Hey there @PMG !

Sorry about that. The Support Team were online this morning, but I suspect they might have been getting swamped with other members getting in touch about the recent price cap changes. The system is usually pretty good at getting the estimated wait times right, but it can be knocked out of sync by sudden changes.

For the fastest wait times, it’s best to avoid Saturday mornings and Monday mornings as these tend to be the busiest in general. Wednesday afternoons are often pretty good though!

Thanks for getting in touch to raise the issues you had when trying to contact us using our webchat this weekend, @PMG.

While the average response times for web chat, as well as our phone lines, can vary according to particular contact drivers. You shouldn’t have been waiting 3 hours for a response. Average response times are much faster than this, which suggests there must have been an issue. 

I’m hoping you’ve since managed to get through to the Support Team to get things sorted but do get back in touch if you need more help here. 

Thanks for the info. I will try contacting Support again.

An agent is on their way. You are currently position 334 in the queue. If you're unavailable when they arrive, don't worry our agent will ask you for any more information they need and you can reply anytime by opening this chat again.

What was it the other day, #273 ?

It is what it is, but how does it help customers cut their bill when they have to use so much electricity to wait?

The time involved as well, if you take the cost of time even at minimum wage rate it makes OVO Energy the dearest in the market to communicate with.

Could i have a refund for this astronomical overcharge that’s not even listed on my tarriff?

Sorry to pose such a difficult question for you, OVO Energy, it’s been quite a while you’ve been forming your answer and I think you may be struggling. I really didn’t think it was that hard otherwise I’d have tried dumbing the questions down for you.

Just tried and I can’t get them dumbed down any lower than they already are.

Hi,

This forum is actually primarily monitored and patrolled by independent forum volunteers such as myself and none of us work for OVO ourselves. We do not have the authority to say anything in an official capacity on OVO’s behalf, so everything posted by a forum volunteer is in a personal capacity in our own time. Trust me, between us we read literally everything posted to this forum.

The only reasons you haven’t had an answer to your questions via the OVO Forum yet are a combination of:

• We’ve been extremely busy this week and there’s only a handful of us!
• The huge volume of threads has taken up a lot of our time recently and we haven’t managed to get to you
• When I initially read your question, I triaged it as being a lower priority that didn’t need an immediate response from me
• Your question appears to be related to an account specific matter, unfortunately we can’t access your account from here and we’re also not allowed to make changes to other peoples accounts
• I don’t usually respond to threads that I don’t feel I can add something useful to

Your question seems as if it is better suited for the Support Team and the best route to get through remains via Live Chat at https://help.ovoenergy.com .

I’ve had some time to think about this, and I’m willing to give you a partial answer based on my own opinion.

Chances are the answer to that is going to be no.

You chose to stand in the queue of your own free choice and no-one made you do it. When you join any kind of queue, you are consenting to the fact you’re in a queue and will need to wait and remain in that queue until it’s your turn to be served. If you jump out or drop out of the queue at any point, you WILL lose your place and re-joining will send you to the back of the line. That’s the same story for both physical queues in the real world, and virtual queues in the digital world.

As a result, any electricity consumed as a result of you being in that queue was the result of your own actions and you don’t qualify for a refund because of it. Ultimately, someone still has to pay for that electricity! Why should I be forced to pay for the electricity that you used, just because you feel that you deserve a refund from the electricity that you used as a result of you standing in a queue that you opted to join at your own free will? The easy answer is that I shouldn’t. Your supply + your meter + your usage = your bill.

As for the cost? It’s not so bad if you plan ahead. Let me give you an example.

I run a LOT of tech in my flat, including a full set of Ubiquiti UniFi network kit and one of the most powerful gaming laptops in the UK which by itself, has a 180W charger. I was using all of that and more all day yesterday, and yet still racked up a total usage of only 4.72kWh across my entire flat. Given my Tariff Rates (2 Year Fixed Energy 5th August 2021 if you’re interested) of 22.57p/day Standing Charge and 18.76p/kWh Unit Rate, the total electricity cost to me for the entire day was just 89p.

And bear in mind that this is with a gaming laptop running all day, which are usually known to be expensive to run! Samurott is a lot cheaper to run than 99% of gaming laptops however, because I chose it very carefully and have it configured to automatically optimise itself based on what I’m doing. It’s also a very special laptop that’s designed specifically for my needs (primarily to not gobble up tons of juice when I’m not using it’s full potential!) and there are very few of this model out there.

