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Rank 1
andrewmellor
Rank 1
October 22, 2017
Solved

Can you speak to anyone at OVO on weekends?

  • October 22, 2017
  • 47 replies
  • 17191 views
I can't put in to words how fizzing I am with anger!!

At approximately 7:30am this morning (a Sunday), we lost power to our home. We called out an electrician who identified the issue as being the metering equipment by the main feed into the house. After a discussion with Electricity North West, we identified that the equipment is the responsibility of the supplier - Ovo.

We have a child with significant additional needs and we needed this resolving ASAP.

After checking the Ovo website, I gave the Customer Services number a call, and was returned with "Thanks for calling Ovo. We record all our calls etc. We're currently closed. Our opening hours are Monday to Saturday 8:00am etc etc"

So I then tried the emergency contacts provided on the website. Both useless.

I retried Electricity North West who said they had a number for Ovo that they could put me through to. Great I thought, until they put me through and I got... "Thanks for calling Ovo. We record all our calls etc. We're currently closed. Our opening hours are Monday to Saturday 8:00am etc etc"

Getting extremely frustrated with this, I proceeded to call every number published on the Ovo website (even the ones that were clearly not relevant) in the hope that answer human response that I could get would point me in the right direction.

In every single case, I got... "Thanks for calling Ovo. We record all our calls etc. We're currently closed. Our opening hours are Monday to Saturday 8:00am etc etc"

So I've got a few questions for Ovo:

1. Why the hell is it so difficult to get help on a Sunday?
2. Is it even lawful for an energy supplier to be so un-contactable?
3. HOW DO I GET MY ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BACK ON?

I will be contacting the energy watchdog and reporting this, and from viewing other comments within the forum, I can see that customer service is an issue for your company, particularly during out of hours issues.

I expect a response ASAP. This is unacceptable and I will be leaving publicly visible review that reflect such an extremely poor customer experience.
Best answer by Tim_OVO

Updated on 27/11/24 by Emmanuelle_OVO:

If you’re pay as you go:
 

 

 

If you need to contact the team on a Sunday, our Social team is able to support you. Send us a message on Facebook or Twitter from 9am - 5pm. This team is also able to schedule an emergency meter appointment if needed. More info on what to do in an emergency here.

 

The rest of our opening hours;

 

Our Support team’s web messaging and WhatsApp opening hours will be:

  • 8am - 6pm Monday to Friday 

  • 9am - 2pm on Saturdays

 

 Our Support team can be contacted by phone on 0330 303 5063 between:

  • 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. 

 

You can see all open contact channels via our Help Centre. 

 

Our Collections contact number is 0800 069 9831, they’re open Monday to Thursday 8am-8pm, Friday 8am-6pm, and Saturday 9am-2pm. Get advice support with your energy payments here.

47 replies

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T
Newcomer
Teri1967
Newcomer
April 20, 2019
We picked this up on Twitter at the time, Andrew.

Just for anyone else who needs advice on a Sunday with an emergency, message us on Facebook or Twitter, or call us on this number: 0330 102 7517 - eventually you'll get through to our out of hours support team.

Tim
W
Hi @Nancy_OVO Can you please clarify your final comment?

The fault reported by @grumpyoldboy is on the meter. It's the connections where the tails leave to go towards his consumer unit.why should it only be for emergencies Stvs weekend
T
Newcomer
Teri1967
Newcomer
April 20, 2019
we have been forced into having our energy supply from OVO due to our last company collapsing . They say we can switch to another supplier of our choice because of this, but when we try to do this they make it difficult.
Ive tried to switch to a company Bulb who have great customer service AND ARE OPEN AT WEEKENDS !! however have had an email yesterday to say OVO have rejected my switch ... I’ve looked into any reasoning why this may happen and there is none ... if you are due more than £500 of your bill is the only reason an energy supplier may stop this happening... this is not the case with me....so OVO why are you stopping customers from moving to another supplier ???
iand to add insult to injury your not open on weekends for enquiries . Don’t you realise people work during the week which is why some people cannot call during the week, therefore rely on weekends to sort out any problems .... I will be taking this to Energy watchdog and advertising this on social media if I get no resolve with this very 😡 angry customer
T
Newcomer
Teri1967
Newcomer
April 20, 2019
Hello anyone with an answer ????
Transparent
Rank 20
Transparent
Rank 20
April 23, 2019
OK @Teri1967 so if your hypothesis is that you can't get responses from OVO on a weekend, then I think you've just gone a long way towards proving that to be true!

Posting the above on the warmest Easter Bank-holiday Saturday since records began was a pretty sure way to get none of us other Forum Members responding then either! 😜

I have no idea either where you get the figure of £500 being a reason that a Supplier may object to a switch. A switch is "held" for any level of outstanding debt, pending its resolution.

