Why have I been billed to an incorrect estimated opening reading - can this be recalculated?

Sorry for any confusion caused by the call you received, @DanielTSTocks - sounds like our Support Team were giving you a call to discuss the email you sent in.

The email registered to your account will match the email you use to login to your online account, so if this is correct there could be another cause for the delayed email follow-up.

I’ve sent you a PM requesting some details so we can try and get to the bottom of this for you. 

Hi please help..

I recently changed to ovo and when I gave my 1st meter reading I did it over the phone..when we downloaded the app we noticed that the meter readings they had registered didn't matchthe o e we gave. ovo gave our old company the same readings so they could produce our final bill..we are now having letters from our old company saying we owe then a lot of money..I rang both company's approx 3 weeks ago saying its wrong and it still hasn't been sorted..the reading they have registered on the 10th of June I still havnt got up to that amount of energy and doubt i will for around a year..please someone help this is stressing me out!!

Hi @Kerri and welcome to the OVO online community,

Great to hear about your recent switch to OVO. I’m sorry to hear there’s been a bit of a mix-up with the opening readings we’ve used on your opening statement. As you mention submitting a set of meter readings to our Support Team, I’m wondering whether these were submitted in the ‘Opening meter reading window’. If we received the readings over 5 days after your supply joined us we may not have been able to get these readings verified and sent back to your previous supplier in time, in which case this opening reading would be estimated by the industry.

In your case it sounds like this estimated opening reading was really out of line with the actual readings you’ve taken. In order to check if we can get this corrected, both on your opening statement with us and on the closing statement you’ve received from your previous supplier, we need to carry out a ‘Meter Reading Dispute’. You can read more about this in the guide below.

If you haven’t already we’d recommend taking another set of meter readings and getting in touch with our Support Team, who can get the process started. You can find the best contact channels for the team here.

Let us know how you get on -- We’re always happy to give advice here.

Hi thanks for your reply..they asked me to give a meter reading on a certain date which I did..this would of been the 1st reading they received from me.. ovo and my old company both have the same reading as my old company told me ovo provided them. I have rang up and explained and they said they will hand it over to another team..I still havnt heard anything from them but receiving high bills..

I dont mean to be nieve but I dont know why it's taking all this time to change some numbers over..

We even had an ovo engineer come out to try fit a smart meter..unfortunately due to signal we couldn't have one but received a new meter so my readings are now starting from 00000..the engineer told me he sent the last readings over to his office and no one is understanding that nothing is adding up.

Hi @Kerri i am just a customer like you. Some of us on this forum try and help out where we can.

Unfortunately meter reading corrections between suppliers can take up to 12 weeks to sort out as described in the link from @Jess_OVO . It is an industry wide thing, not limited to OVO. I appreciate it is not good news. Hopefully it will take less than this. 

For some issues where it can start to get complicated to explain i usually recommend contacting the OVO support team via private message on twitter. 

This is an official channel for the support team and the OVO staff have access to the systems just like on the phones. 

The good thing about a private message on twitter is you can write a good statement about the issue, including dates, readings and even attach screen shots and pictures like copies of bills etc. Everything you send is date and time stamped, and importantly you should never have to repeat yourself as the messages will always be there to refer to. 

Also importantly any reply from ovo is date and time stamped with the persons name so you have a really good audit trail of everything they have said. 

I only use Twitter for private messages to companies for things like this.

Replies are usually within a few hours or the next day, within the normal hours of OVO support. 

I definitely don't recommend email, but that doesn't just apply to OVO.

Hopefully OVO already have all the information they need, but a written summary via twitter private message may help in my experience. 

I hope that is useful. 

If that doesn't work do come back again. 

Let us know how you get on. 

Has this happened to anyone else? I’ve just received billing based on estimates which are 5 times bigger than my previous and current usage. On the basis of this incompetence OVO invited me to make a top up payment now of £5000+ to avoid being seriously in debt to them in 12 months time. Plus of course my current bill was almost 5 times bigger than it should have been. Was it incompetence or corporate greed that led to these grossly incompetent bills? If an elderly person received such billing they could have a stroke or heart attack. Has this ever happened? Has OVO’s stupid billing actually killed anyone? 

