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Why are my monthly charges so high since I entered a meter reading incorrectly?

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I switched to OVO , with a B gas smart meter , which wasn’t sending OVO a smart read , so I did it manually, meter reader came , she gave the read .. 

usage is between £58 -£80 a month !

during colder months last week I had an email to say my smart meter is now sending reads every half hour and it was a regional problem. 
 

now my app is saying throughout April & may my electric bill is £900 a month !!!!!!!!! 

two people in property, still in a fixed plan ! 
I think there is a massive error and all the reads from myself, meter reader & smart have confused the system as the usage in kw is not a lot of difference month on month ? OVO are not helpful or listening??
 


 

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Best answer by Jess_OVO 10 June 2022, 11:22

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Blastoise186
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Hi @Sam 85 ,

That actually doesn’t sound right to me, and you might want to check the bills again. Massively inflated readings on that kind of scale would fail validation and be automatically rejected by the system, especially if it’s totally out of line with what OVO expects your usage to be during the same period. Could you check https://my.ovoenergy.com please? Another copy of your bills can be found there. If that version looks about right, you should be sorted.

If not, try the Support Team again and if you still get stuck, the feedback and complaint process at https://ovoenergy.com/feedback almost certainly will resolve the issue.

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Thank you , I have checked my bills & meter readings .

meter readings look pretty normal, but for some reason the total kWh has gone from approx 330 a month to 5152 yet this is not reflected in the meter readings?

it’s like someone has entered a few thousand kWh extra ? Or just entered the wrong digits?

Blastoise186
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Hmm… In that case it’s quite possible something got a little messed up somewhere along the line. Not to worry, this can all be fixed up.

Please ask the Support Team to regenerate the affected bills using the actual meter readings. I’m afraid I can’t do that myself as I’m only a forum volunteer and don’t have permission to access your account. But I’m pretty confident that regenerating the bills should fix the issue.

The Web Chat at https://help.ovoenergy.com tends to be the fastest way to do this.

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Hi 

thank you , I have tried calling , it’s now saying they are closed yet states opening times until 6 pm 

I have had nothing but hassle since I switched to these . 
I have called and spoke this morning. I have also emailed 3 times. 
They won’t let me speak to billing , yet they saying I must be using more 😩

Blastoise186
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I wouldn’t recommend emailing in more than once while waiting for a reply. Sending in further emails can put all of your active emails on hold while OVO reads the entire chain again and they can’t reply until they’ve done so. The more emails you send in, the longer it’ll take for OVO to catch up.

I’ve just tried the phones as a test a few minutes ago, it seems to be open now so you might want to try again. OVO’s Support Team is also structured so that you only need to speak to one agent about almost anything, there’s no specific departments within the team per se.

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Hi , thank you for the info on emails, just so frustrating and I’m really worried as gone from being in credit to owing £1600 in two months ! 
phone lines are working now but states really busy and to use WhatsApp..

did that but can’t seem to get anywhere in text ? 
or the right topic , tried that chat link , also after putting in my details they too said they were too busy , is OVO always as bad as this ?

thanks Sam 

Blastoise186
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Not usually. It’s quite possible that the Support Team are getting swamped at the moment, because Mondays are always pretty much jammed up with huge volumes.

If you can hold out until tomorrow morning, you might get through faster.

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Jess_OVO
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I’m so sorry to hear about your difficulty reaching the Support Team yesterday, @Sam 85. 

 

We were experiencing some technical difficulties with the phone lines which have now been resolved. As this sounds like it requires some account-specific investigations we’d recommend re-contacting the Support Team today, if you haven’t already. The Support Team can help check your billing is accurate and based on actual meter readings.

 

As you mention receiving an email about your smart meters regaining communication, I’m wondering whether they’ve recently completed their enrolment process. This remote process allows us to receive smart meter readings from all smart meters, even if they weren’t installed by us. Were you giving regular monthly meter readings before receiving this email? If we weren’t receiving regular readings we may have been estimating your usage in the meantime. If these estimates were higher or lower than the actual readings this might explain why you noticed a jump in the readings when we started receiving these from your smart meter.

 

The best place to check the readings we’ve received (either submitted manually or sent by your smart meter automatically) is by downloading the OVO app (available for Android and iOS) and heading to the meter readings page. You can check these readings against those we’ve used to calculate your energy costs by heading to the ‘Billing History’ page. 

 

I’m hoping this information is helpful in getting to the bottom of things. Do pop back with an update once you’ve spoken to the team or checked the details shown on your OVO app. 

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Hi , I been giving them manual readings so they never estimated them , but they failed to apply them in March , April may. Even the meter reader supplied the same reading in april . 
I have been trying to contact all morning again , chat web & calling but busy is the answer I received. 
I don’t even use this much in a year ! So clearly a mistake , the smart reading started sending a signal last week , then the app updated it to this ! Yet the readings are relatively low each read , which does not match the charges !

 

Jess_OVO
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Sorry for any confusion, @Sam 85.

 

As the usage pages you’ve screenshot there may be based on estimated data, we’d always recommend checking any erroneous figures against the billed amount you can view on the ‘Billing History’ tab. Here you’ll also be able to check the meter readings we’ve used to calculate each monthly charge.

