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October 7, 2022
Solved

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

  • October 7, 2022
  • 645 replies
  • 34621 views

Can anyone explain what’s going on here?

Opening balance was £335, we used around £90 worth of electric/gas combined (£66 government payment was taken off this, hence the £22 charge), I paid £150 so by my reckoning the balance should have gone up by around £125.

It hasn’t though - they seem to have then deducted the £66 again.

Does anyone know why? Do I need to contact them or will it right itself?

Best answer by Blastoise186

Updated on 28/06/23 by Abby_OVO

 

This scheme is now closed.

 

How you will be awarded the £67 depends on how you pay. If you’re seeing a deduction, it’s because you pay by Direct Debit and the grant payment went into your OVO account and is then deducted from the account and refunded to your bank account. 

For all information on this topic please see the website page Energy Bills Support Scheme or this previous response:

 

 

If you pay by direct debit and have seen the credit go to your OVO account, this payment will be transferred into your bank account. 

 

The payment will be made 3-5 working days after the direct debit has cleared. This will happen automatically and you don’t need to do anything. 

 

All customers who pay this way will receive their refund into their bank accounts within 3-5 days of their direct debit date. For example, if your direct debit is the 15th of the month, it’ll be 3-5 days after this. 

 

For anyone that pays on demand, their payment will be made directly to their OVO account. 

 

 

If you pay by Direct Debit

You’ll receive your discount as a refund. This means you’ll carry on paying your full Direct Debit amount. Once the Direct Debit payment has cleared, we’ll refund the monthly discount amount to your bank account shortly after. If you cancel your Direct Debit, or your payment fails, there may be a delay in applying the discount to your account.

You’ll get your discount every month, even if you don’t get monthly statements. You'll see confirmation of the discount on your next statement. 

 

If you pay when you get your bill

You’ll receive your monthly discount as a credit to your energy account in the first week of each month. You’ll see this on your monthly bills from October. 

We’ll add the discount to your energy account every month, even if you don’t get monthly bills. You'll see confirmation of the discount on your next bill. 

For example, if you receive your bills on the 15th of the month, we’ll add your discount in the 1st week of the month, starting in October, so you’ll see confirmation of this on your bill dated 15 October.

 

Hey @meccles !

Please check your Charges as well. I suspect you’ll see a line entry there that explains it, just like this example:

 

645 replies

Newcomer
April 2, 2023

---- 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?

BPLightlog
Super User
Super User
April 2, 2023

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

Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
juliamc
Rank 20
Rank 20
April 2, 2023

@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. 

Newcomer
April 2, 2023

Thanks for that Julia

 

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

 

 

juliamc
Rank 20
Rank 20
April 2, 2023

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

Newcomer
April 5, 2023

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.

Newcomer
April 14, 2023

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

Blastoise186
Super User
Super User
April 14, 2023

Can you show us screenshots from MyOVO please?

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way! Remember, I'm just like you - AI Powered Evil Geniuses aren't Staff!
juliamc
Rank 20
Rank 20
April 14, 2023

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

 

Newcomer
April 15, 2023

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.