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Why are Vehicle -to-Grid (V2G) payments not appearing on monthly bill on new billing platform?

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Hi,  last month I received an email advising that I was to be moved to the new OVO billing system.    I was quite happy on the old system, I was receiving my V2G payments with no problem.   I had a feeling that when I got the next bill that my V2G payments would not be on there, I just knew that it wouldn’t work without a hitch.

I have now received a bill for March to April and as I suspected I didn’t recieve any V2G payments and therefore the bill was larger than it should have been.

How do I get this resolved without spending hours and hours chasing people?

I’ve put my OVO account number in my profile.

Thanks

Peter

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Best answer by Jess_OVO 27 April 2021, 13:57

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Jess_OVO
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Sorry to hear you didn’t receive your latest V2G payment, @peterb999.

 

These shouldn’t have been affected by your recent upgrade to our new billing system so it might be worth dropping the Smart Home team a line to check why this month’s payment is delayed. You can email the team at smarthome@ovoenergy.com.

 

Would be good to hear how other V2G trialists are getting on if your accounts have also been upgraded - @Jequinlan, @Mikeyoung @Andras, @sylm_2000, @D10hul ?

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Jequinlan
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Not to my knowledge!! not had any emails advising me of such! (Checked and still working)

John Quinlan
sylm_2000
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@Jess_OVO my V2G has been faulty since the first week of January. I am expecting a replacement in May.

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@Jess_OVO my V2G has been faulty since the first week of January. I am expecting a replacement in May.

The can take some significant time for sure.. I too waited months.

John Quinlan
Tim_OVO
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By the way for anyone unsure if they’ve been upgraded to our latest billing platform (90% of members have been), the homepage looks like this:

 

 

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Jequinlan
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My current homepage...

John Quinlan
Tim_OVO
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Yep that’s the app for our latest billing platform, Jequinlin - and you’re seeing your V2G export payments here as a transaction every month. So it sounds like an issue or delay for @peterb999. 

 

@peterb999 keep an eye on this thread to confirm, and as Jess mentioned, I’d get this one raised with the Smart Home team when you get a chance. 

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I’ve now sent an email to Smart Home, hopefully they will be able to fix this.

 

Thanks

Andras
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Same happened to me @peterb999 . I wonder who is dealing with bills, is it automated by computer software only or combination of people and computers? I guess I will have to chase them up?

Sky charged me for increased broadband bill after the contract was finished. I start to think they do it intentionally. Very frustrating! 

Andras
Blastoise186
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Heya @Andras ,

It’s probably worth bearing in mind that most of the billing platform is automated, because it’s just not practical to manually handle 2 million+ bills every month. However, it does have the ability to do manual overrides if needed. And there is also an entire team dedicated to keeping an eye on billing stuff.

My suspicion is that V2G Payments are either still being migrated over, or some kind of bug meant they didn’t get picked up properly by the system during the migration. I’d suggest letting the support team and smart home team know about this so they can both take a look. It should be an easy fix that can hopefully be handled by the time next month’s cycles come round.

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Blastoise186
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The other thing to bear in mind is that it can take a while for your account to fully hydrate on the new billing platform when it’s migrated over from the legacy system, so not everything is available straight away. Perhaps V2G is one of those things that gets hydrated in a second stage of the transfer?

These are two completely different systems and a ton of data is having to be shifted over in batches to prevent them from imploding. However, with each account that is migrated over, it’s one step closer to totally shutting down the old system and turning it off completely.

As for price hikes when contracts end… It is technically in the terms of many contracts that the price can be jacked up once the minimum term runs out. Been really common with pretty much everything for years.

This forum is watched by several of OVO’s teams and we’ve been pushing for more teams to start checking in and seeing what’s happening around here. I’ve been making progress on that myself recently, but I can’t reveal why just yet...

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P
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I wrote to the smarthome email address as suggested but haven’t even received a reply.   Pretty disappointing really.  