 

Just a thought, have you double-checked the meter reading used on your opening statement with OVO? If this reading was estimated this might explain things. Our Support Team are able to check this and start the ‘Read Dispute’ process to get things corrected if needed. 

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It’s not based on estimates as gave manual , the readings don’t reflect the thousands of kWh they are saying for too months ! 
this is more than my gas & electric combined for the year , I’m also still in a fixed rate until next month , two people in a small house , no way it’s 900 a month , which would equate to over £10,000 a year ! Ridiculous! 
mice checked meters & readings , definitely an error since smart kicked in maybe they added my readings , smart and the meter readers figures all together in error? 
but I can’t seem to get hold of OVO to ask for a a new rengenerated bill based on the actual readings 🙄

Jess_OVO
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Would it be possible to post a screenshot of your meter readings page here too, @Sam 85?

 

This might help us figure out what’s gone wrong and give more tailored advice to get things back on track.

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In March I entered the gas reading in the electric read by mistake, I rang them with the correct reading, they sent a meter reader who also gave them it , but from the 31 st March they have charged me over £30 a day when in reality I’m using about £1.90 a day as the reads would suggest, I think this is probably a human error and all the kWh have been added wrong ? I use about 320 kWh a month now for those 2 months and a day they are saying I’ve used over five thousand by it’s obviously an error as it doesn’t add up . 
thank you 

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I’ve taken lots of photos on different days the readings seem ok ? It’s the working out the kWh usage that’s all wrong ? It went to billing so maybe it was there it went wrong ? 
maybe all 3 reads : 

mine 

meter reader 

smart .. have all added kWh wrong ?

nealmurphy
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I’m guessing the incorrect manual reading on the 31st March may have caused the system to throw a wobbly. 

Is your smart meter now sending regular readings? Most meters can be set to send readings automatically at a range of intervals. Ideally readings every 30 minutes give the most accurate picture of energy use and this data is usually sent by the meter each day (although some meters are set to only send once a month).

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Hi near Murphy 

yes I think you are correct with March reading but I did ring about the error and gave a correct reading and readings in April & may along with the meter reader they sent , but never applied any ?? 
my smart meter started sending signals a week or so ago , it send them every half hour .

 

there’s clearly an massive mistake and I haven’t been able to contact properly to sort this .. meanwhile it’s showing I owe nearly £1700 for just over 2 months electric .. normally about £58 - £60 

I have been trying to get this sorted for a week now to no avail ?

Jess_OVO
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Updated on 19/09/23 by Abby_OVO

In March I entered the gas reading in the electric read by mistake, I rang them with the correct reading, they sent a meter reader who also gave them it , but from the 31 st March they have charged me over £30 a day when in reality I’m using about £1.90 a day as the reads would suggest, I think this is probably a human error and all the kWh have been added wrong ? I use about 320 kWh a month now for those 2 months and a day they are saying I’ve used over five thousand by it’s obviously an error as it doesn’t add up . 
thank you 

Sorry to hear of the difficulty you’ve had reporting this billing issue to our Support Team, @Sam 85.

I agree, it does seem that mistaken reading might be causing the out-of line charges, so this might need to be raised to our billing team to correct. I’d recommend forwarding a link to this thread to the team via our webchat which you can access here.

 

Let us know if you need any more advice here.

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Hi Jess 

thank you , however I’ve called numerous times , spoken to one rude person and can’t get through as stating it’s too busy & to WhatsApp but then the messages say it’s too busy to answer the query ! 
I’ve also emailed, cancelled my direct debit until this mistake is corrected.. still nothing other than a generic email & text asking me to sign up to direct debit.

I have also web chatted , several times but it’s says it’s too busy to deal with any queries . 
billing I’ve been told by the rude man in support , doesn’t accept calls & I must’ve used this horrendous amount of electricity!! 
my contract expires next month & I know the prices will be higher so I need this correcting asap 

many thanks 

Jess_OVO
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I’m so sorry to hear of your experience when trying to get this sorted over the phone, @Sam 85.

 

Just to clarify, whilst our billing team aren’t customer-facing our front-line agents should be able to raise this to them internally if needed. I’ve arranged for us to collect you account details via a Private Message here so we can look into this further for you. You can access and respond to this private message by heading to the top right--hand corner of any forum page.

 

I hope we can help get things back on track.

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Thank you Jess , I really do hope this obvious error is amended , by regenerating a bill on the actual readings, I think it’s just an oversight but a worrying one for me .

many thanks 

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Hi Jess , 

this thread is saying solved ? 

bit it’s not !

It’s still showing the horrendous amount of money and usage for those errors in March April may , I missed a call last night from OVO but can’t seem to get through now 🙄

Jess_OVO
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Sorry for the confusion, @Sam 85.

 

We’ll mark threads here as solved if the answer provided outlines the next steps needed to get things sorted. I appreciate in your case you’re still yet to see things fully resolved.

 

Have you tried getting in touch with the Support Team this morning to follow-up that missed call?

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