You can't actually take this matter to the "energy watchdog" until you've been through the stages of your Supplier's published Complaints Procedure. OVO have a very good record of resolving complaints long before they get referred to the Office of the Energy Ombudsman.

I would be surprised if OVO Customer Services couldn't resolve your issue within Stage-1 of their Procedure, which elicits a response within 5 days. There is usually a very clear reason why a Switch gets halted - such as a missing meter reading or incorrect meter reference number.
Save energy... recycle electrons!
T
Newcomer
Teri1967
Newcomer
May 1, 2019
we have been forced into having our energy supply from OVO due to our last company collapsing . They say we can switch to another supplier of our choice because of this, but when we try to do this they make it difficult.
Ive tried to switch to a company Bulb who have great customer service AND ARE OPEN AT WEEKENDS !! however have had an email yesterday to say OVO have rejected my switch ... I’ve looked into any reasoning why this may happen and there is none ... if you are due more than £500 of your bill is the only reason an energy supplier may stop this happening... this is not the case with me....so OVO why are you stopping customers from moving to another supplier ???
iand to add insult to injury your not open on weekends for enquiries . Don’t you realise people work during the week which is why some people cannot call during the week, therefore rely on weekends to sort out any problems .... I will be taking this to Energy watchdog and advertising this on social media if I get no resolve with this very 😡 angry customer
T
Newcomer
Teri1967
Newcomer
May 1, 2019
OK @Teri1967 so if your hypothesis is that you can't get responses from OVO

on a weekend, then I think you've just gone a long way towards proving that to be true!

Posting the above on the warmest Easter Bank-holiday Saturday since records began was a pretty sure way to get none of us other Forum Members responding then either! 😜


I have no idea either where you get the figure of £500 being a reason that a Supplier
may object to a switch. A switch is "held" for any level of outstanding debt, pending its resolution.

You can't actually take this matter to the "energy watchdog" until you've been through the stages of your Supplier's published Complaints Procedure. OVO
have a very good record of resolving complaints long before they get referred to the Office of the Energy Ombudsman

.

I would be surprised if OVO Customer Services
couldn't resolve your issue within Stage-1 of their Procedure, which elicits a response within 5 days. There is usually a very clear reason why a Switch gets halted - such as a missing meter reading or incorrect meter reference number.
A
Anonymous
July 29, 2019
Hello @Amy_OVO and @Tim_OVO

For future reference what do you do, if like me, you dont use Facebook or Twitter???

Thank you
Eva_OVO
OVO Staff
Eva_OVO
OVO Staff
July 30, 2019
Good question, @Phil_H, if you find yourself in an off supply situation over the weekend you can call our usual contact number for advice.

There's a team who work through emails on Sunday, however the response time is 48 hours so you may not get an immediate response.
My friend told me how electricity is measured and I was like Watt!
A
Anonymous
July 30, 2019
Hi @Eva_OVO

Thanks for replying however its clear from the posts above that the usual number is not being answered out of hours.

The answers from @Tim_OVO to the original email indicate that the problems described here were picked up on social media- which was the reason for my question above- what if you dont use social media?

Sending an email that might not be responded to for 48 hours, in an emergency is not good enough.

If a customer posts on this forum about an issue like this there is also no mod at the weekend/out of hours and other users are unlikely to be able to help.

Also i think there are probably still lots of customers like me who only use the internet/email from their home network, so if power goes down and their router goes down - no internet or email, so contact by telephone in the event of an emergency seems to be the only option that would allow all customers to contact OVO if there was an emergency out of hours.

From the above it appears OVO have ruled out having an emergency out of hours contact number and there have been a number posters commenting on this including @Transparent

I think OVO need to review this including how all customers can contact OVO in the event of an emergency, including getting a timely response to resolve an issue.

At the moment it sounds like there is a good chance you could have an emergency resulting is a loss of power Saturday PM and not be able to contact OVO till 9.00am Monday!
Amy_OVO
Retired Moderator
Amy_OVO
Retired Moderator
July 31, 2019
Hey @Phil_H,

We offer the best phone cover we can, inline with common industry standards. We can offer support to cover the majority of the day, Monday-Friday 8am-6pm. As @Eva_OVO mentioned outside of this you can call our normal number and it will give you advise regarding emergency situations.

There is also OVO Help section on our website - this is available 24/7.

You’ll also be able to self serve your account on My OVO, whenever you want, wherever you are, on our super handy app.

Here’s some information on what to do in an emergency, this may be of use to someone finding this thread at a later date.

I'll ensure your feedback is passed on.

Thanks!
OVO-Joyed to help!
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