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My bills have increased this month, am I being billed correctly?

  • 25 January 2024
  • 28 replies
  • 637 views
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i think there might not be anything i can do since the gas per unit prices has increased in jan 2024 as announced before.

 

so OVO take my readings automatically which is correct, however i regularly chekc my account, it was £90 last i checked 2-3 days ago, when i checked yesterday, it has now shot up to £215...talk about having a heart attack lol.

 

my mum is on holiday so im currently in the house by myself in a three bedroom, i only use the heating for 5 hours per day since start of december. il show picture showin december 2023 and then this month:

 

^ left hand side is gas for decemebr, right being january this month.

 

how has it gone up 6x?

my last bill was £160 for gas and elec, now i could potentially pay in the next bill £330-£350

 

can someone help me with this please? is there a way round this at all?

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Best answer by azam216 29 January 2024, 13:54

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Firedog
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That looks scary. Can you please show us the meter readings for this month and last month? That’s what the usage figures you show are based on, so there may be an error in converting readings to consumption. We’ve seen conversion errors before, so if this is what has happened, you can relax for a bit.   

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
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25 Jan 2024 08077.881 Smart
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15 Dec 2023 07851.023 Smart
Firedog
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Thank you. That’s not a lot of data - I was hoping to see all your daily readings. Not to worry, though, because we can make some deductions from these numbers alone.

In the 41 days from 15 December to 25 January, you used  227 units of gas, or on average 5.5 a day. This should translate to about 62 kWh a day, yet your figures from 11 January are much higher. What I think has happened is that the account has suddenly started treating the gas usage as if it were measured in cubic feet instead of cubic metres. As a rule of thumb, you can multiply gas units in cubit feet by 32 to get kWh, but multiply units in cubic metres by 11.

This should be obvious from the billing details: just compare the gas used with the kWh figures - if the kWh are ~32 times the gas units, you’re seeing the same error as several other customers. The system thinks you’re reporting cubic feet, not cubic metres.

You’ll have to contact Support and tell them what you’ve found out, and ask them to get the billing team to correct the error.

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
A
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Thank you. That’s not a lot of data - I was hoping to see all your daily readings. Not to worry, though, because we can make some deductions from these numbers alone.

In the 41 days from 15 December to 25 January, you used  227 units of gas, or on average 5.5 a day. This should translate to about 62 kWh a day, yet your figures from 11 January are much higher. What I think has happened is that the account has suddenly started treating the gas usage as if it were measured in cubic feet instead of cubic metres. As a rule of thumb, you can multiply gas units in cubit feet by 32 to get kWh, but multiply units in cubic metres by 11.

This should be obvious from the billing details: just compare the gas used with the kWh figures - if the kWh are ~32 times the gas units, you’re seeing the same error as several other customers. The system thinks you’re reporting cubic feet, not cubic metres.

You’ll have to contact Support and tell them what you’ve found out, and ask them to get the billing team to correct the error.

 

thank you massively for that, im really grateful. i have emailed them, i hope they can fix this asap...this gave me a heart attack lol

A
Rank

Thank you. That’s not a lot of data - I was hoping to see all your daily readings. Not to worry, though, because we can make some deductions from these numbers alone.

 

Date Reading Type
25 Jan 2024 08077.881 Smart
24 Jan 2024 08072 Smart
11 Jan 2024 07900 Manual
15 Dec 2023 07851.023 Smart

 

^ thats the only ones that appear on my account, would this change ur answer or it doesnt make a difference?

Abby_OVO
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Userlevel 6

Hey @azam216 

 

Sorry to read about this issue.

 

Glad to hear you’ve already emailed the team about this. It might be worth giving them a message too, that way you could put your mind at easy a little sooner.

 

It’s tricky for us on the Forum to tell exactly what might have gone on here as we don’t have access to accounts. We’ve had a few other topics about the issue Firedog mentioned, I’ve linked to these below, so may be worth checking these out before contacting the team if you do;

 

 

As I said, we can’t be sure this is the issue without the full picture of the account which the Support Team have. Let us know how you get on with this.

