Why is my billing still on hold?

Smart meter fitted with econ 10 mid Nov 24. Some 9 weeks later I have no bills for usage, only standing charges. Meter readings visible on my account daily Being told account is “on hold” by billing team, that I’m in a “queue” .  I made complaint which told would not be escalated and there is no timeframe for when I will get a bill. Surely this is atrocious behaviour from OVO. 

Hi ​@H1ghland3 ,

If your account is on a Billing Suspension, this usually means OVO has picked up something that needs to be fixed before more bills can be issued. it’s better that this happens than sending out corrupted bills!

This is not usually caused by a Smart Meter install by itself - many of these cases are caused by other matters and a Smart Meter upgrade might just end up being the thing that unveils such issues.

Unfortunately, these cases do take time to fix depending on how badly corrupted the account is, but you’ll be notified of any progress updates. Please hang in there for now. I would, however, strongly recommend you continue to make payments as normal so as to build up credit to pay off the bill once it’s generated.

Personally, I don’t consider this to be “atrocious behaviour” on OVO’s part - more just a way to pro-actively fix things before they cause more damage.

I was told the meter is working fine that it just needs the billing team to update the system but that there is a very long queue and there is no indication of when this situation will be fixed. I call that atrocious after waiting 9 weeks so far! Of course you’d want payments to be continued as you can make interest on the money rather than me? 
I wasn’t offered any updates or help just a large “it’ll take as long as it takes and I can’t see the size of the queue”.  No transparency it seems as there was no mention of any corrupted account or anything other than a queue waiting for staff to update the account when the smart meter was installed. All the daily readings are there so in theory a bill can be produced quite quickly. 
I don’t consider 9+ weeks waiting to be proactive behaviour by OVO. Would you care to estimate a timescale for me? 

I don’t work for OVO so I can’t access your account - I’m just a customer like you, albeit a very experienced one who likes helping out on the Forum. As such, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place if you want to know account-specific information - you need to head over to https://ovoenergy.com/help for that.

These things take as long as they take I’m afraid - it’s more than just OVO that gets involved with these things. The entire industry has to agree on certain elements that may be relevant and that’s not exactly a fast process either…

As for the interest? Assuming OVO even puts the money in interest bearing accounts anyway (not every account type pays interest!), they probably merely offset the bank fees for running such accounts and the fees charged by GoCardless for doing Direct Debits.

I’ve experienced this situation myself a long time ago - SSE messed up my account around the time I transferred to OVO in 2020 and that combined with some other unique factors caused pretty nasty account corruption in a way that OVO’s Billing Ops Team had never seen before. Took them a few months to crack the case but they did ultimately figure out the solution and applied it. Never had a single issue since so the wait is worth it.

Hi ​@Pilgrim2 

Sorry to hear of the delay in billing, I hope its fixed soon! 

I agree that the response you have received is confusing so I’ll try to simplify it a bit. From reading the email you have shared it sounds like the smart meter installed in October has not been updated on your account, so is not yet being billed. The Advisor has mentioned that the meter is in comms. This indicates that the smart meter is working and is sending us reads automatically, which our Advisors can see on background systems. These reads, however, will not be added to your account at the moment due to the new meter details not being updated.

There are a number of reasons as to why a new meter has not been updated on an account, and these sort of issues generally need to be fixed by our back-office Billing team. It looks like your account is currently on a billing hold whilst the back office work the open case to get your account billable to the new meter. It’s hard to give a timescale as to how long this will take to resolve but, when its fixed, you will be contacted by our Support Team and the billing will resume, backdated from the installation date. Once this is fixed, you should have access to the online account.

It is simply saying that your billing for usage has automatically been put ‘on hold’ until they have recieved ‘enough’ data sent from your new meter, and other necessary admin is sorted out.

There is quite a bit of extra information about why that ‘hold’ might still bel in place on a particular account.

In your case ‘Aimee’ is saying that your billing is still on hold because the national database has Meter Point Registration Numbers for both your old THTC meters and your new smart meter.

That need to be sorted out and changing those database entries is beyond OVOs control, they have to wait for that to be done.

From what I can gather those national database updates are currently taking longer than they usually do.

I currently have a similar ‘billing hold’ with my gas meter, that was recently (18th Nov) changed to a new SMETS2 meter and I haven’t been billed for my gas usage since then.
(I’m still getting billed the Standing Change for gas, and both usage and SC for electricity, just not any gas usage at the moment).

