Hello Nukecad

Thanks for your response, it’s appreciated.

I’ve never used emergency credit.

I’ve also never been made aware of any debt as a result of the handover from SSE to Ovo or otherwise.

To compound matters, I can’t create an online Ovo account - the page keeps reporting an error and to try again later. I employed Ovo customer services to help but all they could do was register me on the payment portal, which doesn’t give any account details.

I’m not happy at paying a 10% premium every time I top up so I suppose the only option is to go back to customer services? 😥

Online Services are not available for PAYG Customers, other than the OVO Top-Up App and PAYG Payment Portal. If you desire more access, you'll need to migrate to PAYM

Difficult to tell what may be going on here, but Is it a percentage or is it a set £5 amount?

ie If you top up say £30 then is it still £5 or only £3?

Which one it is may give someone a clue as to what may be causing it.

(An off the wall thought that is unlikely but just possible - how are you making the payments, and is it possible that your bank/card/service is taking a transaction charge each time?)

Hello Blastoise186

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Please forgive my ignorance but what is ‘PAYM’ please?

Hello Nukecad

Thanks for following up.

I’ve only ever topped up by £50 at a time. I’ll try an experiment later by topping up with different amounts, and over shorter periods, logging the results. At least then I will have clear evidence to present when the inevitable phone call takes place.

Please forgive my ignorance but what is ‘PAYM’ please?

PAY Monthly - in other words have the meter changed from a top-up account to a credit account where you either pay by direct debit or on demand as you get billed.

With smart meters that change can be done remotely without having to physically change the meter, which make it much faster to change your account type with just a phone call.

Thanks for clarifying Nukcad.

I have no intention of paying by direct debit, as I do not trust energy companies’ methods. Paying as billed is an option I hadn’t considered, so that is valuable advice.

After I have exhausted my experiments and consulted customer services on the same, it may be my only viable option, if I’m to keep abreast of my account.

Both you and Blastoise186 have been very helpful. Thank you.

I’ve never really had a problem with DD’s other than:

SSE were always setting them too low so you could get into debit balance if not careful.

OVO’s computer does sometimes tend to set them higher than needed, but if/when that happens then you can often put them down by 10% for 3-months yourself on your online account, or failing that phone support to get the DD amount reduced.

In the end though even if it is set a bit too high it’s still your money and just builds a credit on your account. (Yes, I know some people don’t like that either).

PS. Getting a bit technical here:
Why the recommended DD can sometimes be set higher than needed gets complicated, betwen us we have identified a few reasons why it can happen and what to do to fix them.
eg. Mine can currently be too high because of an error in my Future Assessed Consumption (FAC) for gas. (My electricity FAC is correct, it’s just the gas one that’s wrong).
I know why that FAC error started happening and have been sucessfully working on getting it down to where it should be simply by sending in more frequent meter readings. (A few weeks ago I got a new gas smart meter fitted and once OVO start getting daily readings from it the FAC should soon be correct again).

Hey ​@KBH 

Could it be that there’s an arrears balance being paid off?

The support team will be able to help with this. They’ll have access to your account.
 

How to get in contact about my OVO Pay As You Go account
 

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Hello Everyone, 

 I am emailing on behalf of my 19 year old daughter who lives alone and has been experiencing difficulties with Pay As You Go Meter since  shifting to this method from pay monthly around 6 weeks  ago.  

 Since moving to this method, the consumption of both her electricity and gas has gone through the roof. She is a new build one bed upper flat and to date this month has had to find approximately £150 to ensure supplies. She  receives Universal Credit and Ovo are already aware that she is struggling to pay bills. She put £25 on her electricity meter on  Monday evening and there was only £5 credit left by yesterday lunchtime ! She is in debt of approximately £513 to the company but has not formally set up any  repayment plan to  repay this from top ups though I wonder if this is what is happening. She enquired about repaying but was told that  the minimum repayment someone could make was £80 per month which is not feasible for her and seems a way for the creditors to penalise people in her circumstances with interest charges. She called OVO on Monday and was told that no-one could assist her in terms of checking that the meter was operating properly until she raised a “case” which would take around 5 - 10 days. She called again yesterday when her electricity credit had plunged from £25 to £5.09 in a day and again was told that she would not get help until the “case” was raised and advice given was simply “try and make the credit last”. She was told when trying to ask if they could confirm that repayment of the debt was taken from the account that  “they were not able to tell her that “ which seems absurd. 

 Hoping that  I might get help with the following :-

 When Case raised, is it best to ask for a specific person at OVO to deal/investigate ? I think have picked this up from previous posters.

Other than take pictures of her meter going down- is there anything else we can do meantime? 

 Is it possible for me to  pay her outstanding debt  and, how do I do that ? To be honest, I plan to advise her to  switch when cleared as all this  has been very stressful and very unfair. System seems impenetrable and complex and really needn’t be. 

 Any advice gratefully received ! 

Thanks, 

Liz