Location: Electric Avenue
Jeffus
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Userlevel 7
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Thank you. That’s not a lot of data - I was hoping to see all your daily readings. Not to worry, though, because we can make some deductions from these numbers alone.

 

Date Reading Type
25 Jan 2024 08077.881 Smart
24 Jan 2024 08072 Smart
11 Jan 2024 07900 Manual
15 Dec 2023 07851.023 Smart

 

^ thats the only ones that appear on my account, would this change ur answer or it doesnt make a difference?

Do they stop on 25th Jan?

Normally you would expect a smart reading every day if everything was working OK.

A
Rank

Hey @azam216 

 

Sorry to read about this issue.

 

Glad to hear you’ve already emailed the team about this. It might be worth giving them a message too, that way you could put your mind at easy a little sooner.

 

It’s tricky for us on the Forum to tell exactly what might have gone on here as we don’t have access to accounts. We’ve had a few other topics about the issue Firedog mentioned, I’ve linked to these below, so may be worth checking these out before contacting the team if you do;

 

 

As I said, we can’t be sure this is the issue without the full picture of the account which the Support Team have. Let us know how you get on with this.

il keep you guys updated, something tells me they will fob me off but we will see

A
Rank

Thank you. That’s not a lot of data - I was hoping to see all your daily readings. Not to worry, though, because we can make some deductions from these numbers alone.

 

Date Reading Type
25 Jan 2024 08077.881 Smart
24 Jan 2024 08072 Smart
11 Jan 2024 07900 Manual
15 Dec 2023 07851.023 Smart

 

^ thats the only ones that appear on my account, would this change ur answer or it doesnt make a difference?

Do they stop on 25th Jan?

Normally you would expect a smart reading every day if everything was working OK.

well bear in mind 25th jan was only yesterday lol

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hey @azam216,

 

I’ll get Forum_Support to reach out, please keep an eye on your private messages. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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Hey guys, as I thought...OVO are now saying it's justified, please see their reply below:

 

I know you mentioned that you were worried we may have been accidentally billing you to cubic feet instead of metric units. I have had a metering agent in my team investigate your account and they have confirmed that your meter has never been billed to imperial units before and the billing is accurate.

Your meter is on daily readings however I have noticed that it does skip a few days likely due to signal issues which means that the usage may look larger on some occasions due it accounting for multiple days of usage so when calculating your gas usage please remember to divide the amount used over the missed days as well to reflect your actual usage.

Regarding the high usage compared to your last billing period I have taken a look at your account and can see that from the 10/11/2023 to the 9/12/2023 your gas charges were £139.23 which does fall in line with this month's usage so I would advise taking a look to see if you have any new appliances or if your using your heating more than usual which is to be expected during winter.

To confirm, the meter is being billed accurately to metric units and we have been unable to detect any faults so the increased usage is likely due to a change in your household. For energy savings tips please feel free to consult your online account or check out the below links:

https://helpforhouseholds.campaign.gov.uk/energy-conservation/

https://www.cse.org.uk/

 

 

^^ wat U guys think?

Jeffus
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Userlevel 7
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Hey guys, as I thought...OVO are now saying it's justified, please see their reply below:

 

I know you mentioned that you were worried we may have been accidentally billing you to cubic feet instead of metric units. I have had a metering agent in my team investigate your account and they have confirmed that your meter has never been billed to imperial units before and the billing is accurate.

Your meter is on daily readings however I have noticed that it does skip a few days likely due to signal issues which means that the usage may look larger on some occasions due it accounting for multiple days of usage so when calculating your gas usage please remember to divide the amount used over the missed days as well to reflect your actual usage.

