We were moved over to OVO from our existing supplier towards the end of last year. At Xmas our PrePayment meter stopped working, and it took until mid July to have the smart meter fitted by OVO- because we live rural on an island. There is no signal here so this new Smart meter has never worked, I think it’s in dummy mode. This leave us unable to top up or do anything and last Friday Ovo cut us off. They said the meter had come out of dummy mode and that an engineer would be out in 3 hours. There are no engineers here so hours later and after may calls a manager somewhere managed to get us switched back on. And today again at 10am we get cut off again, and again we wait three hours for the non existent engineer, so we now have to make many calls again to get someone somewhere to listen to us to connect us again - we’re being cut off because the meters aren’t working! I work from home and this is the 2nd full day I’ve had to leave home to work. Does anyone know how I can escalate this, to a member of OVO that knows how to get us switched back on or get a working meter to us sooner than 9 months? The call handler seemed to think it was acceptable that we go without electric for a full weekend.
How do we stop being cut off?
Best answer by Blastoise186
Updated on 25/07/25 by Ben_OVO
If you have a Pay As You Go meter and live in a remote area and/or there are vulnerabilities within your household, we’d recommend contacting our Support Team to request to be switched over to Pay Monthly. This will mean your meter won’t ever be cut off, and you won’t need to worry about topping it up. Switching to Pay Monthly can only be done if you’ve got a smart meter installed.
If there are vulnerabilities within your household we’d recommend signing up to the Priority Services Register.
Hi
Based on what you’re saying we would argue that Pay As You Go is NOT suitable for you, especially if the WAN Signal keeps dropping out. We’d strongly recommend you look at moving to Pay Monthly instead. Please call 0330 175 9669 to arrange that.
I’m sorry, but moving to another supplier will not fix this - the same WAN Signal is used by all suppliers.
+1- Plan Zero Hero
- Answer
Updated on 25/07/25 by Ben_OVO
If you have a Pay As You Go meter and live in a remote area and/or there are vulnerabilities within your household, we’d recommend contacting our Support Team to request to be switched over to Pay Monthly. This will mean your meter won’t ever be cut off, and you won’t need to worry about topping it up. Switching to Pay Monthly can only be done if you’ve got a smart meter installed.
If there are vulnerabilities within your household we’d recommend signing up to the Priority Services Register.
Hi
Based on what you’re saying we would argue that Pay As You Go is NOT suitable for you, especially if the WAN Signal keeps dropping out. We’d strongly recommend you look at moving to Pay Monthly instead. Please call 0330 175 9669 to arrange that.
I’m sorry, but moving to another supplier will not fix this - the same WAN Signal is used by all suppliers.
We just had someone come to bypass the meter while we await another meter, the problem is OVO not catering to rural areas where engineers aren’t available quickly and there should be a batch of meters available locally to allow for issues like this arising, the brand new meter they fitted didn’t work (why do they fit them in a rural area when they know the area has no signal?) seemingly a new meter will be coming on the plane but if that meter also doesn’t work we’ll be in the same situation!
+1- Plan Zero Hero
Which is why I suggested you migrate to Pay Monthly, so that you never risk getting cut off due to WAN issues.
Ultimately, the legacy infrastructure for Key/Card based PAYG Meters is slowly being taken apart and dismantled. Going back to that - assuming it’s even possible - will just delay the inevitable.
Hi
I’m really sorry for the issues you’ve been experiencing, that’s definitely not the experience we want for our customers.
I’m going to have our Forum_Support team reach out to you so they can help you further with this. Look out for a private message here soon: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview
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