Hi OVO community 👋 When I joined OVO I did not have any credit history for experian to pull a credit score on. This meant that I was asked to provide a £530 security deposit.
I then found out that the only way for me to see that money again was to close my account and find another supplier. I did this with my final bill sent 19th of December and paid for.
Over 5 months later, I have not received any information from their team about the status or timeline to expect the deposit to be returned. I have called many times throughout the months to parse out information from the customer support team but most of them are not familiar with returnig security deposits. They did mention that after the account is closed it goes to a payments team to review if there are any charges outstanding. It's important to stress that my account was with OVO for only 14 months and every bill was paid on time through direct debit. This should be a fairly simple thing to review.
I have lodged a complaint but that has gone unanswered and passed their 8 working day turnaround. Is the next step Ofgem? Has anyone else had similar issues with security deposits?
The OVO T&Cs have a few lines about the deposits process but with no timeframes [3.11]. I'm starting to wonder if this is intentional. Is OVO able to hold security deposits for as long as they wish as long as they are able to prove there is some vague review process ongoing.
It's one thing to delay the repayment, but the most frustrating part is the complete lack of communication from OVO. I have received no messages acknowledging the that they still have the deposit. It could arrive tomorrow, it could arrive next month, it could arrive long after we're all gone 💀. It means there is no way for me to rely on that money to financially plan during difficult times.
I'd love to hear your thoughts going forward. I genuinely liked OVO for their green values but this seems predatory towards people without good credit scores.
