I can do all that on my laptop in my online account portal, have you set one up?

https://my.ovoenergy.com/login

There is also an app for phones if you’d rather use that:
https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-app

This, of course, assumes that you can access your on-line account which I have been unable to do for just coming up for a year now.

Hi 3Phase, it's been well over a year since Ovo said they were migrating accounts, personally I think it's disgusting that it is taking this length of time. 

When I moved into my property I inherited Boost PAYG I almost wish I was still on it as at least I could see what I needed to on the app and on the meter.

I have also asked for my monthly DD to be increased which I was assured would take effect from 1st Jan 24, didn't happen!!!

Not impressed with Ovo cust service tbh, thinking of switching suppliers! 

Hi @Ben2024 

We’re very sorry that you can’t log in to your account at the moment. We’re working on fixing things and will be back in touch in the near future with an update. In the meantime, you’ll continue to get your bill every month by email or post as usual. If you have any questions or need help with anything, please chat, call, or email our support team.

We will update the Forum pages with more information as soon as it comes to us.

Not only can I not log in I have not had my bill emailed to me for the last 2 months. When will the new account be online?

Hi @JEL 

We’re very sorry that you can’t log in to your account at the moment. We’re working on fixing things and will be back in touch in the near future with an update. In the meantime, you’ll continue to get your bill every month by email or post as usual. If you have any questions or need help with anything, please chat, call, or email our support team.

When we have more information on this from the team, we will update all related threads.

Does anyone have any update on hen we I’ll have account online access

Hi @garystokey 

We’re very sorry that you can’t log in to your account at the moment. We’re working on fixing things and will be back in touch in the near future with an update. In the meantime, you’ll continue to get your bill every month by email or post as usual. If you have any questions or need help with anything, please chat, call, or email our support team.

When we have more information on this from the team, we will update all related threads.

The big issue I have with having no online account I have a electric car and need to link my online account to the charge anytime app so I can get reduced rates when I charge my car had no online access since last March so I am paying twice as much to charge my car than if I had the app running. Over so nearly a year now you can imagine how much I have lost in over payed. Charging rates

Hi @garystokey 

I can definitely understand why it’s even more annoying for yourself in this circumstance, so I’m really sorry that you’ve been kept waiting for so long. 

I did get in touch with the Charge Anytime team to check if there’s anything they can do, but unfortunately there’s nothing they can do to bypass it, and you will have to wait until the account has been made possible to migrate over to the new billing system. This is being worked on and as soon as possible it will be changed over and Charge Anytime will be available to you. 

We’re really sorry to keep you waiting for Charge Anytime and the online account access for so long.

I too am an IT specialist of over 40 years.  The “correct” way to implement a new system is to build it then acceptance test it in a sandboxed environment with anonymous data. After that a phased migration should be carried out.  Start off with say 10% of accounts followed (if all is OK) by the rest of the accounts in a phased approach probably over a weekend.  That way, customers keep their access until the weekend of their migration & only suffer minimal downtime.

Many comments here about lack of communication by OVO.  Not read a lot of replies, but my angle is that by not providing online access & only monthly bills OVO are preventing those affected from saving energy and thus reducing their bills.  Customers cannot see detailed usage on a monthly bill, we could, therefore be paying this awful company more than we need to.  I took this to the ombudsman last year & won compensation. Perhaps if everybody affected by this issue did the same it might encourage OVO to hurry up.  Personally I've had enough.  I can switch in early April (I have a fix that I can leave without penalty then) & will do so as soon as I can.  I MAY reconsider IF I get access before then, but with the deadline of Q1 I doubt that will happen.  Its such a shame as OVO used to be a really good company when they first started.

While you are right about how the correct way to migrate works - and OVO did in fact do this - what you don’t have is the last piece of the puzzle, which is why online access was turned off early. Only OVO and the Forum Volunteers here have access to that information as it’s still under NDA at this time.

For the rest, all you need to do is dig through the forum history to find many clues as to how this was otherwise done as a phased migration over many years. I found traces ranging back to 2017 about the new system being on the way!

On a personal level however, I don’t necessarily run migrations that way myself. Given the nature of the migrations I undertake and the use cases they’re for, I’m able to be a LOT more agile about doing things than just about anyone else in the IT industry would even dream of doing. Not everything has to follow the usual rules - and as many who know me are aware, I’m well known for breaking conventions and pulling off unique magic tricks.

Ridiculous, isn’t it. I don’t know any other IT professional who’d agree that it’s normal to leave customers without online accounts for a year. I’m sure OVO will receive “guidance” from the ombudsman for that at some stage.

Actually, I know a few who would agree because they know the reason why it happened. Ultimately, without knowing the full story you can never make a truly informed decision with these things.

Chances are Ofgem probably already knows about it and has accepted the explanation.

I really get the feeling that OVO are just waiting until we all get so fed up, we will switch suppliers. Surely creating a new account is the best option, when we have been waiting almost a year for online access to be restored.

It was bad enough to be told that access would be available by the end of 2023, but now almost 2 months in, there is no definitive update and people are mentioning September.

I completely understand your frustration, any updates we get we’ll let you know on this topic. 

In the meantime, advice remains:

It’s now two months since I switched from this useless company (because of a year with no online access).

Guess what? They still haven’t refunded my hefty credit balance, which I urgently need to pay my (excellent) new supplier. To add insult to injury, they keep sending a bill every month for imaginary gas/electricity consumption. (Luckily I cancelled the direct debit.)

I know there is a 6-week limit to get a “final bill” (and refund, presumably), so I called them just after the 6 weeks and they said they would do something but it could take another 30 days! It’s now been more than 8 weeks since switching and nothing has happened. Judging from recent experience, nothing is going to happen. How can I get them to refund my much needed money? It’s a simple thing to do.

How slow can customer support get?

Not having access to my on-line account I had to contact customer support about getting quit a large refund. I want to put my credit into Premium Bonds rather than giving OVO free money as they now longer give interest on credit balances.

The initial response was quite quick, but I was requested to send in a photo of my meter. This is the first time I have ever been asked to do this even although I have had several refunds over the last few years.

Photo sent, then nothing.

Surely OVO could automatically recognise the people with no access to their accounts and expedite any communications.

Ah, but that would need a software team that could actually code.

And you can build a better system by yourself? If so, then I challenge you to do so. It’s definitely not something you can do on your own.

Have you tried simply cancelling your direct debit? It would probably take a few months to reduce your credit balance to zero but may be quicker than waiting for a refund!

(I now wish that I had done this a few months before leaving ovo.)

This is the key point. Assuming that people (including me) are leaving ovo and other unsuspecting/gullible people are switching to ovo, it must be possible to close accounts on the old system (“apollo”?) and open accounts on the new system. Therefore, it must be a simple matter for ovo to do this for each of the 1000 hapless customers left on the old system.

This may not be a very good idea. Cancelling the DD will cause an immediate change to a higher tariff, because of the surcharge paid by on demand customers. It’s about £56 a year for electricity for the average customer.

A customer with healthy credit should be able to reduce the DD significantly, even down to the minimum of £5 (required to keep the DD alive).

It’s also worth noting that Apollo has been terminated in the context of adding and/or setting up new customers. Absolutely no-one is being routed to it anymore so “unsuspecting” customers will definitely not end up on the inferior system.

And as I’ve said before, there’s almost certainly a reason why you’re still on the old system. You do the switcheroo method entirely at your own risk.

The support team are able to initiate refunds if you have surplus credit, I understand that it’s very frustrating not being able to initiate these actions through the Online Account.

But an agent can issue refunds, email bills and submit meter readings on your behalf.