Sorry to hear about your missed smart meter appointment. As our Support Team has advised, if the engineer failed to attend without at least 24 hours notice of a cancellation, you may be eligible for a standard £30 compensation known as Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOP) payment.

Before this can be applied, we’ll have to make sure that you meet the full eligibility for this industry regulated compensation. Examples of when we would pay GSOP are: 

• An engineer misses an appointment
• An engineer arrives after the agreed appointment time (outside the 4-hour time slot given to you)
• The installer or OVO cancels an appointment at short notice (less than 24 hours before the agreed start time on a working day)
• The engineer is unable to complete the work because they were missing ‘standard’ equipment or arrived with the wrong equipment (when there had been prior notification of what was needed - this must be cross-referenced with the booking to ensure it was booked correctly)
• An appointment did not go ahead due to an agent booking error
• System errors such as auto cancellation and not receiving cancellation notification.

What isn't GSOP?

• If an engineer arrives early -  You can accept or decline the engineer's offer to arrive early - either way, no GSOP will be paid. If an engineer arrives early and it’s not convenient for you, they’ll pop back at the booked appointment time.
• Technical abort - If an engineer was unable to complete the install due to an issue with your current supply set-up, this wouldn’t qualify for GSOP unless the installers were aware that special equipment/extra time etc. would be required at time of booking and they didn’t bring the correct equipment/ allow for the extra time required.
• Severe weather conditions - We wouldn’t provide GSOP for an appointment that’s missed due to severe weather conditions or other  situations that are deemed out of an engineer’s control. 
• Unable to find an address - If we’ve failed to provide our contractors with enough information, our Support Team may be able to discuss a goodwill gesture rather than GSOP.

We'll have 10 working days (after the missed appointment) to double check these eligibility criteria. If you're owed GSOP compensation, you’ll receive an email confirmation and will be able to see the £30 applied via the ‘Billing History’ page of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS).

If you’ve not seen the payment applied after 10 days reach out to our Support Team. If you’re eligible but the payment is delayed you might be owed double!

Sorry to hear your appointment didn't go ahead, @kt15562. As it was cancelled with less than 24 hours notice you count be entitled to a £30 missed appointment payment from us. We'd be happy to raise this with the team, just send us a message on Facebook or Twitter with your name, DoB and account number. If you don't use social media, message us on webchat via the Help Centre.

If you haven't heard from the engineers yet, you can rebook an appointment here.

I'm still waiting for my £30 credit, 6 weeks after the engineer failed to turn up. I did receive a text message (sent to my land-line) asking to complete a survey about how the installation went despite me reporting that the guy hadn't turned up. And sending the survey by text to a land-line isn't that clever either. 

Hi there @Bill Portland ,

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble there. Would you be able to have a chat with the support team again about this? Live chat tends to be the fastest option. If you log into your account over here first before starting the chat, you’ll also get through security much faster.

I hope this helps.

I called after the 1st 2 weeks and then used the web chat 2 weeks after that. Still waiting. Maybe they can use the £30 to pay my early cancellation fee? 

I understand.

Let me see if I can get @Tim_OVO on the case here. Would you be OK with hanging in there for a bit?

What a frustrating delay, @Bill Portland 

It’s worth pointing out that this compensation is acquired from the engineer team or company, and only if they agree it was missed. I’ve seen examples where the engineer has actually visited and couldn’t get a reply when knocking for example. Not saying that has happened in this case though!

The good news here is that if compensation of this kind isn’t paid within 10 working days, the amount is doubled! So if it’s confirmed you’re eligible, it sounds like you’re owed £60. Reach out to us one more time on web chat to get an update, send them a link to this topic, and they can also help get the appointment rebooked, here. 

Thanks.

I reported it on the day they failed to arrive, 15th October. Followed up by webchat a couple of weeks later, then again by phone last week. No credit yet.

I'll try webchat again and ask for £60. Is webchat only available during normal hours? 

In the meantime, new smart meters have been fitted, now waiting for a "random quality assurance visit" next week. I hope he turns up! 

Hi @Bill Portland ,

Sorry I didn’t manage to reply sooner. I usually take Thursdays off from the forums due to other commitments.

I’m glad to hear the meters are installed now. The live chat is open from 8am to 6pm on weekdays. I think it sometimes opens on Saturday mornings as well. When you get in touch, please give the agent a link to this thread, let them know you’ve been chatting with myself and Tim here and ask them to go through the thread. It will help speed things up.

There’s also a new feature that’s been added recently, which can help get the chat session going a bit faster too. If you login to your account over here before starting the chat session, you can jump straight through security almost instantly.

If you don’t get anywhere, please let us know here and we’ll see what we can do.

90 minute web chat with Jayson concluded that I should receive a £60 credit within 5 working days.  We'll see what turns up.... 

Thanks for letting us know @Bill Portland.

If you still don’t get the credit by this time next week, please give us a shout and we’ll see what we can do.

Pleased to report that I finally received my £60 credit. It took another phone on the morning of the last day of the promised period, but we got there in the end. 

Why did the OVO engineer (Yasser) never turn up to instal my gas and electricity meters at the scheduled time (date Friday 13th August, between 12 and 4 and Arrau nged months in advance)?

Robert Neden

Hi there @Robert Neden !

Sorry about that! Unfortunately, forum volunteers can't access your account so I can't check the reasons why the engineer didn't attend. But this is definitely not what should have happened.

It's possible that the engineer was off sick or got diverted to an emergency job at last minute though. Did you ever get a tracking text message from Localz? It should have kept you informed via the tracking link. 

If you let the Support Team know, they will probably be able to find out what happened and rebook the appointment on the next available slot. Which is probably not too far away.

I hope you're able to get the upgrade on the next attempt. It's definitely worth it.

This happened to me too. I received £30 compensation (and then another £30 because the 1st £30 wasn't paid within 30 days). Doesn't help much if you've had to take a day's holiday to be there, but it's better than nothing. Ask for it when you rebook. 

Smart meter fitted in March 2022, the installation Engineer reported that it was not connecting and not submitting meter readings. I subsequently made two more call to report the fault. Finally managed to get an appointment for an Engineer to come out on June 17th, today. Rang today customer services and they confirmed the Engineer was booked between 14:00 and 18:00 and I was a priority customer repair.Engineer never appeared, still waiting at 20:00, no text, phone call or email to explain what has happened. Very unhappy as I have had to take a half day off work to wait in.

Still submitting meter reading on line.

Hi @Rasmussen and welcome to the OVO online community,

I’m sorry to hear a non-communicating smart meter and missed engineers appointment has bought you here. I appreciate the frustration this must’ve caused, particularly as you mention taking time off work to make sure you’d be around. As cancellations can be caused by engineer sickness or other appointments over-running, sometimes we’re not able to give you notice of this cancellation. In this case there is a standard £30 compensation which our Support Team can apply for on your behalf. You can find out more about this in the topic below.

If you haven’t already, we’d recommend getting in touch with the Support Team who can investigate why the engineer failed to attend your scheduled appointment and make sure another visit is booked in.

I hope this helps get things back on track.

Hi Jess

Thank you for your reply, I did ring Customer Services before hand just to make sure that the Engineer was coming out and one of you staff assured me that there was no issues and he would be out as planned. Is  there a possibility that I can book another appointment for this Friday between 14.00 and 18.00. I am a teacher and struggle to get time off.

Regards Sean

I’m so sorry to hear this, @Rasmussen.

Unfortunately we’re not able to get an appointment arranged via this forum. I’d recommend reaching out to the Support Team to request this re-scheduled slot and missed appointment compensation.

Will I be entitled to £30 compensation