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Why are there large estimated usage and charges on my bill just before my recent smart meters installation?

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M
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Please can someone help me. Understand. I have a smart meter. Just looked at it. and it was reading 82p.And two minutes later it was reading £1.10.hows that possible. Our OVO stealing money from customers. It seems everyone having the same problems with there smart meters .or moving over from SSE. Something not right with this company. 

BPLightlog
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@Jammintunes your account will correct itself if you send in manual readings until your smart meter gets settled/sorted. Can you see from your account if any readings are being sent from your smart meter?
@Maria Ozegovic the meters only update every 10/30 mins so you can sometimes see a jump from one reading to the next

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Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Jammintunes,

 

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

 

Are we in communication with your Smart Meters? If so your billing shouldn’t be estimated.

 

 

It may be that the removal reading (presumably estimated) from your faulty meter was too high. Or the install reading for your smart meter may have been incorrect. You should be able to find this information on your billing, there’s also a yellow or white sticker on your meters that should display this information.

 

If we aren’t in communication with your meters you’ll need to do a health check:

 

 

 

We don’t have access to your account, but if you send a screenshot on this thread of your meter read history we may be able to work out what’s going on here.

 

Hope this helps. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
J
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Hi  @Emmanuelle_OVO ,

 

Thanks for getting back to me , i have now signed up to my account online so can provide some more accurate information.

It looks like our traditional meter display broke down 16th June as this was when we provided the last reading , this was after a local power outage in the area , new smart meter fitted 6th Dec.

Just to summaries our outstanding balance today is £3,947.23.

 

For comparative please see our May Usage.

 

June once our readings were estimated :

From June to Sept average usage 90kwh per day , Sept Dec estimated 106kwh per day , 

 

Dec 7th Smart meter fitted.

 

Any advice on how long this may take to be corrected , its very stressful and worrying ? , the customer service team on the phone didn't understand the problem and just wanted us to pay the balance , spoke to 4 different agents and it was until the 5th that she put the account on hold for investigation , but TBH my confidence in the agent understanding the issue is very low.

Please help

J
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@Emmanuelle_OVO

One of the estimated months.

 

 

BPLightlog
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Hi @Jammintunes do I take it that you have meter readings from before the high estimates and at the time of meter swap? If so these will be useful for reference. Also your ‘typical’ use should help correct this. 
Incidentally I don’t believe @Emmanuelle_OVO or any other mods are back until tomorrow at the earliest. Like us volunteers, they don’t have access to your account but might be able to connect to the best support team

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J
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Good morning @BPLightlog , Thanks for taking the time to look at my thread its appreciated.

We have all our readings  for previous months up to the 16th June 22 ,prior to this we put in regular meter readings and had an average usage of 17kWH / 20kwh per day ,  there was local power outage  in our area and after that our LCD on the meter stopped working , we called OVO to advise and they told us they don't repair old meters and the smart meter was needed with Dec being he earliest they could fit.

so we have an estimated usage for the period of June - December which is around 5 times higher than what we have used or currently used.

Would you know how we could provide / obtain the correct meter reading from when the traditional meter ceased to work .. would OVO have access to that in their system some where ?

Firedog
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Just to add that what matters isn’t the pretty usage charts you see on your screen. The underlying meter readings (together with your plan rates) are the basis for all calculations, so that’s where to look for evidence, and for justification of any claim for inaccurate estimates. You should be able to find a year’s readings for your account on the meter readings page, admittedly with many clicks on the Load more button. 

Since you’re able to document your average daily consumption before and after the period of inflated estimates, you should be able to beat them down to size. If I were you, I’d do this in writing so you have a record of who said what. *edited by moderator: email address only for ongoing and escalated complaints*

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
H
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Would you know how we could provide / obtain the correct meter reading from when the traditional meter ceased to work .. would OVO have access to that in their system some where ?

IF by any chance the engineer who did the swap was able to get a meter reading from the old meter, it will be noted, along with the serial numbers of both the old and new meters, on the meter exchange card left by/on the new electricity smart meter - and even if the engineer did get a meter reading, it is unlikely that it will have worked its way through OVO’s admin yet. … if I remember correctly from the other day your account hasn’t even been updated with the details of your new meter yet.

I’d go with @Firedog’s advice - if the engineer couldn’t get a reading but it is still possible for technicians to recover any useful data, then hopefully they can pull whatever strings are necessary.

 

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
Tim_OVO
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I also agree with lots of the advice above, @Jammintunes - the meter readings (rather than the usage graphs for the blank meter screen period) are the important factor here. If the engineer wasn’t able to take a reading when the meter was exchanged, an estimate based on your average annual consumption will be used. If that appears out of line, we can monitor your usage with the smart meter to get a revised meter reading on the date of the exchange. You can request this via our Support team, but by the sounds of it this has already been requested. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
BPLightlog
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Just looking back on this @Jammintunes and you should have a ‘meter swap’ card by your current install. This would have been completed by the engineer at the time and recorded your final old meter reading and your starting new meter read. 
If this was not available due to the fault, I would have expected the meter and account to be tagged for review after the engineers back at base were able to examine the faulty hardware

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J
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@BPLightlog This jogged my memory (thank you)so i checked the meter box and found the below card.

 

As you can see final reading is blank

 

@Tim_OVO Thank you for taking the time to reply , on our online account our meter usage shows the below.

 

 

Prior to this i have had to obtain the usage from bills , it looks like from June our meter was faulty and estimated usage has been calculated by OVO.

 

 

Will dig out all our historical manual readings prior to June 22 and post accordingly , will keep on with the support team and follow all their instructions , they have asked for photos of the serial number of the smart meter , videos of the lights flashing and a photo of the position of the smart meter  … pretty sure the issue is with the old meter readings or lack there of.

T
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Hi @Jammintunes 

 

Just wanted to empathise with you about this issue.

We have been waiting for the recalculation of our bills since the installation of the new smart meter after exchange of the old faulty one last July. We thought it would be recalculated from the last few months consumption but it just happened that the billing team didn’t use any of it and left the bills as it was, so we still owe £900, and they sent us to debt agency which might affect our credit rating on top of that, which is outrageous!

This week, we managed to talk to another accounting agent who understood our case, and acknowledge the billing problem, raised a complaint on our account and put a hold.

Even though this might be helping our case, it feels like every other agents we’ve been talking to on the phone the last few months all acknowledge the nature of the complex issue and promise us to follow up on the case/call back but none actually did.

This put us in a very stressful and desperate situation, we have spent hours on the phone and repeated ourselves countless of times but it doesn’t seem like anyone can properly help which is really frustrating because we moved from EDF thinking OVO would be able to sort our case.

Really hope you manage to sort your case!

 

 

 

V
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Hello I got a smart meter fitted 19th Jan to a property I purchased in November. My charges were estimated up to the point the meter became live and as the property was empty with no power being used I'm due to be refunded the usage charge. This refund hasn't happened yet!!

Is this normal & will it arrive in due course?

Appreciate any information 

Thanks

Alan

Blastoise186
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Hi @Vamatex ,

It can take a bit longer to arrange a refund of this type. If it doesn’t come through, please let Support know and they can chase up.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Vamatex,

 

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

 

You should get a statement within 6 weeks of the new meter being installed. When the engineer came to fit your new meter they would have taken a final reading from the old meter, which you’ll be billed to, if this reading is lower than our estimates your bill will  reflect this. 

 

Hope this helps. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

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