Incorrect final bill and OVO won’t respond

I would like to add that it is now December so Ovo has been ignoring me since June!!! 

This is a user help forum, we don’t have access to customer accounts/billing here.
We are mostly other customers, and volunteers who have the experience to help customers get their issues resolved. There are also OVO employees here who can help smooth things internally at OVO.

In this case I would say that you have exhausted what you can do with Customer Services and need to escalate things.

Have you raised an official complaint? You don’t mention raising one.

If not then that is what you should do now, and you should do it by email (or by letter but as you are not in the UK that would be very slow)..
Don’t discuss things about this alleged debt on the phone, insist on email/letter so that you have a written record of what was said and when it was said.

See this for how to make your complaint and an overview of the complaint process.:

https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

PS. If things should get to the stage of Debt Collection agencies then I have advice on how to effectively deal with those. (Although things do get complicated with that if/when you live abroad).

I’m sorry about the problems you’ve had with OVO customer service people. They don’t always get it right …
  

There’s only one measure of ‘the appropriate amount’, and that’s the amount calculated from meter readings using the unit rates applying to the account. Do you have meter readings taken on the day you moved in (or the day you got the keys, if that was earlier) and again on the day you moved out (or your tenancy ended, if that was later)? If you do, it shouldn’t be hard to work out exactly how much you should have paid.

You may have been paying an estimate designed to cover the cost, but that would never match the actual cost precisely. A difference of £8,000 certainly sounds unlikely, though, so unless you were running an illicit cannabis farm there, it’s fairly clear that OVO made a mistake. You will need the readings and your calculations as evidence of the actual state of the account, both for the complaint you’ll be submitting and for the ombudsman if the case gets that far.

I have pictures of the meter when I moved in and when I moved out. I used approximately 5643m3 which is about 63004kWh. I calculated that to be about £4983 using their recent rates. That’s what I used for the 3.5 years I was living there. This seems about average for the size house we were in. Does these seem right? I just want to make sure I’m not miscalculating but I shouldn’t be off by £8000 regardless. 

Thank you for the help. I had a case number made from when it originally happened. I do not believe it was an official complaint. I used that link to place an official complaint. Hopefully I hear back from them soon. 

I've received a check following the closure of my electricity account how has the sum of money refunded been calculated 

hi ​@Flux 

Have you received your final bill for the closed account?

That final bill should tell you what your final balance was and how it had been worked out.
Iif it was in credit then it’s that credit balance which will have been refunded by cheque.

Thanks for your post ​@Flux and a warm welcome to the Forum!

Did you manage to work everything out in the end? As ​@Nukecad says, you should definitely have had a final statement if you’ve received the final refund. Check the final readings on the final bill to make sure they look ok and fall in line. If you’ve switched from OVO to another supplier you can check to see whether the reads match the reads used by the new supplier. 

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

Anyone know how to get through to speak to someone competent regarding an issue with my closed account for which I have an incorrect final bill which has now been moved to collections

I’ve made several formal complaints about it and got the complaint reference numbers but no one has ever contacted me about them.

Every time I phone up to speak to them I am told the complaints handler will be in touch within 24-48 hours and they never are.

In the meantime, I am phoned, texted and emailed daily by the Collections Department, I have called them back numerous times to explain the situation but they can’t/won’t do anything about it as that is “the process” 

The Customer Service person I just spoke today to told me that every time I make a new complaint about no one calling me about my previous complaint, the clock gets reset as the previous complaints are effectively deleted as being duplicate complaints.

The incompetence is astounding, I’d find it funny if they weren’t threatening to pass the info to Debt Collectors & Credit Reference Agencies.

 Any advice please ? 

Hi  markrow2

If I was in your position ( and absolutely certain that the final bill was incorrect ) then, due to lack of response from OVO, I’d take it to Citizens Advice initially to see what they recommend. Sometimes the only way to get these companies to take things seriously is to get a third party involved.

From experience elsewhere “deleted” isn’t quite what happens, as your rightly say that would be daft.

However I will admit that the effect of what actually happens is the same.

I’ll explain what it happening, why it’s happening, and what you can do about it:

What is actually going on is that each time you make a new contact that new contact is regarded by the system as being possible ‘New Information’ to your original complaint.

When you look at it that way then you can see that any ‘New Information’ changes what has already been said up to that point

When you give ‘New Information’ then that needs extra time to look at it.

There is a simple, effective, solution you can take:
Make your complaint and then, give them time to look into it. 
Unless you do have some actual new information to add then wait for their response.

Contacting them again every day or so isn’t going to speed things up, - and in fact by doing so you yourself are the one slowing the process down, - so stop doing it and wait for their response.

Yes, it can be frustrating waiting; particularly when the collections department is contacting you dsily.
When collections call you simply tell them that a complaint has been raised and you will not discuss the matter with collections until you have had a reply to that complaint, then politely hang up.
If they email or text then send a reply saying the same thing.

But you have to let complaints have time to deal with your complaint, making a new one every day or so is logged as ‘New Information’ and so isn’t giving them that time.

PS. You are not at that stage yer,  but if this should escalate to external Debt Collection Agencies (and it may do if you don’t give complaints time to respond) then you may want this:
 

​@markrow2 I’m really sorry to hear what’s happening here.

I’d recommend reaching out to our Social Media team if you’re not having any luck over the phone or by email.

You can reach the team using Facebook Messenger: https://www.facebook.com/ovoenergy/?locale=en_GB. Get in touch there and explain the issue, and that you’re not receiving replies to your complaints. Someone on the team will pick it up, and escalate it if need be. 

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate what you are saying and you taking the time to respond.

I have only contacted OVO again when it has gone beyond the 48 hours that they had promised to respond.
 

I will give them a few more days this time.

Hi again ​@markrow2.

You mentioned being told that ‘the clock gets reset’ every time you make a complaint. I just want to let you know that this is not procedure at all. These shortfalls, and any mis-advice you’ve received, should all be logged in the same complaint case, and all be taken into account when a resolution is offered.

Hopefully the Complaints team can fix this for you soon - keep us updated.