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Hi,

Our smart meter failed over the weekend which resulted in being without gas for nearly 24hrs? Can OVO provide answers to the questions below?

1. Why did the smart meter not proactivly inform me or Ovo that the meter was about to fail ? No warning it just died and left us ( family with 2 children under 5) without gas for heating,Hot water or cooking. Not very SMART ?

2. We thought the battery life of the smart meter was on avergae 10 years? this lasted 3 at best ? engineers that have visited say that on average its 2 -3 years? Why are we being informed its 10 years ? Essentially are we looking at replacements every 3 years? Not very SMART ?

3. Upon discovering we had no gas we tried to contact OVO out of business hours... which is a challenge , number on this site and on the internet are business hours only and it took a lot of searching to actually find an emergency contact. once we did get through we were informed that there was nothing they could do till 9am the following day?? We are in a heat wave but imagine this in the middle of winter with young children and no Gas?? Not very SMART?

4. When the emergency engineer did arrive the following day to replace our SMART meter they replaced it with a pre paid card meter ? Why? We didnt have a pre paid card meter before and didint want one, we want a replacement SMART meter like the one we had before.

5. So we contact OVO again this morning and a new job is raised to replace the incorrect Pre Paid card meter that was installed yesterday. The engineer arrives.... sorry i'm a pre paid card meter engineer and I cant replace the (incorrect) pre paid card meter with a smart meter that you require. Engineer leaves and we contact OVO again... another emergency job logged. Not very SMART !

So in summary its a dreadful customer expiriance and massivly inconveniant that working familes with young kids have to face such disruption to accommodate a process that is anything but SMART !

Why are smart meter batteries failing so fast? Why can we not easily contact OVO out of hours when we have no Gas? Why are we facing potentially havIng to be subjetced the the replacement of 3 meters to get back to the orginal smart meter we need? Why cant a failed smart meter just be replaced with a new smartt meter in one emergency callout ? Engineers onsite today informed me that they carry them but cant install them?

Look forward to OVOs reponse on how this is going to be resolved and how we will be compensated for the massive disruption to a long term customer, who after this experiance will be seriously questioning if they remain with OVO.

Hi @Adwatp if you need to you could try their social media where if you private message they do have access to your account (unlike here)

Twitter  -  https://twitter.com/OVOEnergy

Facebook  -  https://www.facebook.com/ovoenergy

Thanks

Getting no reply on Twitter

Really disappointing

Cant really believe how bad Ovo Customer Service is now compared to a while back

I have recommended Ovo a few times previously but never again

Getting no reply on Twitter

Really disappointing

Cant really believe how bad Ovo Customer Service is now compared to a while back

I have recommended Ovo a few times previously but never again

@Adwatp be good to know how you get on today after contacting OVO. 

@Jeffus Well …

Having phoned at 8.00 on monday  as the website says,  the phone message then says 9.00

So i tried the web chat.

Took about 10 minutes for someone to respond. Then went silent for about 40 minutes despite my prompts

So at 9.00 i phoned again and did actually speak to someone fairly promptly and should have an engineer out in about 3 hours

The web chat came back on as i was on the phone, so 1 hour after first trying web chat. They said they hadnt received my replies

 

So really not a great experience overall but hoping to have it sorted in the next few hours.

 

To get an engineer within 3 hours of calling is fine. Good in fact. And the contractor has since phoned to confirm.

 

But the overall experience so far has been very poor and stressful when trying to communicate with machines and getting nowhere and not knowing when an actual person might help you

Hi, our smart gas meter has failed and because it is Saturday we are struggling to talk to anyone in OVO who can help. It is looking like we will have to wait until Monday before anyone will answer the phone so we will have two days with no heating or hot water. I notice from the original post in this conversation from SalamancaRhodes that they managed to find an out of business hours number to call. I was hoping someone on here might know it to pass on? I live in hope!

Thanks!

   

… we are struggling to talk to anyone in OVO who can help.

 

The social media teams operate at the weekends. If you’re without heating, they may be able to arrange an emergency appointment. The Facebook team can be accessed using the blue button at the bottom of this page, while X is here:  OVO (@OVOEnergy) / X (twitter.com). They may be the same support agents answering in both places, and they can have access to your account and do most of the stuff that those who answer the phones on weekdays can do. You don’t have to have a Facebook account to use the Messenger chat.

 

Thanks Firedog, I did get in touch with them via Facebook and did get a reply asking for my name, address, account number and then they would look into it for me. Of course I immediately I supplied the information but have heard nothing back from them. You would think when a Smart meter failed it would immediately notify them as an issue. As my husband says, they can use a smart meter to charge us for use but funnily can’t use it as a notification of failure…..

 

Just to say, OVO did get back to me and sent out a technician who arrived half an hour ago and fixed the meter! Very impressed, contact via Facebook does work. 

So glad the system worked for you!

🙌

Hey @Reluctant 

 

Sorry to hear you were having some trouble with the smart meter over the weekend, but I’m really glad to hear the team were able to help you out yesterday and get an engineer out quickly.

 

If you’ve ever any other questions in future, don’t hesitate to pop back.😊

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