Hi ​@Bonesy ,

Doesn’t sound like anything OVO has done to me. I’d say it’s more likely you’ve got a faulty Meter and I’d recommend having it replaced.

You’ll also want to ask OVO to investigate why the Meter is doing this, so definitely bring that up too!

One thing I would say that may explain what you say there.

When you go into emergency then the meter stops taking a daily standing charge and only counts your actual use.

You don't want to be paying daily standing charges when in an emergency.

So when it says £8 left that is £8 of usage left - Not including the standing charges that have already been missed.

When you do top up again it will take off your top up amount what you have actually used PLUS the standing charges that it hasn't been clocking up each day while you have been on emergency.

Which could explain the difference- it's the standing charges which only get taken when you do top up.

It would be odd though if it was exactly £10 each top up, it should depend on how many days you have been using emergency.

Thank you for replying,  as a test,tomorrow I  will put another £10 on whilst in credit and see what happens. As far as I'm aware the standing charge for this meter is £3 and a bit per week so £10 taken from each of my last 3 weekly top ups is not right by any means. Charging extra for using the emergency was stopped many years ago in any case so that cannot be a thing either. In regards to a faulty meter, maybe but the meter is told what to do by the key itself, I've noticed the rates were updated this way successfully not long ago so I guess I will see what happens tomorrow. Once again thanks for replies. 

Please let us know what happens when you top up while in credit.

As already touched on -  if its an older ‘traditional’ meter then you might want to consider contacting support once we are in the new year and getting it replaced with a new meter.

Most older ‘traditionsl’ meters are reaching end-of-certification so need to be replaced.

Hey ​@Bonesy 

I can see our community members have already given some helpful advice here. Please keep us posted with how you get on. The topic hub may have some useful information: 
 

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

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Hi, yes yesterday I  did pop round to my local shop for a £10 top up as I said I would. Checking the meter before I  put the credit in and it was reading £8.83. When the key was inserted the meter told me the key had £10 on it and it did add that on exactly leaving me with £18.83 as it should. Thinking about the daily charge from previous observations and I'm pretty sure it takes a weekly charge all in one go on a certain day.. Going forward I think I will top up every 2 days for a while and try and avoid using the emergency credit just to see how it goes. Interestingly though after chatting with my other half who I had transferred the account over to about 18 months ago when I was very ill she said she had had some real problems with SSE resulting in many phone calls. She still gets letters every month saying that we haven't topped up in a while even though we do. She said that at one point after giving them the meter id number they told her it was not registered to us but to a neighbour in the HMO house next door who had incidently moved out 6 months previously  hmmmm. Apparently it all got sorted but I'm now thinking did it. I will investigate further but have a feeling that there may still be some issues here.

That is interesting, if that is the case then your meter may just possibly be taking an amount to pay off a debt owing from the HMO's electricity account.

That's definitely something that you need to look into further, is you meter taking an amount for debt? (someone elses debt).

It can take a while for an incorrect meter serial number to get fully corrected, I know from experience.

My gas meter had an incorrect number registered follow a meter excahnge that for technical reasons never actually happened .
Following the aborted exchange somehow the never fitted new meter number got registered instead of the old one that was still fitted and still working.
It took me two goes to get it corrected at OVO, because after I'd done it once someone 'helpfully' put it back to the never fitted one.
I later found out that had probably happened because although it had been corrected at OVO for my billing it was still incorrrect on the national database. Once that was realised OVO requested that it be updated on the national database.

TBH though I’m not sure if the general customer support could check that, let me try something ‘backstage’ of the forum for you. Bear with me it may take a couple of days with it still being holiday time for many.

PS. That could be another reason to consider getting the current meter changed to a Smart Meter, you would then have a new meter serial number assigned to your property.
You might want to sort out just what is currently happening first though, changing the meter now could make it difficult to investigate just what is going on with things as they stand.

Thank you, I  will gather some of those letters saying that we have topped up for a while as they may well be relevant in regards to what they are actually referring to, account/meter.

A new meter is probably the best way to go but originally I was warned by an independent electrician friend that they were rushed out and would cause many problems for the first few years. I would hope they have had plenty of time to iron out any issues by now lol.

I can tell you that SMETS1 was definitely rushed, but SMETS2 is FAR superior and way more reliable. Pretty much all the early issues have been resolved as a result.

If you were to upgrade now, there’s a 100% chance you’d get SMETS2.

Hey ​@Bonesy ,

We’ve discussed this backstage and we think the main OVO Support Team should be able to handle this. Feel free to ask them via Live Chat at https://ovoenergy.com/help when it’s convenient.

To reduce the amount of typing you need to do, feel free to tell the agent we sent you over and provide a link to this Forum thread. Ask the agent to read through it and give them a few minutes to go through the discussion - this should tell them everything they need to know and what the next steps are.

Let us know how you get on! We’re here if you need us. :)

Mainly the issues that you do still see nowadays are not with the Smart Meters themselves but with the communication network coverage.

Some areas, and some local locations, can still have an issue connecting to the required network - but the meter is still metering as it should and just needs help to communicate that, in other words the customer sending a manual reading rather than the meter sending it over the airwaves.

Just like with mobile phones* coverage can vary from place to place and time to time.

*In the South of the UK smart meters do generally use the 3G or 2G phone network, with updates to 4G starting to happen.

In the North though they communicate by a long wave radio signal instead.

Both systems have their blackspots, or can have outages at times.

As usual it's rural areas that tend to be the most affected by poor or no signal.

We are currently seeing a lot of that in Scotland where a big change in what radio signal they use is underway and a lot of old ‘RTS’ meters are having to be replaced before they stop working altogether later this year.