Warm Home Discount is late- Got a letter saying it would be paid in November?

I realise that the scheme runs until March 2024, but I understood that this was the government’s deadline to make the payments. If OVO have already received my WHD from the government, then there’s no reason for OVO to hold onto it until March 2024, especially when it was OVO who told me I’d receive it by 15 November in the first place. So it is late going by OVO’s own timescale to me.

As for the VAT issue, I did get told this by Emmanuelle on this thread, but it’s only one of many different excuses I’ve been told over the last 2 months. I’ve been told that:

1. The government hasn’t paid the money to OVO.
2. OVO didn’t know how to pay the WHD to people like me with tradtitional pre-payment meters and were trying to work out how to do so.
3. The VAT issue you mention.
4. OVO had “computer problems.”

I was even told on more than one occasion that the money was on it’s way and I’d receive it when I topped up within the next few days. Of course, I never did receive it. 

It’s just really frustrating to come up against this with OVO, especially when SSE never had any VAT problems or any of the other excuses, and they were always able to pay the WHD within 2-3 weeks of my appyling for it. You wouldn’t think that OVO, having bought SSE over, could be so completely incompetent.

I appreciate you taking the time to reassure me, but it’s very difficult to hang in there when I’m sitting at home not able to turn on my heating and I find out that OVO have had my payment since 27 October. 

Im having exactly the same problem.ovo dont care my daughter and are are severly disabaled and have bad asthma and i keep getting fobbed of even when i try to speak to a manager ovo you should be ashamed of yourselfs

I’m sorry to hear that you’re having the same problem with OVO not paying your Warm Home Discount. I’ve contacted my local MSP about it so maybe that will help. I’ve also made a complaint but although OVO have acknowledged my complaint and given me a case reference number, I haven’t been assigned a case handler yet, more than 2 weeks later. So when I phone the complaints team, I keep being told nobody can help until I am assigned a case handler. I was told by a member of the complaints team yesterday that nobody has been assigned yet, but the same staff member who told me today that OVO had received the money from the DWP to pay my WHD on 27 October, also told me that a case handler had been assigned yesterday. It just one lie after another with OVO, and their CEO really ought to resign over this because he is clearly not fit to run an energy company.

Hi benny i totally agree with you.where is all the money going to that was supposed to be paid out to people like us with a key meter.the ceo should not have a job in this company.they dont have to worry like us.i phoned today again and was told to give it a few more days.load of rubbish.the payments were supposed to get will be gaining ovo interest.i wonder if it will ever get paid out

Hey @Susan54 and @BennyM,

Sorry you’ve not had clear advice given to you, 

Blastoise has given some helpful advice here. If you’re a customer who needs to get in touch with the government we'll apply discounts to accounts we're told about before March 2024. For customers that are automatically matched we’ll aim to get payments to these customers by the end of December. 

Taken from our guide about Warm Home Discount on the website: 

Once we're told by the Government to apply your discount, we'll aim to do this within 30 days unless an exception applies. An exception could be that we weren’t your registered supplier on 13 August 2023. If this happens, we'll tell the Government and ask they give the discount to the correct supplier.

For automatically matched eligible customers

The Department of Work and Pensions should tells us to apply the discount to these customers between October 2023 and December 2023. We'll aim to apply the discount for these customers by the end of December 2023 or within 6 weeks of being told to by the Government.

For customers that need to get in touch with the Government

We should be told what discounts to apply between October 2023 and the end of March 2024.  We'll apply discounts to accounts we're told about before March 2024 or within 6 weeks of being informed.

However, if you’ve had a letter saying it was due by a certain date and it hasn’t arrived, the VAT issue might be apply to you:

We’re pausing Warm Home Discount (WHD) payments for now
 
What’s happened?

We’ve noticed an issue with the VAT applied to WHD transactions, so we’ve made a change to make sure VAT is being applied correctly.

What have we done to fix this?

We’ve temporarily paused WHD payments while we fix the issue. We’ve also created two new transactions which will replace the existing WHD transactions, which clearly describe how VAT is calculated. 
 
The payments will be applied at £142.86 with VAT calculated at 5%, which is an additional £7.14. The total payment customers will receive is £150. 
 
For Core Group (customers notified to us by the Department of Work and Pension as eligible) customers we’ll use the following transaction:

• £150 Warm Home Discount CG13 (£142.86 + £7.14 VAT)

For Broader Group (customers in Scotland who have applied to OVO for WHD) customers, we’ll use this transaction:

• £150 Warm Home Discount BG13 (£142.86 + £7.14 VAT)

The payment is applied prior to VAT being added to the bill, so the amount is added as £142.86 and then the VAT attributed is 5% at £7.14. For example:

 

The billing team will be going through affected accounts and resolving this issue, there is likely to be a delay due to the backlog of customers they’ll have to go through.

After all that nonsense yesterday with OVO rewriting bill history and then double correcting it and issuing an email saying sorry we did wrong but it was your fault …. today I see they have taken away my Dad’s WHD that they gave him last month !!!! They gave a £7.50 good will payment to say sorry…. incompetent doesn’t begin to cover it…...

Hey @Pepsi 

Sorry to hear about this.

We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum so we can’t know what’s happened here. If your dad has had a letter to say he should be receiving the Warm Home Discount, then I’d get in touch with the Support Team about this matter.

My WHD is very late too. Had all the excuses in the few times I’ve contacted for support. Confirmed I was getting it by email on October 18th,due by November 29th. Today is December 20th - still NO SIGN OF IT.  Honest answers would be nice.

I am having continuous problems with Ovo. I can not get any consistent reply to our problems. I have had multiple calls- emails - web chats with them to no avail. 
 

The initial problem arose when my meter reading would not move, I reported multiple times with no help. 
Eventually I got a response that my meter needed to be changed. Turned out I was not migrated from SSE to Ovo. 
I have been assured my previous credit will be refunded, I was then fobbed off with a smaller amount. 
 

now I don’t have the warm discount credited although the email said  be by end of November. Now I’m told it will be by 31 March. 
 

. I need the refund and the discount to be able to pay for energy. 
 

I’m having absolutely no luck getting any help I’ve now come across the forum and don’t feel like I’m the only one now! 

I was migrated in October, a few weeks before they told me I was getting the WHD in late November. So it’s completely unacceptable. I’m close to making a complaint!