Pay as you go bill for debt! How is that possible?

Hey ​@Farib 

Sorry to hear about this.

There’s a couple of reasons a bill may have been produced here, but without access to accounts it can be tricky to tell why this might have occurred.

If you’ve not already been in touch with the Support Team about this I’d definitely recommend getting in touch with the team so they can take a look and verify this bill for you. They’ll be able to explain why this has been produced.

I do wonder when the new account has been set up to? If the new account was set up to a date in the past, then it will think you owe money for top ups that have been recorded on another account. It could be a number of things, so please do get in touch with support so they can check things over here.

Let us know how you get on

No risk of scrubbing here as we only remove content that violates our community guidelines and house rules. I’ve linked them below for anyone that hasn’t seen them. 

Yes, but OVO also use “at their discretion” meaning they can just remove what they want. Like links and then screenshots of all the fines OVO have received from OFGEM….

*edited by moderator* 

*edit* OR MY ENTIRE POST REGARDING THIS MATTER…
why has my conversation been deleted? 

So, respectfully, that just isn’t true.

You’ve also already fixed my issues, we had to change the email and that was it. Took 2 years of me waiting, arguing and slandering OVO on these forums to fix lol

It was an error on OVOs side, I had a letter and everything stating that…

Seems odd you would forget, Chris. 

Sometimes its best to take the criticism on the chin and learn from it :) 

Hi, im hoping someone here can point me in the right direction and help me get help resolving this matter. Ive opened 3 complaints within this time and have still bot heard from OVO.

i was away in hospital for a while and occurred some meter debt in the process. (Pre paid). 
i was topping up little by little hoping to get it down to 0 but over the snowy period we had this wasn’t very efficient as they was taking 70% of what i put on for debt. 
i called up and asked if there was any way i can pay the debt in one (over £100) instead of paying in chinks and receiving little credit, they said i can pay into a OVO bank account which was sent to me via my account email. So i then paid in full.

so calling back to confirm this, the line was cut off a few time so i enquired through web chat. 
by time ive got through to an agent over the phone-call and told my issue, they  advised me that this bank account was wrong and shouldn’t have been sent to me. During this i have sent a confirmation of the transaction via webchat. The agent on the webchat said wait 3-5 days for confirmation. And the advisor on the phone call said i would be called within 24hrs. This did not happen so i called back and was told 48hrs.

We are now a week later. i have phoned since and still get the same ‘someone will be in touch’ response. 

is there anything i can do to hurry this up? As i can no longer afford to top up the gas. 
any help is appreciated thanks.

Hi ​@Kjh2024 ,

I’ll need to ask ​@Chris_OVO and ​@Ben_OVO for advice on how to answer this one. Please bear with me!

Back soon!

Morning ​@Kjh2024 and a warm welcome to the OVO Forum.

If you’ve made a card payment then it’ll be sat in credit on your OVO account. The issue is just that, when you pay like this, it can’t be automatically added to your traditional PAYG meters.

This one should be straightforward for the complaints handler to fix. They could either send you the credit back as a cheque, or they could send a message to a PayPoint to clear the debt on the meters. You’d then go to a PayPoint with your key/card to pick up the credit, then put the key/card back into the meter, and this would wipe the debt. They’d then need to manually adjust the balance of your OVO account so that it’s no longer in credit. 

If you’ve raised a complaint with OVO, and have received an email back, hang tight, you’ll be contacted soon. Please rest assured - your money will not be lost. Give us a shout if you’ve got any further questions.

Lastly - I’d highly recommend getting smart meters installed, free of charge. You’d then be able to top up via an app, rather than going to the shop, and you’d run no risk of the sort of issues like the current one, that can happen with the older key/card meters. With smart meters, you’d also have the option to switch over to be a pay-monthly customer, so you could pay the bills as they come in, rather than topping up the meter, and risking going off supply.

You can find out more about smart meters below. If you’d like to book an appointment, ask the complaint handler when you hear from them. Cheers!

I am somewhat confusedas to why I am being asked to pay extra money as a bill after leaving OVO for another supplier.

The day I moved supplier, I took photos of my meter before putting in the key from other company which wiped the £23.01 credit that I had.

I have now received a final bill from OVO saying I owe £15 to them, which does not compute if ~I am paying in advance for electricity.

Can anyone shed any light on this??

Hey ​@Stewby 

Sorry to hear about this.

There could be a number of reasons as to why this could be there such as an emergency credit. We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum so it’ll be best to check with the Support Team who should be able to confirm where that’s come from. 

Let us know how you get on.

When, exactly, did you move from OVO? When was the last time that you topped up?

Traditional PAYG meters only connect with your energy company when you take your key to an outlet to top up. This is the only way that they communicate. Consequently, when prices/standing charges change (as they did on July 1st), your meter will continue to apply the old charges until your next top-up. (Sometimes, it takes more than one top-up to get the new charges applied to your meter). This means that it is possible to be in debt. 

You can request a charges breakdown from OVO showing all of the top-ups, all usage and the standing charges that have been applied to your account. This should explain how and why this debt happened.

Now my personal opinion about customers with traditional PAYG meter and all energy companies. I believe that they should advise their customers to make a small top-up as soon as possible after a price change and then check that the new charges have been applied to their meter. (They should be advised that this can take more than one top-up, so they may have to repeat these small top-ups.)

This is similar to the advice given to those with traditional credit meters: read and send meter readings as close to the start of a new tariff cost as possible. This allows bills to be as accurate as possible.

Of course, all customers with smart meters do not have to worry about this at all!

Have you got in contact with our Support Team yet ​@Stewby?

If you have a picture of the meter in credit please send this over to them - it could be that something’s wrong here - perhaps estimated readings have been used etc.