Started my contract with OVO on 6/7/23 while on traditional meter. Submitted opening meter reading of 46006. Requested to switch to smart meter which officially started on 13/7/23. As such closing meter reading on old meter = 46010 while opening meter reading on new meter = 0. Decided to leave OVO so last day of meter reading on 31/7/23 = 30.9. However I have barely live in my new apartment between 6/7/23 to 6/8/23. 

Received my final bill from OVO. Total outstanding charge = £42 which has definitely been overcharged. Realised issue is that on the bill the opening reading on 6/7/23 was 45945 which was an ESTIMATED one. I should have only used 4 units of electricity (46006 to 46010) while on the old meter. 

Checked back on my online account. Meter reading history is not displaying anything. When submitted my opening meter reading last time I did not receive any confirmation email or whatsoever. 

Anyway I can solve this issue? 

Have you checked your previous bill (before OVO) to see what reading you have been charged to? If that is different to the start reading for OVO then you can show your previous bill as evidence. 
 

Nope I lived elsewhere previously so have just moved into my current apartment as new tenant. The only evidence I have got is my landlord sending me the opening reading via email but not sure if OVO will accept this. 

I am looking for advice on what to do when the OVO Energy resolutions team are ignoring my bill dispute, despite me contacting them weekly, and their payments team are simultaneously threatening me with a debt collector.

I want something in writing and a complaint reference number, per the complaints procedure.

On 21st March, I received a £1737.84 final bill reminder from OVO Energy.

That is extra to the £520 I paid during my 6 months tenancy (Simpler Energy tariff). I moved out 23rd February and I have since left the UK. A new tenant moved in, sent a reading and suddenly my bill was revised to a £1737.84 balance.

I contacted OVO Energy 21st March to flag my issue and didn’t get anywhere. I sent a bill dispute complaint to hello@ovoenergy.com and complaints@ovoenergy.com – I did receive one generic response, but since then there have not communicated with me nor called.

Issue 1: instead of acknowledging an abnormally high bill and investigating, OVO Energy told me to pay-up

I chatted OVO Energy Customer Care on the 21st March and explained my situation. Instead of offering to investigate an unusually high bill, the specialist effectively said there was nothing they could do, since the account is closed and that I must settle the balance.

It’s not realistic that I could generate such a high bill - equivalent to 3.5x the UK average. I lived in a modern 2-bedroom flat. My partner stayed part of the time. The flat has an electric boiler, which I used in a normal way 2-3 intervals per day for heating. I used the shower daily. I did not use the dishwasher. I used the oven. The hobs are gas. Since I was only in the UK temporarily, I only had essential electronic items with me, like a laptop. Nothing power-hungry.

Issue 2: The Landis+Gyr E470 SMART meter was not functioning properly and I was not notified of this, OVO Energy were using estimates

The customer care specialist admitted that the smart meter had not been functioning properly. OVO Energy had six opportunities to inform me there was a problem, and I could have intervened - "Your supplier is responsible for installing your smart meter and making sure it works properly" (Citizens Advice Bureau)

OVO customer care specialist: "yeah it does look like from what I can see the meters are smart meters but were not sending readings through to us which is why you were being billed on estimated readings. It is difficult for me to investigate more of course since the account is closed and the supply seems to have been switched from us to someone else now."

I received monthly bills and assumed all was fine. When I gave one month's notice I was notified the account was in credit. That made sense. I thought case closed, no worries.

OVO Energy revised all my bills in the online portal. I cannot even check the account history or any readings, since the system has changed all the totals and closed the readings.

I did contact my lettings agency to investigate as suggested by OVO Energy, but as I now live abroad, I can’t exactly pressure them and I don’t know what it will achieve.

In conclusion, the bill has to be wrong and the SMART meter was not sending automatic readings, it may also be faulty, which I understand as the responsibility of OVO Energy to inform its customers in good time.

Receiving threatening payment messages on the one hand and being ignored by the resolutions team on the other, I’m really not sure what else I should do – until I can take it up with the ombudsmen.

It’s very stressful and I hope someone has some pearls of wisdom on other things I can do to escalate toward a fair resolution!