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Smart meter not worked for a year - Engineer appointments repeatedly cancelled!

T
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What are you supposed to do when engineers don’t bother to turn up for an agreed appointment. Metre hasn’t worked for a year!!!!!!!  My elderly sister who lives alone is at her wits end with worry about her bills and she hasn’t had her metre working in nearly a year. She has short term memory loss and is assisted by carers yet Ovo consistantly break promises about sending someone out to check the smart metre. They are totally aware that it doesn’t work. They tell lie upon lie. Customer service is shocking!!!!!!

So what would everyone do????????

  

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Best answer by Jeffus 29 July 2022, 20:15

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Jeffus
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Updated on 20/07/23 by Emmanuelle_OVO

Hi @tracydawes you sister is entitled to £30 compensation for every missed appointment and another £30 compensation if the £30 is not paid within 10 days under the ofgem rules

So put in either a £30 or £60 claim for each missed appointment.

Also worth her signing up for priority register if she isn't already 

https://www.ovoenergy.com/register-for-priority-services

You can also add yourself/one of her carers as a contract on the account (first option on the link below). They won't be financially liable. 

https://help.ovoenergy.com/article/7976f0bb-1e79-4e6c-b390-f17525f0cc91-web

A link if you want to make a complaint

https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

M
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OVO will try to get out of paying the £30 when engineers don’t turn up and don’t bother to call to say they won’t be turning up. I’m my case this was when my meter (SMETS1) was not communicating with OVO or my smart meter (smart tracker in my case) and OVO assigned an SMS engineers to attend and fix the problem.

on the far too many times an SMS engineer failed to turn up and when I complained OVO attempted to avoid paying the £30 fee for each failed visit by saying that it was not an OVO engineer that failed to turn up so therefore the £30 was not applicable in those cases😡

I pointed out my contract was with OVO and not SMS and if OVO chose to send an SMS engineer to fix the fault then that is down to OVO and OVO are still liable !!

They eventually agreed and said I would receive £60 compensation, but I am still waiting for the payment!!!! 😡

 

OVO’s Customer Service is diabolical! 

T
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Jeffus

i assume you represent Ovo?

im already the person responsible for her affairs and already recognised by Ovo as such. 
compensation? What use is that when you just won’t fix the metre? I’m already in the complaints procedure with Ovo and have been offered £30 but if you don’t fix the problem what use is £30 to someone who is vulnerable and worried sick that they may owe money, especially at this time when energy bills are rocketing!

it’s not been working for over a year! What’s wrong with you that you seem to think it’s fine to treat an elderly person this way. Your service and behaviour is appalling 

tTracy

Blastoise186
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Jeffus is one of the OVO Forum Volunteers, but he does not work for OVO himself and neither do I. As we’re forum volunteers, we both help out on the OVO Forum in our spare time and act in a personal capacity and there’s others like us too. We’re unable to access your account or make any changes from here, so this isn’t the place to direct complaints and definitely not the ideal place to vent at the volunteers.

To sort out the goodwill payments, you’ll need to keep talking to the complaints team.

If you’d like us to, we can try to help with diagnostics though. Please show us photos of the meters in question and we’ll see what we can figure out.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Jeffus
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Jeffus

i assume you represent Ovo?

im already the person responsible for her affairs and already recognised by Ovo as such. 
compensation? What use is that when you just won’t fix the metre? I’m already in the complaints procedure with Ovo and have been offered £30 but if you don’t fix the problem what use is £30 to someone who is vulnerable and worried sick that they may owe money, especially at this time when energy bills are rocketing!

it’s not been working for over a year! What’s wrong with you that you seem to think it’s fine to treat an elderly person this way. Your service and behaviour is appalling 

tTracy

Hi @tracydawes no i don't work for OVO, have never worked for OVO, don't get paid by OVO, am a relatively new customer of OVO as i joined just last year

I am just a customer like you. I also look after two vulnerable brothers, my adopted brother who is currently under a suicide crisis team, and a younger disabled brother with cadasil. I really do understand your pain and frustration. 

I am really sorry my post didn't help, it was done with the best of intentions. I hope you get it sorted and feel free to ask anything else in case any of us can help.

Sorry

F
Rank

OVO fitted smart meters 9 months ago at my home.