Regarding the high usage compared to your last billing period I have taken a look at your account and can see that from the 10/11/2023 to the 9/12/2023 your gas charges were £139.23 which does fall in line with this month's usage so I would advise taking a look to see if you have any new appliances or if your using your heating more than usual which is to be expected during winter.

To confirm, the meter is being billed accurately to metric units and we have been unable to detect any faults so the increased usage is likely due to a change in your household. For energy savings tips please feel free to consult your online account or check out the below links:

https://helpforhouseholds.campaign.gov.uk/energy-conservation/

https://www.cse.org.uk/

 

 

^^ wat U guys think?

That looks reasonable

Everything from 15th Dec to 23rd Jan were simply an estimate, and in fact a low estimate to start with. Adjusted by a single manual reading.

You didn't get any smart meter reading in that period. They are not real usage. The drop between 14 and 15 Dec shows the issue with estimates

The 14 Dec and 24 Jan have similar data as they are both based on smart meter data and are real usage around 60kWh a day

You only get billed what is on this page. So keep an eye out to see if they have settled down to daily again. If you keep seeing missing daily readings contact ovo again. Entering more frequent manual readings when smart readings drop out will help if it happens again.

https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings

You don't get billed what is on this page which is your screenshot above

https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage

The usage page can be very confusing when smart meter readings stop for whatever reason. Particularly as the estimated data can look real when it is displayed to 2 decimal places.

 

A
Rank

On OVO website it doesn't give me an option to regularly manually enter my readings.

 

I don't understand when they say "Your meter is on daily readings however I have noticed that it does skip a few days likely due to signal issues ​​​​​​"

 

^ but nothing missing, you can see all December to January unless they are referring to the below:

 

DateReadingType25 Jan 202408077.881Smart24 Jan 202408072Smart11 Jan 202407900Manual15 Dec 202307851.023Smart

Jeffus
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Userlevel 7
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On OVO website it doesn't give me an option to regularly manually enter my readings.

 

I don't understand when they say "Your meter is on daily readings however I have noticed that it does skip a few days likely due to signal issues ​​​​​​"

 

^ but nothing missing, you can see all December to January unless they are referring to the below:

 

DateReadingType25 Jan 202408077.881Smart24 Jan 202408072Smart11 Jan 202407900Manual15 Dec 202307851.023Smart

Yes I mean that data. That is what you are billed.

Everything on table on the usage page below is made up between 15th December and 23rd Jan

It is an estimate, it is not real. The split by day is a guess. It is not used for billing 

Add up all the usage on this page between 15th Dec and 23rd Jan, then divide by the number of days. I can’t do it as the screen shot doesn't include all the days. Else i would do it for you. What does that work out as?

 

A
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^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

A
Rank

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

On OVO website it doesn't give me an option to regularly manually enter my readings.

 

I don't understand when they say "Your meter is on daily readings however I have noticed that it does skip a few days likely due to signal issues ​​​​​​"

 

^ but nothing missing, you can see all December to January unless they are referring to the below:

 

DateReadingType25 Jan 202408077.881Smart24 Jan 202408072Smart11 Jan 202407900Manual15 Dec 202307851.023Smart

Download the app and you can enter manual readings at any time if you find the smart meter readings are missing for a long time again.

Do this rather than the website for meter readings if it happens again 

 

Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

So... that was an example of the guess being too high.

Look at Dec 15th that is an example of the guess being too low

OK?

A
Rank

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

So... that was an example of the guess being too high.

Look at Dec 15th that is an example of the guess being too low

OK?

Yes ok

Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

So... that was an example of the guess being too high.

Look at Dec 15th that is an example of the guess being too low

OK?

Yes ok

OK so you can see some guesses are too high and some too low.

You had a smart meter reading on 15th Dec and then not until 24th Jan. So the system was trying to guess each day during that period. Sometimes it guessed to low, other times to high.

You typically use around circa £4 to £6 a day in winter. You can see that on the days you have smart meter reading. Typically around 60kWh a day.

OK?

