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??
Best answer by Jess_OVO
Updated on 11/12/24 by Abby_OVO
Sam 85 wrote:
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.
I’ve tried numerous times to no avail including we chat , the missed call is probably because I cancelled my debit until this expensive error is corrected. they seem impossible to contact at the moment. but I think someone from billing should be ringing me instead I’m wasting my phone bill constantly trying to get through only to hear the automated service who finally tells me they are busy 🙄
I’m so sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve had reaching the team. I’ve just highlighted this to the billing team again and they’ve advised that you should be receiving an email shortly to explain things.
Last Sunday (exactly a week ago), my OVO app was asking for a gas meter reading as it doesn’t connect efficiently to the smart meter. I put it in wrong and overnight about £800 was wiped off my account. I was over £300 in credit and I’m now -£500. Obviously an error, so I rang OVO and after two phone calls, I was able to submit a correct meter reading on the Wednesday. The man I spoke to assured me the amount would be readjusted and I would get my credit back. Well guess what? Nothing has happened.
OVO have no had the cheek to email me what I would consider a slightly threatening email about increasing my direct debit to TWICE what I was paying before. I’ve only been with them two months and in that short space of time alone I have built up significant credit. They’ve got some nerve telling me my DD will be automatically changed when they still can’t fix the meter error. I’m genuinely worried and getting scared as to what has happened to my money now. No one is being helpful at all.
Has anyone else had a meter error adjustment? Or if anyone at OVO could tell me this is going to be sorted? I want to switch to PAYG from now on as well. I literally do not have £380 a month to spend on an ‘estimated’ bill unless I want to go into mortgage arrears. We won’t be using our heating, it’s that simple but unfortunate it’s come to this.
I’m one of the forum volunteers. I can’t fix the bad meter reading, but I can help diagnose smart meter issues.
To be honest though, moving to PAYG is the worst solution you can do. You’d be better off switching to pay on-demand instead so that you don’t have to worry about running out of credit.
I’m not worried about running out of credit, we use very little, or do you mean a pre- payment meter? I just want to be billed each month for what I’ve actually used, not what they like to think I’m using through some made up numbers. My account was in £340 credit until this mistake and now it’s -£541. I want my money back where it was and no one can help!
Paying by Direct Debit is ultimately still the cheapest option. Pay on-demand works in a similar way to Direct Debit, except you have to pay the exact amount owed on each bill once it’s generated. Unlike PAYG, you don’t need to keep topping up to stay connected. It’s a safer bet and is generally more reliable.
Given you mention the gas meter has a bad connection, I wouldn’t recommend PAYG anyway.
You will pay around £200 a year more if you don’t pay by DD.
By PAYG I meant monthly billing based on meter readings, not pre- payment. How can I pay the £380 a month they’re insisting I pay by DD if I literally do not have it? I just want to pay for what I use. I know my winter bills will be higher than my summer ones, that’s fine. I’ve seen others on Twitter in the same boat. It makes no sense at all.
I’ll give you some advice. If you do get a meter reading wrong again, the easiest fix is to simply re-submit before midnight the same day with the correct reading. Doing so correctly causes the first reading to drop completely and be replaced by the new reading for the day. You have unlimited attempts to get it right as only whatever the final reading for the day is, gets accepted as the one to log to your account.
If you don’t do it on time, it can still be fixed via the Support Team, but it takes much longer to do as it has to be validated manually.
It's very frustrating isn't it Pingu? I can't believe it's been nearly 3 weeks since the tariff was changed, and my in home display tracker is still showing unusual values. I was however able to buy some meter keys to enable me to check the meter outside my front door, that one is correct. But it would be better if I didn't have to check that one every time. 😔
It's very frustrating isn't it Pingu? I can't believe it's been nearly 3 weeks since the tariff was changed, and my in home display tracker is still showing unusual values. I was however able to buy some meter keys to enable me to check the meter outside my front door, that one is correct. But it would be better if I didn't have to check that one every time. 😔
This is an unrelated thread. Please check the context
I’d recommend you contact our Collections team, in order to request a Direct Debit review pause of three months. You can tell them about the wrong meter reading causing incorrectly high usage and costs. They might even be able to chase up getting that fixed. In the meantime it sounds like your original payment amount was correct. Although they can help you figure that out by looking at your annual consumption and prices. Call them on: 0800 0699 831.
I really hope someone here can help. A few days ago, we submitted the gas meter reading, unfortunately with the wrong numbers. I realise all this is our fault as we put one of the red numbers and the result is a ridiculous, huge bill. I am trying to submit the correct gas reading today, but it seems it doesn't work. Not only that, but I also contacted the advisor who tried to help me via the OVO web chat, but when I check in the app if everything is correct, I can see there are still the wrong readings and the massive bill.
Is there anyone here to whom I can explain again our case in details and to get this error corrected?
I will check later if it's fixed, if not will try again. I have tried to book appointment for a smart meter exactly because to avoid any further mistakes, but unfortunately the system sayd I'm not eligible to have one. Isn't this strange?
Actually we never had any issues with SSE as in the app there had a option for scan/photo the readings so I never had to put the numbers manually.
It might just be there’s no engineers available in your area right now
Yes, that was. 😊
Well, I really hope to get smart meter soon. One thing less to thinking about.
Quick Update: I have just checked my account in the app and both readings are correct now.
Thanks to everyone who helped to solve the problem with the meter reading.
Still have some minor issues with the Gas meter as it's very old I think, and in the app the serial number is incomplete, but I've already sent photo of the meter to OVO and hopefully it will be fixed soon.
I just found out that a few weeks ago a gas meter reading was added that is 9000 units more than the actual value and increased my bill by £10,000. This reading was not sent by me and I have no idea where it came from.
The system won’t allow me to input a lower one, but I tried anyway. I have emailed photos of both meters. I am happy with what my meter currently says, I just need to get OVO to accept the current reading. After trying to use the online chat on Saturday I have zero confidence that OVO will do the right thing, they told me to pay £10,000 and get a new meter for accurate readings in the future. Totally clueless.
How could a reading be added to my account without my knowledge? Could an agent have read my meter but accidentally read a neighbour’s? (i live in flat)
I know I’m not very good at sending in reading and it’s been a few month, but it always averages out when I do send one. Which makes me wonder if someone from OVO read it because I didn’t.
Any idea how I can handle this and get the spurious reading removed and replaced with an accurate one? I’m more than happy for someone to come and read it again, just need to make sure it’s the right one this time!
This is causing me a lot of stress and anxiety, I just want to get this corrected, there’s no way I can afford this, I didn’t even use the gas they want me to pay for and I can prove it with the meter.
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