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Good morning, please could you let me know why Ovo have objected to the following supply transfer to TGP -  I have sent emails but I have not received any replies to date

I just moved into a property that the previous supplier was ovo. I wanna make the switch and the new supplier tried 4 times already and they said there is an objection on my switch. I have contacted customer support multiple times and despite their reassurance I keep getting objection on my switch. This is very disappointing. I raised a formal complaint with no response from the email. I am very frustrated with this situation. Can anyone from ovo team help me? 


Have you registered yourself with OVO as the new owner/tenant of the property and set up an account with OVO?

Whenever you move into a new property it is usual/normal that you need to register yourself as a new account with the current supplier, in this case OVO.
You give them the meter readings when you move in and those are the starting readings for your new account*.
You can then switch to a different supplier if you choose to.

If you haven’t done that, and/or if the previous owner/tenant hasn’t properly closed their account, then the account for the property may well still be showing as the previous owner/tenants account - and if that account is in debt then that could be what is preventing a switch to a different supplier.

(*If the property has been empty for a while then there may be an issue of who is responsible for the standing charges and/or any energy used between occupants).

 


I have created an account also the customer service reassured me there are no outstanding debt. 


Have you asked OVO just why they are raising Objections, and what you can do to resolve matters?
They are required to tell you those, it’s in the terms of their Licence.
(But to be honest here - if the computer is doing it automatically then customer support may be guessing as much as we are).

Failing that has the new supplier been able to give you any details of what the “objection” is about?

Have you actually paid OVO anything since you opened your account with them?
The most common reason for an objection is if the company you want to leave believes that you owe them money and/or are in arrears with payments.

OVOs terms and conditions state that if you pay by Direct Debit then your account should be in credit at all times, of course that doesn’t happen in practice - but if a balance is not in credit then the computer may be automatically blocking a switch.
(Despite reasurance from the support agents computers are not flexible and will just follow their programming to the letter. it doesn’t matter to a computer if you owe a penny or owe a £million all it ‘knows’ is that you owe something).

If that is the case then the soultion would be to make a manual payment to get the account in credit, (I’d suggest by about a months worth of credit), then switch and the credit will be refunded after you have left..

From the T&C’s, (my bolding):

10.2  If you’re switching to a new supplier you don’t have to tell us – your new supplier will tell us on your behalf. We may give your new supplier any relevant details to help with the transfer. But, we can object to any proposed switch in certain circumstances:

  • if you owe us any money we can stop your switch to another supplier. This includes where you have been paying by Direct Debit but your account is in debt. When we receive payment for the outstanding money that you owe us, you’ll be free to start a new switch. (So as well as paying this money, you’ll need to get in touch with your new supplier to make sure that they’ll register you as their customer). Our contract will continue until you’ve paid us all outstanding charges and your new supplier is properly authorised or registered to supply energy to you.
  • we can also stop you switching to another supplier for certain other reasons that are allowed under industry regulations. This includes, for example, where you or a supplier has asked to switch by mistake. 

Hey @Kianoosh119 

 

Sorry to hear about this.

 

One of our volunteers Nukecad has left some really helpful advice here already, I hope that’s been helpful for you.

 

An objection is usually put in place by a supplier (OVO in this case) when they want to stop the switch away due to the amount of debt on the account, or because they think there’s an error, such as the meter details or full address needs updating. 

 

As Nukecad also mentioned, our Support Team can also help check why your switch has been stopped if there’s no debit balance.

 

We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum to check what’s stopping the switch, but as mentioned the team should be able to tell you what the problem is. We’ve got some similar topics that may also be helpful:

 

 


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