Blastoise186
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Hi @peterb999 ,

It might be that your email is still in the queue to be picked up, but it can take a while for the queue to be handled. Hang in there and someone should respond by Tuesday at the very latest.

If not, we’ll see what we can do.

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Andras
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Thank you @Blastoise186 for your thoughtful replies. I did get a reply from smarthome, they were sorry to hear that and said it will be on my next bill. Let's hope so.

Andras
Blastoise186
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No worries, glad to hear it. :)

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Jess_OVO
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Sorry to hear you’re still waiting on a response from the Smart Home team, @peterb999 and you’re also waiting on a missed payment, @Andras.

 

I have been in touch with this team to chase this up for you and have been assured that they are looking in to this as a priority. They also wanted to offer the assurance that any missed payments will be fully backdated. We use the Smart Meter readings for payments, so we will pull the latest read when paying and go from the last payment read to ensure full payment.

 

Hoping this gets resolved quickly for you, pop back here to update us once the payments have been restored...

 

 

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Blastoise186
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Thanks @Jess_OVO !

Sounds good then. All we need now is a way to try to hook up FIT and SEG to smart meters and get those to submit automatically. It’d be perfect once that happens. :)

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P
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Another week has passed by with no response at all from the Smart Home team - no email or anything.

Very disappointed with Ovo - they’ve upped the electric cost by 40% and have stopped paying me the V2G payments.

I’ve now stopped using the charger and will not use it until the payments are restored.   Very annoying when I keep up my side of the bargain and Ovo don’t keep their side.

Blastoise186
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Hi @peterb999 ,

Sorry for the trouble here. Tim and Jess will be back in the morning, so they’ll be able to chase up again if needed and see what’s going on.

I think you might be shooting yourself in the foot here though. If you stop using the charger outright, you won’t get any further payments and will lose out on any income from it. It’s probably also worth mentioning that as part of the terms of the trial, you do need to keep using the charger or you may find yourself removed from the trial altogether and won’t get any payments from it. The contract that came with the trial is legally binding. If you breach these terms, OVO has the right to terminate your V2G participation. That’s not ideal for anyone.

On the plus side, I’m told that your V2G Payments will be backdated and combined together in your next payment which will hopefully be applied by the end of your next billing cycle as usual. OVO doesn’t have the ability to apply the credits mid-cycle, so I’d recommend waiting until after your next payment is due before raising a complaint.

As per the terms, OVO is also obligated to fix the payments and that part of the deal is legally binding on OVO too - but only if you don’t breach the terms yourself and get removed. I’m pretty sure OVO recognises that they’re required to hold their end of the deal, so I’m confident the payments will be handed out soon.

As far as I’m aware, the smart home team has been inundated with a LOT of emails recently related to all the trials. They’re only a small team compared to the main support team, so may I please ask you to hang in there. Your email will be answered and it’ll definitely be in the queue until someone gets back to you.

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Hi Blastoise186,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.    What you have posted has come across as being a threat in my opinion and I am surprised that you have taken what I have written as me breaking the terms of the agreement.      The only term regarding actually using the charger says “ (e) you agree to use the Charger as the primary method of charging your electric vehicle for the duration of the Trial;  “.       This charger IS my primary method of charging my electric vehicle, in fact it’s been 99% of what I have charged with.  I am currently working away from home due to covid and am driving my second car as I am travelling too much for my 30kWh car to cope with.  My partner is the only person who would use the eletric car now but she is pretty annoyed about the situation as well and has taken to cycle the many miles to work instead of using the car.    Fortunately my current work contract finishes in a couple of weeks and my new contract will be a lot closer to home.  The only people breaking the terms and conditions here are Ovo.

Hopefully this can be resolved very soon and I can continue being on the trial as I have not had any other real issues so far.    I’m sorry if I come across as being a bit annoyed but I don’t really like the fact that when I’ve come across a problem I’m being immediately reminded of my “legally binding contract”.    I went through the contract with a fine toothcomb as I do with anything that I sign my name to and take my responsibilities very seriously.