They don't work. Engineers have tried three times to commission them but they are in an error state and they say they need changing. 

I've had monthly appointments with OVO to try to sort this out for the last 9 months.  Mostly they fail to turn up and I get a GSOP payment. 

Today's appointment was supposed to be to change the faulty meters but the engineers job sheet said it was to commission them. He tried and failed and said he couldn't exchange them as that wasn't on his job sheet.

I phoned OVO and spoke to two agents who both said the job they sent was for an exchange of meters. They refused to give a GSOP even though the chap who turned up couldn't even try to do what he had been booked in to do between me and OVO. 

They then insisted I had to answer a series of questions which they emailed to me before the meters could be exchanged. I duly replied with the answers and the email has bounced back saying the address is not used. Furthermore there were no contact details on the email and I can't find email details on the website. As they want a photo and a video I do need to email the info. 

Can anyone help?

I'm at the point of just accepting that I have 2 smart meters that aren't very smart, and giving up on the whole idea of having working smart meters at all. 

 

T
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My god.    This is one reason why im not going down the smart meter route.    I hope you get this sorted……   This sort of things puts me off biting the bullet and getting one, even though ovo are putting the pressure on for everyone to get one.

F
Rank

I haven't got high hopes of sorting it. I only got the non-smart meters because they paid me £50 to do so. 

With fuel costs going up it would be a good way of showing the teens just how much their 30 minute showers cost (if the meters worked), in the hope they shorten them! 

Jeffus
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Hi @FedupOVOcustomer

I have done this before to send ovo an image. 

You could send OVO a  private message via their twitter feed.

The twitter feed is an official support channel. The OVO staff there can access your account.

You can attach videos and pictures to the private message together with some text to say why you are sending.

You will need to provide your name, date of birth, address and account number for security purposes in the message

 

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hey @FedupOVOcustomer,

 

Sorry for the experiences you’ve had. 

 

You can contact Support through web messenger with the responses to the smart meter health check, you will also be able to upload images. Here are some tutorials you may find helpful:

 

 

I’d advise getting Support to call the engineering company directly to book the appointment, this way there is less likely to be a miscommunication. 

 

Hope this helps. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
A
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Trust me fedupOVOcustomer…….you aren’t the first and most certainly wont be the last person to have issues with a “smart meter”…I have an on going problem with my smart meter, one which involves the meter giving fictitious readings which results in OVO sending me very LARGE gas bills. I have been trying for weeks to get it sorted but OVO are unsure what to do!

Tim_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hi @Alf let’s see if our Forum_Support team can help move this forward. They’ll reach out to you via a private message shortly.

 

Tim

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
Sherlock Holmes
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I have smart meter installed by SSE. Both are working fine. OVO claim that they have not had  am electric meter reading since 2nd September. I did try ringing the customer service line but with no joy. The gas readings are uploading just fine.

Surely the onus is on the provider, ie OVO to ensure correct readings are being sent. After all in my online account, it is asking ME to send an electric reading! 

 

My question is this. I am meant to be a priority customer. Surely they should send someone out to read the meter, if they themselves know something is not quite right. So is liability for incorrect readings on them and not me?!! And if it is found that I have been overcharged or to play devils advocate would they be liable since I have done nothing wrong! Its THEIR technology!! 

 

juliamc
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Just a though @Sherlock Holmes is the meter reading set to ‘monthly’ for the electric one? The gas and electric meters may be set differently (mine were). You could enquire during opening hours via Chat from your online account - that worked quite quickly for me and they were changed the next day.

Tim_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 7

As well as what Julia advised about the smart meter reading schedule set to daily or half hourly, @Sherlock Holmes you’re able to request meter read visits as part of the ‘Priority Services Register’. 

 

If the smart meter actually has something preventing it from sending your readings remotely, it will behave just like the meter that came before it. Your usage will be estimated inbetween any manual meter readings being submitted. To diagnose a communication issue with the smart meter, see this guide:

 

 

Our Support team will also be able to let you know if there’s no readings being sent remotely, if that’s easier. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
S
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Have an appointment for an engineer next month to fix my long time non functioning smart meter.  Can't find the appointment email.  Anywhere I can find it on my account to save ringing them?

Blastoise186
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If you’ve lost the email, you’ll need to contact OVO to resend it. There’s no other way to get it back.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!

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