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

Thank you Jeffus for asking.

I’ve just checked my bank account and yes, money appeared yesterday.

I've asked why my account has been debited and my bank account credited but told that is instead of extra costs.

That's crap as surely the government are paying for this, not OVO 

Why am I paying for it with no benefit to me 

@Russell1960 as I said in the previous post:

 check your Charges Detail, where you see the VAT (which is added to the charges) you should also see the £67 Energy Bill Support Scheme (which is a reduction on your charges). 
It’s not very obvious and it’s confusing loads of people who have asked the same question. 
Please let me know if you find it !

So I've got that but still being credited and debited the same so where's the benefit.

I work away from home for 2 weeks at a time and I'm worried about how much gas you think I'm using with thermostat set at below 10C.

I can't see any benefit to me 

Your charges are being reduced by the £67 each month. 

But then my account is being debited each month as well 

The money is being forwarded to your bank account 

Ok. Show me the benefits please on my account 

I am just a plain old customer @Russell1960 and I don’t have access to your account so I can’t show you or see anything on your account. I’m just saying that OVO pass the government money to you via a reduction on your charges then send that money to your bank. 

The balance on your OVO account is exactly the same as if the EBSS hadn’t existed - in on one side, out on the other. The difference is in your bank account, where instead of just seeing your Direct Debit going out, you see an OVO payment going in as well. You have £67 of extra tax-free Government money to spend as you like. That’s the benefit.

---- RESOLVED this is a confused (but correct) billing issue ...

I have just noticed that I have been being billed incorrectly since the government support scheme was introduced in October of last year.

The issue seems to be that the government support amount (£66, in my case) is regularly being applied to my bills, resulting in a £66 reduction (labelled ‘Energy Bill Support Scheme’).
However, this exact same amount is then being added to my bill, when calculating the balance (labelled as ‘Refunds’)!! So, in essence, I am not getting anything from the government support scheme.

Is anyone else getting this billing error?

I hope this is a genuine mistake, and not some manner of mass fraud.

I wonder if someone from Ovo  could cast some light on this?

Hi @ianhadling welcome to the customer forum. It’s mostly other customers here trying to help each other. 
In fact, you should see that your energy bill has been reduced by the same amount each month and so the money flows through - it’s just that OVO decided to pay this back as a refund confusing many people. You mention £66 .. that should have increased to £67 after the first couple of months of the scheme

@ianhadling about 50% of the posts on this forum are about this. There is no fraud or scandal. OVO reduce your charges by the £66 or £67 then pay that amount into your bank account as a refund. 

Thanks for that Julia

This is incredibly confusing, and seems to be a very convoluted way to apply the refund. 

I totally agree, because of the confusing way they’ve applied the government money it’s meant the phone lines have been hammered too.

It took me a while but now I get it. Ovo take the government money off our total charges (see this on your full bill) They then take the completely unnecessary and totally confusing step of putting the £67 back into our bank accounts from our own balance which makes it look like they are refunding us out of our own money.

Hi everyone 

I'm having trouble with my statements.

 Every month mu cost of living payment is refunded back into my account (which is fine) so that shows a debit to my balance however I never see this payment being credited to my account.

Has anyone else had this issue.?

Basically if its not going in then my bills are too high with the refunded money

Can you show us screenshots from MyOVO please?

@Karen mc have a read of what’s in this link… does it answer your question?

Jullmac

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately it's what I know already.

I want to know why I can see my cost of living payment refunded but I cant see it coming into my account first.

You would expect to see it going in and out but on my statement it just shows it being refunded. 

You do need to look at the detailed bill @Karen mc not just a summary. Unfortunately because the payment is a reduction on your energy bill it’s not always obvious. 
To complicate it even more, the payments can span months - I’ve had two payments in a month and none in others so you need to look back if you want to check. 

This is exactly what I see in my bill. They are taking the government money but not giving us this money. They are actually refunding our own money by taking away £66 from our credit / balance. Someone needs to get Ofstead involved on them. 

Have you contacted OVO and asked them about your specific account?

No one here can access your account

https://help.ovoenergy.com/#contact_us_container

I haven’t had a chance yet but have you?

@Ovo ripping us off Gov support have a look at the charges detail in the six bills from October to March. There should be six payments in total and they are a Reduction of your charges.