A
Rank

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

So... that was an example of the guess being too high.

Look at Dec 15th that is an example of the guess being too low

OK?

Yes ok

OK so you can see some guesses are too high and some too low.

You had a smart meter reading on 15th Dec and then not until 24th Jan. So the system was trying to guess each day during that period. Sometimes it guessed to low, other times to high.

You typically use around circa £4 to £6 a day in winter. You can see that on the days you have smart meter reading. Typically around 60kWh a day.

OK?

ok got ya

Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

So... that was an example of the guess being too high.

Look at Dec 15th that is an example of the guess being too low

OK?

Yes ok

OK so you can see some guesses are too high and some too low.

You had a smart meter reading on 15th Dec and then not until 24th Jan. So the system was trying to guess each day during that period. Sometimes it guessed to low, other times to high.

You typically use around circa £4 to £6 a day in winter. You can see that on the days you have smart meter reading. Typically around 60kWh a day.

OK?

ok got ya

So 

Dec 15th smart meter reading was 7851.023

Jan 24th smart meter reading was 8072

8072-7851.023 = 220.977 between those dates 

A quick way to roughly convert that to kWh you multiply by 11

220.977 * 11  = 2430 .747 kWh

So between Dec 15th and Jan 24th you used 2430.747 kWh. This is what you will be billed and pay for over a 40 day period between those smart meter readings.

2430.747/40 = 60.8 kWh a day on average between those dates

So you haven't used any more than normal over the period Dec 15th and Jan 24th when the smart meter readings were not getting to ovo

Everything looks good

OK?

 

 

A
Rank

^ you can see from above all of december and january. i still have to contest what happened on january 11th till january 23rd. look at jan 24th till the 28th (yesterday)….its kind of in line of my normal use before 11th january.

 

i assure everyone that what happened between jan 11th-23rd is no different that any other day...in those 12 days i did not use more gas, i have used same amount of gas for my heating everyday….nothing more. i dont know what to do now

Hi,

I appreciate it is confusing.

So look at Jan 11th. It says £11.14

1. This isn’t what you used on this day

2. Your smart meter sent no information to OVO on that day

3. It is just the computer having an educated guess on usage to display on that page

5. You are not billed that amount.

Before I post anything else does that make sense?

Ok yes understood so far

So... that was an example of the guess being too high.

Look at Dec 15th that is an example of the guess being too low

OK?

Yes ok

OK so you can see some guesses are too high and some too low.

You had a smart meter reading on 15th Dec and then not until 24th Jan. So the system was trying to guess each day during that period. Sometimes it guessed to low, other times to high.

You typically use around circa £4 to £6 a day in winter. You can see that on the days you have smart meter reading. Typically around 60kWh a day.

OK?

ok got ya

So 

Dec 15th smart meter reading was 7851.023

Jan 24th smart meter reading was 8072

8072-7851.023 = 220.977 between those dates 

A quick way to roughly convert that to kWh you multiply by 11

220.977 * 11  = 2430 .747 kWh

So between Dec 15th and Jan 24th you used 2430.747 kWh. This is what you will be billed and pay for over a 40 day period between those smart meter readings.

2430.747/40 = 60.8 kWh.

So you haven't used any more than normal over the period Dec 15th and Jan 24th when the smart meter readings were not getting to ovo

Everything looks good

OK?

 

 

thank you for explaining all of that...i am grateful believe me.

 

part of me still feels that they have overcharged me and i could be paying near £300 when the final bill comes in 11 days time. my previous bills were the following:

 

10 dec - 9th jan - £164

10 nov - 9 dec - £220

10 oct - 9 nov - £190

10 sept - 9 oct - £167

1 july - 9 aug - £151

 

i cant recall as to why oct - dec was around £200 which dissapoints me not gonna lie but on average bills are usually around £160 as you can see….even prior to july it was like this or cheaper. something within me is telling me ovo have overcharged me for sure….but it seems like i cant do anything further.

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