£66 government energy bills support scheme deducted from my OVO account balance not added?

Hey @CatalinM,

Sorry for the issues you’re having, 

When did your direct debit come out this month? Your refund should have been paid into your bank account within 3-5 working days of the direct debit clearing in your OVO account. We have had some customers on the Forum report that they’ve received their payments slightly delayed this month. 

Please keep us posted, if you have any issues I'd advise contacting Support. 

I dont have direct debit, i top up from the app.

The payment you are receiving is coming from the money you pay in.  OVO are just refunding some of your direct debit rather than crediting it to your account.  Meaning you’ll see the same charges are being applied and you will hve to make up the £66 again at some point.

EDF are doing it correctly and i imagine ofgem the energy regulator will set it at some point and EDF will get a slap on the wrist for taking government money and not paying it out to its customers.

Sneeky of them.

If you top-up via the app, you’re probably with Boost. You can contact them on 0330 102 7517 or via Live Chat at https://boostpower.co.uk .

You can see the money coming into your account in the Charges in Detail section. It’s taken off your charges, and has caused no end of agro with people not seeing it.

I have been calculating my incomings and outgoing on my account and it seems that this government scheme money that we are receiving is coming out of my own account credit is this what should be happening because from what I have read it should be separate from our accounts? 

You should see a credit against your energy use and then that is refunded to your account if you’re on direct debit like this 

It’s a mess. I’ve just come over from SSE, just waiting for my credit to run out and I’m off to another provider.

SSE has been taken over by a company just not as good.

I am also having this problem with my billing, have been battling with Complaints team for weeks, only to be told yesterday that I am just ‘not understanding’ the bills by some patronising little complaints handler who refused to put me through to anyone more senior. They are definitely doing it wrong, I’ve had this confirmed by a big brained colleague who has a PHD.

They are refunding the money back to my bank account correctly, and the billing in Sept/Oct was correct, showing the Government Scheme as -£66 (credit) on the charges section. HOWEVER, since then they’ve ‘forgotten’ to put it on there, then tried to correct it by putting it on there twice, but each time there is also a ‘refund’ of £66 or £67 going ‘OUT’ (same direction as charges as a debit) which is the wrong way - it should be ‘IN’ (credit) - and it should EITHER be under the charges OR on the summary but not both and certainly not the wrong way round! My account is now in around £50 debit when is should be around £80 credit. I’ve got to wait until 2nd Jan to complain to the Energy Ombudsman but I would urge everyone to check their bills again because it sounds like this is a systemic issue and could have dramatic consequences for people who are already struggling.

If like me you are experiencing this issue and not getting anywhere with OVO customer services or complaints, please email your MP, the regulator, the media - anyone! - as I have done today to try and get this some visibility. Basically, OVO are taking the government money, giving it to us, then taking it back from us again as an additional charge on our accounts. 

@GnomeG  Would you please post screenshots of your billing history for the periods when you say this has been wrong. Be sure to include the whole of the Balance  and Charges panels, like this (from my PC):
  
 

@Firedog Sure, why not, if you think you can help? I’ve done my best with the screenshots, sorry if they are not great quality, and it’s 3 months so you can see the overall picture. September didn’t ring any alarm bells, it was Oct/Nov where the issue started.

@Firedog After trawling through all 19 pages of this thread and another middle of the night thinking session, I've worked it out. My October bill was definitely wrong but they have corrected it in November and the penny has finally dropped. Very confusing though! Thanks for replying to me and getting me thinking again. 

@GnomeG Thanks for posting the screenshots; I’m glad to hear you worked it out in the end. The problem seems to have been one of timings, with EBSS credits to the OVO account and the corresponding refunds to your bank account straddling the billing period end/start. It’s a widespread cause of confusion. Another one is simply not noticing that the Total charges in the balance is unexpectedly low, because it incorporates the EBSS credit and is no longer a true representation of the period’s energy cost.

I am trying to get through to an advisor but not having any luck. I’m not seeing any refund to my account just money going out. There is a refund there but it is coming out of my own credit. I have had it double checked and triple checked. OVO customer services is very hard to get hold of and my bill this month has changed three times already luckily I have screen shot them 

Please look at your Charges in detail there is a separate section of the bill where the breakdown of electricity/gas/ VAT is and there should be an entry for Energy Bill Support Scheme of £66 or £67 deducted from your charges

Can you see you monthly summary online @Mocha ?

You should see a heading

Then details of your energy charges

Then another part 

and under that a line for the government payment 

Which is an amount taken off your bill. 
You might need to look at the last few months to see it all

Should I be able to see this on the app? 

@Mocha yes, click on 

—Payments

—See charges and payments 

(Scroll down to see each recent monthly period)

—See details

Have a look at each month back to the beginning of October as there may be two £66 or £67 in one month depending on the date it goes in or out.

I was moved from SSE to OVO 1/12/2022. As with many of the commentators I found it confusing at first but reading Blastoise 186 did help. At one point I think he says this is the best system that OVO is using. Prior to migrating to OVO, SSE used to put the Energy Support payment directly into my bank account, leaving no cause for ambiguity. I would suggest OVO use that same method, as in my migration information it does state I would need to do nothing and everything would stay the same. Well it appears that is not the case.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for any energy supplier to change strategy now. Between the fact there’s only three/four payments left to make and the effort involved in switching the strategy and the additional chaos it’d cause… It’s not worth doing this time around.

It’s possible that lessons will be learned for the future though.

In fairness to OVO, that guidance and advice was written something like two years ago and was well before anyone had even dreamed up the EBSS Scheme. It would have been impossible to predict the future at the time and the spirit of what it said and meant still holds true.

Thanks i’ll check this out I’ve also been sent a full breakdown via email to look at too 

I pay £185 direct debit per month, yet my account is only being credited with £118! Are they taking the government payment off my direct debit? This will mean I'm not paying enough to cover costs

Hi Clare, my £67 is paid into my bank account. It’s a strange way of doing it but it works out ok for me. 

But why if I'm paying £185 is only £118 being given credited to my account?

Not sure Clare, if in doubt ask then to up it to £185, you should get the £67 in your bank account so in really you are paying £118.