When will I receive my compensation for a missed engineer appointment?

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

Possibly. If the Support Team thinks you might qualify for compensation under the Guaranteed Standard of Service, they can raise a claim on your behalf. If the claim is approved, OVO will arrange payment as soon as possible. If that payment takes longer than a certain time to arrive, you might also qualify for it to be doubled to £60 on the basis of the original £30 plus a further £30 for late payment.

I’d recommend talking to the team about that and they’ll take a look. I think what you’re describing qualifies for this sort of thing!

Had a smart meter( more or less bullied into getting them) on 07/07/22. Initially readings being sent….suddenly Ovo stated they could not get a smart meter reading….could I send manually. This done I was informed that it looked like the meter readings “not correct”. Contacted Ovo re this….was told it could take up to 6 weeks for the meters to come on stream.Six weeks came and went….no readings.Contacted Ovo and sent a health check questionnaire wiyh photos. Still no readings. Following on-line chat contacted Ovo and arranged for an engineer to visit to sort the problem.Email received last night, my case closed and would I mind completing a smart meter health check questionnaire…..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Phoned again this morning no record of my complaint, engineer visit cancelled and case closed. Complaints department phoning me tomorrw.Anyone had similar experience or advice on offer.

Hey @yozzer,

Sorry for the experience you’ve had.

It seems you have raised this to the right team and I hope complaints are able to resolve this for you.

I do know that you should have been contacted in the appointment was cancelled. If the appointment was cancelled within 24 hours you’d be entitled to a £30 Guaranteed Standard of Performance (GSOP) missed appointment fee. 

Hope this helps. 

Waited in all day for promised phone call.It never happened. Very very poor customer relations

A very disgruntled Ovo customer

So sorry to hear about this, @yozzer 

I know that sometimes unexpected events can mean a promised call has to be missed. I know that all levels of our Support and service teams are under pressure from large incoming contact volumes. But I’m hoping the right team has this on their list to contact you. I’ll get our Forum_Support team to make sure, they’ll reach out to you shortly via a private message.