Thank you for your response 

Just to make you aware However that although Iv never been able to access the ovo app I have always been able to go to online account and I pay what’s displayed there at the end of the billing period despite not now getting emails for billing Likewise the online account does display the old THTC plan date ended and the new new energy plan in my case Economy 9 plan so how can that be displayed online account yet still billing issue seems a contradiction here 

Additionally saying, from what I understand, your account is being billed with standing charges only. I guess, it’s that what you see.

No my online account shows all the units used along with daily standing charges and vat which iv been paying online each day daily debt increases over the billing period and after I pay at the end comes back to Zero until it begins again next billing day  So as far as I see the only difference is I don’t get an email 5 days after bill generated So it’s a complete mystery as to why  the billing is mean to be on hold and don’t get monthly emails 

This an example of what’s showing online this is a previous screenshot shot I take screenshots regularly 

I pay online with debit card after end of billing period 

This is a screenshot account showing yesterday’s details 

It’s not at all clear what your problem is. There will have been a hold on billing for your account for some time after the meter exchange while all its details were updated. That appears now to have been removed and your account looks to be working as it should be. 

On the billing details page, you’ll see the daily balance with changes since the end of the last billing period. This will include the charges and credits shown in your screenshot. At the end of the billing period, the bill will be checked before being finalized and a PDF of it generated, which you should receive by email within a week. You may be able to download the PDF earlier; there will be a link on the billing history page for the period once it’s ready. The email should tell you when to pay.

What is it that you need help understanding?

That’s exactly the problem I never received an email after the monthly bill is generated. So why are they not sending out the emails. My point exactly 

It’s now been sometime since smart meter installed how much more time do they need 

Right, now I understand. However, the email is just confirmation of what you should be able to see on the website. It normally takes a few days from the end of the billing period for the month’s bill to be ready. Is your bill for Dec-Jan not available? If it isn’t, can you at least see its details on the billing history page?

I see you asked how much more time ‘they’ need. The administrative changes following a meter exchange normally take a few weeks, involving several third-parties who are currently swamped with change requests as RTS systems are being dismantled just as fast as engineers can get to them. All OVO can do is put in the request for changes to the national database; then they and you have to wait for the mills to grind. This is in part a manual process, so while one system’s data may be updated within the once-normal six-week window, others are taking longer.

Please be patient. You have shown us that you can see the day-to-day balance on your account, based on accurate meter readings, so the question of formal billing can safely be left on the back burner until everything has fallen into place.  

Ok I’ll leave it at that 

it’ll be interesting to see if ovo ever send out regular monthly emails in the future 

cheers 

Firstly the online info has been functioning for a couple months now except for the monthly billing emails not receiving 

Followed your instructions carefully and still producing the info as per screenshot 

So nothing new there then it’s like being in a time loop

Hi ​@Pilgrim2 

Thanks for trying this and for sending the screenshot.

I’ve checked in with our App team who have confirmed that, currently, they are still building towards compatibility for your type of meter setup on the OVO App - sorry about this! There is no timescale I can give you as to how long this may take I’m afraid. For now, you’ll need to keep using the browser version. Just to confirm, the app doesn’t really offer any advantage over the browser online account apart from easier usability on a phone screen, so everything you can do on the ap you can do online instead.

Thanks Ben for looking into it further 

cheers 

Iv been waiting from 15 th October 2024 bill still on hold.  Problem is that ovo energy don’t update you on any progress made could run for years at this rate 

I'm in a similar position, smart meter installed 27th August and a ' billing hold' on my account. Another call today, another case raised against the billing team. The support agent today spent some time with the resolution team looking at the individual issues listed against the billing hold and it looks like there was a couple of weeks of missed data in the month after the meter was installed. The property is empty most of the time and the daily consumption is usually less than 8 units just keeping the chill off the house. It's ludicrous how long they've taken to sort this given the size of any issue, we're probably talking a few £'s, it's pretty clear no-one has had a proper look at this. I just want to finally get my account to the point where it's a normal account without anything odd (after THTC) so should I decide to move it'll be a straightforward task!

I wonder if they have enough staff on the job or indeed if they know what they’re doing it’s a mystery the time period it takes to sort customers issues