PAYG meter blank after power cut?

Hi @Blastoise186 thank you for replying.  Ive contacted OVO but as we do have electricity we are not an emergency,  I will try again tomorrow during ‘normal office hours’.  The eco 7 didn't kick in last night so we don't have any heating but thankfully we do not have any vulnerable people in the household to worry about.

Thank you for reassuring me that the my credit should be recovered 🤞 once the meter is sorted.

sammy

No worries. I’m here if you need me for anything else.

The reason for Free Vend Mode is basically to avoid you getting into a situation where you’re completely unable to top-up due to meter damage, or if the configs got corrupted by the power failure.

It’s ultimately better to just give the customer temporary unlimited credit until someone can swing by to fix things, than to cut them off for something beyond your reasonable control.

Just a follow up for anyone in the same position as me where a power cut has affected your electric meter and economy 7 no longer works.   
 

I contacted OVO (via web chat as could not get thru on the phone) on 15/01/24 and told them the situation.  I also said that I didn't have any heating because my off peak supply was not working therefore my storage heaters hadn't come on.  They arranged an appointment for an engineer to come out on 22/01/24, so I have had the last 10 days without heating just as temperatures took a turn for the worse 🥶

Anyway, an OVO engineer called in today and I have now had a smart meter installed.  However, he did say that because my off peak supply was not working I should have been made an emergency as I rely on that for heating my home.  He said I should have had an engineer out to me within 3 hours of reporting the problem not 7 days.

I kept screen shots of my web chat and I was asked ‘do you have supply to the property?’.  To which I replied ‘yes, but no heating’ as I assumed they meant do I have electricity which I did.  
 

So the moral of the story is, if you do not have your off peak supply working then you do NOT have supply to your property and should therefore get priority treatment.  
 

Have to say the engineer was lovely and Im now looking forward to waking up tomorrow to a much warmer house!

Thank you for pointing this out. I’m surprised that Support didn’t realize how critical heating is for all-electric customers at this time of year.

Not to alarm you, but we’ve recently seen several examples of new smart meters installed and set up for Economy 7 by the engineer where the heating didn’t come on the first night after all - my own included. So please check your meter readings before bed tonight: there will be two of them, probably called Rate 1 and Rate 2. Then, if you do wake up to a cold house tomorrow morning, note those readings again so you have some evidence for Support, who you’ll have to call again and tell that your heating didn’t come on. Don’t let them persuade you that ‘it will take some time to come right’ - it most probably won’t come right unless the metering team make a remote adjustment. 

If yours worked properly from day 1, please come back and say so! 

Hi @Firedog Im glad to say the economy 7 worked and we have woken up to a warm house!  

That’s brilliant! Thanks for telling us, and sorry to be such a pessimist 🙃

I’m not sure how significant this is - it depends a lot on the type of meter installed - but if it means that the installation fault several customers were seeing has been found and rectified, it’s really good news. 

Accidental post. Have edited

Had a power cut yesterday evening lasted about 2 hours, when  the power came on the display on the key meter I have was completely blank, tried all the solutions suggested (blue button, another top up etc) but nothing has worked. the power keeps going off  and on.  I had £108 credit on the meter.

telephoned OVO this morning and the person I spoke to who I could barely understand was of absolutly no help he was only interested in upgrading my meter !  I have the old style key meter. I explained my situation to him, I have a terminal illness, he told me OVO would only send an engineer out if the meter ran out of credit, there is no display its blank, so there is no way to know what the credit is. he stated that the earliest date for an upgrade. was the 11 May that's nearly 3 weeks away I don't want an upgrade I just want the meter fixed how hard can it be.

is there any way to escalate this.

Any help would be appreciated

Howdy ​@Old Smokie ,

It’s gone into Free Vend Mode as a safety measure, a type of Fail Safe so to speak. It will NEVER run out of credit until an engineer shows up. I’ll give ​@Ben_OVO a heads up so he can monitor this thread.

If you’re able to, I’d suggest using Live Chat for which the link is below - tell the agent the meter is in Free Vend Mode and requires replacement due to a blank screen meter fault. That usually gets the message through.

Your credit can be recovered by an engineer so don’t worry.

Unfortunately, the only solution these days is to replace the entire meter. I’d accept the earliest possible date as you will rack up a meter debt if the credit runs out as this is still being tracked - you just won’t get disconnected at this time.