Is my Direct Debit increase accurate?

@Mallakye

OK

So add up the kWh usage for gas for Feb, March, April, May, June. So 5 months. Divide by 5 and multiply by 12 to get a rough estimate for a year. 

Do the same for electricity.

The calculation won't be perfect but will be a reasonable estimate. 

Then we can compare with the OVO and SSE annual estimates to look for any major differences.

OK? 

So Electric is

1135.77 /5 = 227.154 x 12 =

2725.848 kWh (OVO future estimate 9495 kWh) ← this looks a bit iffy

(SSE estimate 2863 kWh)

Gas is 

1439.97 /5 = 287.994 x 12 =

3455.928 kWh (OVO future estimate is 3536 kWh)

(SSE estmate 2680.85 kWh)

I really do appreciate your help here guys

@Mallakye

OK so the OVO gas estimate looks very reasonable. I think as an estimate that is correct. That one is fine i think. 

The OVO electricity estimate is in fact wildly out based on not only your actual usage but also the figures ofgem the regulator uses for typical consumption (2900 a year). The 9495 is enough electricity for 3 typical homes..… i am surprised this isn't picked up by OVO automatically. This is what is causing the issues I think. The OVO system is meant to gradually refine this figure over time but it looks like something has gone wrong again as we have seen before unfortunately. 

Keep an eye on what happens to the OVO estimates on the plan page. 

One more thing  to look at

https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings/history/electricity

​https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings/history/gas

How far back do the readings go and do they all say "smart" 

I have to admit that Jeffus is waaaaay more experienced than me when it comes to solving usage related questions!

There’s a lot of volunteers on this forum these days and we all specialise in different things. Jeffus is definitely one of the number crunchers and he’s always on the ball with questions like yours. Some of the others love to help out with green tech questions while my own specialisms are in things like smart meters, technical stuff, massively overpowered and overengineered solutions, bug hunting and to a certain extent OVO’s rules, policies and the way OVO does things.

We’re all learning though! But I have to hand it to Jeffus for being way better than me at threads like this one.

Agreed, the Gas estimate seems pretty much spot on.

Readings go back to what looks like the start of my SSE account, 8th July 2020.

The SSE ones (pre-Feb 2022) are a mixture of manual and smart.

Every one from the start of the OVO plan are smart, for both Gas and Electric (a reading for every day) additionally I see no spikes or dodgy readings))

I obviously expect increases, this is natural.

I just saw that massive DD increase and thought….nope….theres been a mistake.

At least….I really hope theres been a mistake.

I feel this wont get sorted until I spend some quality time on the phone, which is actually my least preferable form of contact these days.

I understand there will be a massive increase to OVO’s email and messaging traffic right now but its been 10 days and no reply.

But the automated emails informing me of Direct Debit increases get to me just fine lol.

Rest assured you guys have at least put me to ease a little because it seems obvious there is a mistake/issue that needs to be rectified.

If you have some advice on how to present this information to OVO, please feel free 👍

@Mallakye

OK so good to see the smart meter readings are good and some data has transferred from SSE

This link will take you to this thread if you want to share it with OVO

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-account-140/advice-from-community-needed-re-dd-increase-from-107ppm-to-255ppm-10719

I will do one more summary post

Personally i can't honestly recommend emailing OVO right now, too many examples of it taking too long or getting no reply. I don't like saying that as overall i do like OVO. 

I would try calling or personally i have had most success communicating via private message on the OVO twitter account. I only use twitter for contacting companies. I particularly like it as you will have a permanent date, time, name stamp of everything you and OVO say over time. You can attach screenshots to the messages. So nothing gets lost. 

@Jess_OVO

This looks the same as the issue @Debbie Pearce had where the SSE to OVO migration didn't work correctly.. I think you helped her? 

1. The SSE bills haven't migrated

2. The SSE usage hasn't migrated

3. The OVO future annual consumption figure for electricity is wildly out and is not correcting itself since the migration in January unfortunately. 

This is incorrectly driving huge direct debit estimates. Worse than previous examples we have seen. The OVO estimate looks like it is a factor of 3 out for electricity based on OVO smart meter readings and previous SSE figures. An incorrect OVO estimate of over 9000kWh for electricity a year should clearly be some sort of red flag in the OVO system ideally i would have thought. That is over 3 times the Ofgem typical consumption values. 

This is driving huge direct debits and is not correcting itself. I fear simply freezing the direct debits isn't going to work. 

I don't know if you want to follow up with the same group in OVO again?

I can see other posters have also raised what look like similar issues although i don't have time to go through every one of them to check. Could do with a way a flagging them to OVO as i fear they may get lost in the support team first line support if they are not looked at in detail. Obviously up to you what to do and recommend. 

​​Hope this helps

​​​​​​I think it is important this thread isn't merged with any other for the time being at least so @Mallakye can make use of it. 

​​​​​​

​​​​

@Jeffus 

Thank you so very much Jeffus.

Your help and time is very, very much appreciated 🙏

I have taken the precaution to save the forum post pages as an offline pdf….just in case.

@Blastoise186 

Thanks to you too for your input, you showed me how to retrieve information that I didn't even know was there for access 👌

@Jess_OVO 

And thanks to you also Jess for good, solid and clear signposting.

Your combined answers, suggestions and expertise have made me feel much better this evening.

Such a good community.

Many thanks to all of you once more.

Mallakye

@Mallakye

There was an Ofgem press release about direct debits

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/press-release-ofgem-requires-improvements-energy-suppliers-customer-direct-debits

They have told suppliers to review all customers where direct debits have increased by more than 100%. This should include you so it is worth reminding OVO. 

Let us know how you get on. You will need some patience as these things can take time to resolve. 

Feel free to ask if you have any more questions. 

Finally just a reminder, i don't have access to your account, so i have done my best to diagnose the issue. Of course there could be another reason for the increase that we didn't notice.