Blastoise186
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I’m sorry if I caused any offence, but none was intended.

If you have any concerns about my conduct, please contact the moderators privately via PM or email to forum@ovoenergy.com and you may raise a complaint against me and my conduct that way if you wish.

It appears this discussion may become too heated if it continues, so I’m afraid I’ll be withdrawing from this thread for the time being.

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P
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Hi Blastoise186,    no you didn’t cause me offence and I do appreciate your replies.  I was just pointing out that it came across that I should just toe the line or be removed from the trial . I am sorry if it came across as me being offended by you.

Hopefully this will be resolved soon, but I am quite a bit fed up with Ovo at the moment.  I’ve had to spend a few hours over the last year resolving other things with them and quite often they promise to do things, don’t do them and I have to spend another age on the phone again.      For example one month of my bills is missing online and I’ve had to phone up twice about it and spend 30 minutes on the phone for them to promise it will appear in the next few days but it never does.

Anyway, hopefully this will be resolved soon and either way, we will start using the charger again from today as it is cutting my nose off to spite my face.  I am just annoyed, that’s all.

 

Jess_OVO
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Another week has passed by with no response at all from the Smart Home team - no email or anything.

 

I’m so disappointed to hear this and have already been in touch with the team to make sure you’re updated as to when the delayed payments will be made, @peterb999. Hate to think this is preventing you from using your charger and this certainly shouldn’t affect your participation in the trial.

 

 

I’m sorry if I caused any offence, but none was intended.

 

 no you didn’t cause me offence and I do appreciate your replies. 

 

And lovely to see an understanding community spirit at work, very easy to misinterpret the tone of a reply so glad you’ve both taken the time to reach out and resolve this possible conflict. Me and @Tim_OVO will always be on hand to step in an resolve any misunderstandings but looks like we’re not needed in this case. :slight_smile:

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I’ve had a reply from the V2G team.   They’ve checked and said that I have not exported anything to the grid in the last two months.

I know for a fact that that is incorrect as when I have watched the Smart Home Display I can see it showing a large minus figure when it is exporting from the car.     

It is far too much of a co-incidence that I have over a year of getting export payments every single month and then suddenly I don’t get any when I get moved to the “new” billing system (the second month has passed and again I did not get any export payment).

I’ve provided the V2G team with the information they’ve requested so hopefully they’ll be able to resolve it.    The WAN light on the meter is flashing red as expected so it is definitely connected and the readings are being taken all the time from looking at the OVO app.

I’m glad that my wife stopped exporting for a while,  I just had a massive hunch that as soon as the new billing system came in somethig would go wrong (there is also a full month’s bill missing on the new system as well which I was promised would be fixed but still hasn’t).

Blastoise186
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Uh oh, that’s not what was meant to happen! Sorry about that.

It’s possible that your account might have gone into a billing suspension during the migration process and that it’s not yet been lifted. These will always be investigated as the billing suspension would have to be lifted eventually.

The good news is that if your meter has been keeping track of all the exports, these will be stored locally on the Communications Hub for up to 13 months from the date it was logged. If OVO needs to grab them again, it’ll just be a simple case of running a few SMETS Commands to trigger the meter to upload the data again.

It’s worth noting that there’ll always be a way to sort things out as long as the data exists somewhere. V2G related features are still being worked on for the new billing platform and I’m sorry for any teething issues - I’m pretty certain that everything is being looked into, but I’ll alert @Tim_OVO and @Jess_OVO about this when they’re back on Monday. Quite a lot of members have been migrated over very smoothly, but there’s always a few edge cases where things don’t quite work out. But that doesn’t mean OVO hasn’t got a way to fix them :wink:

Please hang in there and you should be able to get this all properly sorted out once the teams have investigated these issues and fixed any bugs.

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