And I wasn’t just leaving Chrome running with a web chat either, but actively using Samurott to respond to tons of threads all day, blasting out music on Spotify, playing a bit of Minecraft, hunting down resources for forum users here and juggling several forums at once. It effectively replicates the daily use of most people, just with some unique differences that I’ve crafted to optimise everything. I was also putting my UniFi kit through its paces as it does a LOT of number crunching in various ways. Keeping my network secure while also handling a lot of VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) routing network and internet traffic all over my flat and managing several UniFi Devices takes up a fair amount of compute power for my UniFi Dream Machine, which by itself is essentially a Linux server with a Wi-Fi router on top and what could be described as a bunch of compute nodes that are all used to distribute the workload between them. All of that uses more electricity than your bog standard ISP router, but I choose to use it because it better suits what I need it to do. And by using it, I accept the fact it’ll cost more to run than a bog standard cheapo £1 shop e-waste ISP router, but I’m OK with that and did consider the additional running costs before buying it.

The reason my rates are that cheap are because I planned ahead and got extremely lucky with my timings. The deal I have with OVO right now is good until October 2023 by which point it’s likely that some kind of plan would be figured out to get things back under control again. Until then, I’m essentially doing a very good job of riding the storm.

Sure, all this means I spent at least 50p more than I might of done had I not been on this forum all day yesterday. Am I eligible to ask OVO to reimburse me for that on the basis of me being a forum volunteer? Nope. And even if I was, I wouldn’t want to anyway. By the same token as the queueing example, I choose to use my electricity supply helping out, so I accept that it’s going to cost me money while doing so. And as such, I’m using the substantial stash of spare credit that I’ve built up in my account to counteract the additional costs of helping out and also remain in a state of permanently being in credit.

But at the same time, I managed to help out something like 10 or 20 users yesterday, all of whom have saved a bit of money and time by not having to contact OVO because they happily found the answers here. It’s all about working smarter, not working harder!

I chose to join the queue based upon the advice given out to me by OVO Energy.

That advice was poor, misleading and a waste of my time.

I want to be able to communicate with my energy supplier. Why should that be as difficult as OVO Energy are making it?

I didn't want a refund for the electricity used despite it being a waste, but more for my time due to the poor advice given out on their website. Had the advice been more accurate and honest I could have made a more considered and beneficial and cheaper choice.

As for monitoring the whole forum, that's a task I wouldn't like to take on because I doubt very much I could do the job, I'd at least struggle hugely. To that end I'm glad I'm not doing that as I'd let people down and I'd rather not do it at all that let people down. However that is a qualification that bodes well for getting a job at OVO based upon my experience with them. They love letting customers down, I think it might even be an addiction.

It’s ok. No-one is ever required nor expected to help out here. It’s all entirely voluntary and we choose to do it because we enjoy it. There’s a saying that less than 10% of a community will ever become engaged enough to help out once and less than 1% help out on a regular basis.

Some of us like to specialise in particular things, while others like to help with basically everything. As for me? I like to be that first person you meet here and hopefully solve the problem in one go. But I do get my friends involved as well, anytime I get stuck!

So @SJM are you going to tell us what your phone call was about? Have you come to the forum to ask anything or just vent?

Neither. 

My phone call was of a personal financial matter that I don't wish to discuss publicly. It's a shame you only offered me two choices as if that's all there is, but understandable given what I've seen so far.

Totally understand private means private - so if it wasn’t to vent then how can we help ?

The issue was I couldn't talk to OVO about the private matter as the cost and impracticality of being in such a long queue (again) needed resolving before I can. Their website mentioned getting support here. I think OVO need to know the extent of the problem they've created and this was an avenue they promoted where I could let them know. They now know. Whether they can be bothered to fix it is another thing, but if I don't tell them then it's unfair for me to expect them to act if I don't bother to tell them.

I see. It’s very annoying to be told you’re in a a queue of astronomical proportions, I agree. Unfortunately your call has coincided with the other 300-odd people who also need help. It’s all got out of control hasn’t it? Maybe the recent government intervention will settle a large number of the desperate callers whose bill have become unaffordable, leaving the customer services staff (who are only human I imagine) to get on with their jobs. There probably aren’t enough of them but I’m sure they’re doing their best.

Yes, it's not the staff who are there that are the problem. It's the staff who are not there that cause the problem. This coincides with OVO choosing to get rid of a load of hard working staff.

HI….Anyone else having problems with wait times on “chat” Waited 8 hours today, and still no response. Eventually sorted my problem out, with TWO phone calls. Anyone else had long wait times, and what was the response? Thanks, Bob

I gave up after 3 ½ hours.  

If carling did bad customer service……..

Hey @kar3nyoung and @BOBthe BUILDER,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community.

Sorry you’ve experienced long wait times on chat, our customer facing channels are really busy right now with the first installments of the Energy Bills Support Scheme and recent announcement of the Energy Price Guarantee. 

If you have any problems or issues you can post in the Forum, we may be able to help? We don’t have access to customer accounts but can answer general queries and have lots of helpful community members who may have some good advice. 

Thank you. Waited about 1 hr 40 mins this morning and got a super star called Owen who sorted it all out for me. 

Can anyone provide me with the OVO Live Chat Link please? 

Start with the chatbot.

Contact details on this page:

https://help.ovoenergy.com/#contact_us_container