed this over to the Investigative Team and my account has been put on hold, so at least I don’t need to worry about being billed £2000+ in one month.

I have never receieved an email saying my SMETS1 has been rolled over to the DCC but when I use https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/meters, it says it’s working in Smart mode, (which I know), and then says I could change suppliers and it should still work as a smart meter, which implies that it has been changed over to the DCC.

It’s good to know that officially this is defined as a “known problem”. Just a shame that it hasn’t been fully resolved so that all this hassle could be avoided.

My readings have been the wrong way round for several months! Customer service are aware and sorting it. My account has also been frozen for 3 months . Customer service guy very kindly worked out my bill manually and phoned me back to reassure me that so far it's working in my favour and I'm more in credit than I thought. Still to scared to put storage heaters on though! 

It's two months since I flagged up my September bill where day and night meter readings swapped over. I was charged £388 for a single day use of electricity because of it. It still has not been sorted out. I have escalated it to a complaint now. If they were to put the £388 back into my account while they sort out the problem!!!! I'll give them one month from now to sort it out and if it is not sorted by then, I'll take the matter to the energy ombudsman. 

Hey @KazW,

I’m glad that this issue is being sorted out for you.

Please don’t be worried to switch your heating on! Your account will be re-billed and in the meantime has been put on a billing suspension for 3 months while they sort it out. 

@shaship I’m really sorry to hear this. You say put £388 back in your account, if you are referring to an increased direct debit which was taken from your bank you can file an indemnity claim and your bank will return this payment. If you are referring to an incorrect bill due to transposed readings (the day and the night reading switching over) it sounds like you’ve raised this to the right team. The meter readings will be corrected and the account will be re-billed. 

As it’s been quite a long period of time, I’d call Support on 0330 303 5063 and ask for an update and timeframe. If you are unhappy with the response there is always the option to raise a complaint. You will need to go through our Complaint Process before you can raise the issue to the Ombudsman. 

Hope this helps. 

@Emmanuelle_OVO the other problem I have on my bill is that for the last few weeks I've been charged £20 Plus which is for heating. My problem with this is that I have no heating on!! The main heating we have it is storage heaters which I have not switched on. Instead we are using a portable Calor Gas heater and that does not use any electric!! Spoke to someone in length this morning but he had no idea why this is happening! It isn't for hot water because that shows up separately to heating. My meter readings have been the wrong way round since April so I don't feel like I'm getting very far. 🙁

If you’re looking at this type of message and seeing an amount for Heating which doesn’t make sense, take no notice. It’s only a guide, mine is wrong… I don’t use gas to heat hot water but that’s what it’s saying !!

I have suddenly had over £300 deducted from my account? Apparently OVO have messed up my meter readings in November? All was ok up to the 20th to the 22nd November when you reversed my day and night meter readings which resulted in my daily electricity reading jumping from around £3.00 for the day to over £300 for that day! How do I get my account re credited!

Hi @Drewm9991 no one here has access to your account but readings do self correct so if you can get the readings updated your account should be back as it should be. 

The account had the same problem yesterday and it took nearly 30 mins for the billing department to rectify the problem and refund the money back into my account, but on checking my account this afternoon it had done it again? Unfortunately the lady at customer service’s wasn’t helpful at all and just kept saying I’ll have to wait 3 days for it to be looked into! Not happy at all!

Hey @Drewm9991,

Sorry for the issues you’re having, 

As frustrating as this is, luckily it’s usually a straight forward issue to resolve. 

If it exceeds the 3 day timeframe I’d advise contacting Support back. 

Keep us posted with how you’re getting on. 

Unfortunately, @Emmanuelle_OVO I share @Drewm9991 experience and consequently, I am deeply frustrated, upset, and worried.

My 2017 installation smart meter's peak and offpeak readings were similarly incorrectly transposed on 21st November 2022 after two sets of electricity readings were taken during what I assume was an upgrade to my meters software (a “Final read of old meter set up” was cited in my online November 2022 statement). I have taken screenshots  of everything as evidence in the event that the information changes.

This transposition has resulted in a daily consumption charge of £648.02 that was recently deducted from my account without notification of a recently revised November statement that contradicts an earlier November statement and Ovo's monthly billing notification email.

Like @Drewm9991, I also contacted Ovo customer services by phone twice (I have a case number). Initially, the money was refunded and a new November statement issued but the following day the money had been taken again. As a result of my second customer service call, my case was passed to “Tech Ops” on 30th December 2022 and I now have “No time frame” for a resolution and have to await their email response.

In the meantime, in response to the overcharge, Ovo are advising me to increase my direct debit to account for the £648 they deducted from my account but actually owe me.  Fortunately, my account was in credit so I am not in debt to Ovo. However, if I was in debt, I wonder whether Ovo would passively accept my informing them that I'd settle but was unable to provide a time frame for settlement?  Perhaps I might expect letters from Ovo or a debt collection agency and a forced prepayment meter installation?

I have raised a complaint with customer services and have its reference number. I  hope that the issue is resolved soon rather that dragging on for eight weeks, at which point, I intend to contact the ombudsman to complain and to seek a resolution.

Given that Ovo didn't notify me of the revision to my November 2022 bill, I wonder whether other Ovo customers have encountered similar problems or might be unaware of the error?

Hi GwenllianP

I have finally got to the bottom of the meter readings being reversed??? Apparently I have a 1st generation meter which was updated to 2nd generation around the 21st November to bring it in line with a government policy so it is updated to show something called DCC?? During the update something went wrong which resulted in the meter readings being reversed?? I have had my account amended twice now but when the meter readings are updated the following day the account balance is once again deducted in my case by over £300! I have been told that I have to perform a Load test which means I have to take two meter readings and take a picture which includes the meter/serial number and the meter reading at least 4 hours apart! I have been advised to take one at 9am and then one at 1pm! Email those pictures back to customer service so they can pass the pictures onto the metering department so they can see which meter number is active during the day! With this information they can then update the meter again to rectify the problem! The worrying thing is the email I received back from the lady who I spoke to said it can take 47 days for the issue to be resolved??? Crazy!