Traditional PAYG meter with blank screen

Had a power cut early Friday a.m for 10mins, went to top up my meter with key and have blank screen, called ovo sending out an engineer 18th Sept to replace with smart meter, but worried my credit is going to run out and have no electricity, the lady couldn't say if I would run out of credit, which I will do by the 18th, how can I get a sooner apt to have replacement 

The meter has gone into ‘Unlimited Vend’ mode due to the power cut and will need an engineer to reset, or replace, it.

So it's currently working more like a credit meter instead of PAYG.

If you still have electricity  despite the meter screen being blank, then that will continue until the meter can be sorted out. You won't run out of credit on such a meter.

It's like a ‘fail safe’ mode to make sure that you don't get cut off.

(However if for any reason it does stop supplying electricity then use the emergency contact, posted in green at the top of every page here, to get an emergency engineer out quickly to get you back on supply).

Be aware that you will eventually be charged for the electricity that you use while the meter is ‘unlimited’ like that, so you may want to put the money you would normally use to top-up on one side.

A PAYG meter going into unlimited credit mode is something that can happen during power cuts and there are a number of threads about it on here, eg:

PS. You'll like a new smart meter in PAYG mode,  you can top them up from home without having to go to the shops. (Handy when it's raining).

Thank you so much, I didn't know posting on here would work lol! You don't realise how much I appreciate the response, still nervous that I'm going to loose electricity lol! But that's just me, again thank you for your help 😊

Tracy

No worries. We’ll be here if ya need us for anything.

We’re not allowed to access your account, but you’ll often get something of an answer pretty fast, so feel free to stop by anytime. :)

Hey ​@Mayfly 

I’m glad to see a couple of our community members have already stopped by with some great advice here.

If you’ve not done so yet this morning, please do get in touch with the Support Team so they can look to get the meter changed over.

Do let us know how you get on or if you have any issues.

I have an engineer coming out the 18th Sept, so a little while to wait yet, but still have power today, again a huge thank you to everyone who has responded, 

Tracy ( mayfly) 

Hello,

Hope you can help on a PAYG traditional meter query on an unoccupied home which I visit infrequently. To summarize a long (aren’t they all?) OVO story:

• Meter went blank screen in Sept. ‘24, electricity supply remained on.
• A new SMART meter (set for PAYG) was installed 319 days later in July ‘25. So far so good, just don’t ask why it took so long!
• OVO now advise that there is an £800 balance to pay on the account. I was expecting a balance but since the property was unoccupied, nowhere this amount. Looking more closely, the details presented by OVO show Energy Used = 3080 units during the 319 days the meter was awaiting replacement. So approx. 9.7 units per day. 
• The SMART meter has now been running for 46 days and during this time Energy used = 53 units, so approx. 1.2 units per day.
• OVO’s customer care checked with the back billing team and advised their calculations are based on confirmation of the old meter reading by the engineer at the time the meters were exchanged in July this year. OVO also said they used a meter reading at the time the old meter went down last year to arrive at the difference. 

Is there any way to verify the meter readings used are correct? I can see no reason why there would be 8x the electricity used pre-SMART meter on an empty house.

Any help appreciated.

Thank you.

Howdy ​@wb93 !

To me, I think your best bet is to raise a Meter Reading Dispute on the basis that the old meter was possibly overclocking. This can take a while but there’s ways to try and get the estimated final reading much closer to what it actually was.

Try https://ovoenergy.com/feedback for this - it’s usually the best way.

Hello ​@Blastoise186,

That was quick!

Thank you very much for your suggestion.

Regards

I also think that you need to  raise a Meter Reading Dispute, however I see different grounds than a possibly overclocking meter.
In my opinion it simply looks like an estimated usage figure, with no consideration that the property is unoccupied.

I’d be asking just how the engineer read the old meter when the meter screen was blank?

PS. The engineer will have  (should have) left a card near the new meter with the old meter reading, if he could see one, and the new meter reading written on it.
So you should be able to check if he had actually noted any reading for the old meter.

To me it looks that what they have actually done is estimated usage from the last reading that they have until the meter exchange date, using ‘Industry Standard’ figures for average usage.

eg. From this 2024 OVO chart 3080 kWh could be about right for 319 days average for a bungalow/seni, or a detached:
https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/how-much-electricity-does-a-home-use