Hi, I read today that People’s Energy have ceased trading as of yesterday. I already began my switch from them to OVO on the 7th of September (not received contract yet, only “Welcome” email). Can I assume, as per Ofgem guidlines, that the switch will proceed without any intervention from me? Many Thanks
Best answer by Jess_OVO
View originalI’ll have to assume the switch has occurred as I have a ‘welcome’ email and account number (had these during the abrupt smart meter chat too). I guess having your previous supplier go out of business during the switch process isn’t standard practice!
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Yup, it’s definitely not standard practice, but unfortunately it’s happening way more than I’d like to admit at the moment. On the plus side, it sounds to me like you’ve jumped ship fast enough and OVO will ask for your opening readings in the next few days, as long as the switch isn’t rejected somehow - you’ll be kept informed either way. The opening readings you provide to OVO will be forwarded to Green Energy, their administrators or the appointed supplier as the closing readings for your old account, which should allow the Final Bill to be generated and processed. Once you pay that off, you’ll have no further relationships with them.
Fortunately, the switching processes across the entire market are well designed and do factor in a supplier going bust partway through a switch. It generally works a bit like this.
I’m currently writing up a forum guide about this, as I think it’ll help a lot of people. Keep an eye out for it!
Hi
A great question to ask about the usual switching process, which shouldn’t be affected by the recent news - it sounds as though your Direct Debit is still active with your previous supplier. This is expected as your account with them isn’t finalised until we’ve had your opening meter readings confirmed around 6 weeks after you joined us.
Have you managed to login to your online account with us yet (or downloaded the OVO app? - Available for Android or iOS). If you’ve just switched this should show a holding page which confirms your switching date and allows you to submit your opening meter readings.
Let us know if you need any help getting logged in - we’ve also got a great online account tutorial collection you might wanna check out. 
Hi
When I log in it tells me I now have a billing period of 17th Sept - 16th Oct, and although i did provide opening meter readings on 17th it has asked for a further electricity reading, which i have now provided. (it also thinks i’ve used over 1000kw of gas in one day, which is interesting to say the least).
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Want the good news? That’s exactly what I’d be expecting to see if the switch to OVO is progressing normally. If you get prompted for the opening readings then that’s almost always a very good sign after all! So this makes me suspect your switch is almost complete in terms of getting you on-supply. The next stage after that will be closing down the old account with Green after you’ve gone off-supply with them (or whoever SoLR appoints to take their customers on).
That 1,000kWh Gas usage is a little strange, but it should resolve itself once you start submitting meter readings - please feel free to flag that up though if you wish. Once you’re fully on-supply, MyOVO will start to become more stable for you and you’ll be able to take full advantage of everything OVO offers. This forum is just the start! 
The exact steps are a little complicated and it’s mostly background stuff. But in a nutshell, OVO will forward the Opening Readings onto Green Energy (well, Green’s administrators in this case to be precise - and references to Green Energy in my comments should be treated as referring to whoever is handling their affairs as well) as Closing Readings and ask for them to be verified. This gives Green a chance to dispute the readings if needed and (assuming they don’t raise a dispute) for them to generate the Final Bill so you can pay it off. If you do owe anything to Green Energy, I would definitely recommend paying it off as soon as possible - their administrators will definitely appreciate it as it’ll make their life a lot easier. Likewise, they’ll make sure you get any spare credit back automatically if there’s any leftover after paying the Final Bill - in which case you can simply let the payment process handle everything automatically.
Once all that’s done, their system should normally proceed to close down the account and chuck it in the archives, along with disabling marketing and terminating all future payments. I don’t know if the usual automated processes would still work in the event SoLR is triggered, but I would imagine that somehow it’ll get taken care of by someone. Even if it has to be done manually, your spare credit is protected and you’ll get it back at some point in the future.
There’s been quite a few suppliers going bust recently and I think this forum is probably getting quite a lot of traffic because of it. So if you’re reading this thread and need advice on basically anything at all related to switching supplier (even if you’re not planning to switch to OVO!), please do feel free to ask for help on here. We’ll always try to advise the best we can!
Great to hear your online account is already up and running,
Just wanted to chip in hear with a bit of advice given the status of your previous supplier. The good news is the remaining credit balance on your account with them is protected by regulations from Ofgem and will be reimbursed, it may however take slightly longer to receive this refund than it would on a usual switch.
There’s more advice on the current energy market situation on our FAQs and recent Blog.
Hope this helps. 
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