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

Hey @Kris67,

Sorry for the issues you’ve had,

If you contact Pay As You go Support Team, they will be able to look into this for you.

How to get in contact about my OVO Pay As You Go account

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*Just a note* for Warm Home Discount a customer will need to top up 3-5 times at the same store on different days, but there was also a delay in sending some messages to the meters (any top ups before the date given for the WHD payment wouldn't count). 

I believe the support team can call itron who can confirm if the Warm Home Discount message has been sent. If not, the support team may need to cancel that message and in previous years they've been sent a code letter to use at paypoint but I’m not sure if that's the same this year with failed WHD messages. I’ll ask for the team to clarify. 

I left another update last night but it was removed by the forum manager. Since then, I have a further update. 

The cheque that I was promised on 14/12/23 failed to arrive within the 2 week time scale. I had a couple of people reply to my update last night before it was removed saying I should just hang on, that it was likely held up by Christmas post. 

I phoned the complaints team again today. I asked to speak to the person who had initially handled my complaint. He was in the office but wouldn’t speak to me! Everything was relayed through the person who answered my phone call today, so the original complaint handler could speak to him! What an absolute joke!

Anyway, it turns out that the cheque that was issued on 14/12/23 was rejected by whatever department sends it out, because the validation department didn’t validate it! This was only discovered today when I called. Who knows how long it would’ve taken to discover it had I not called! It will be re-issued today and I’ll have it in 10 days time apparently. I asked what I was supposed to do in the meantime, and I was given the option of being put through to OVO’s debt department. I refused because I am not in debt!

I asked for my complaint to be escalated further and I was told an escalations manager will contact me within 5 working days. 

I also asked what the hold up was in the first place, and I was given yet another excuse that I’ve never heard before! Apparently OVO had to transfer thousands of SSE customers to a new system and they couldn’t cope with it! That’s the fifth or sixth reason I’ve now been given for why it was late in the first place!

So I’ve had a cold and dark Christmas and now I’m going to have a cold and dark New Year too. Don’t you just love how civilised Britain is in the 21st Century? People like us sit in the cold and dark, while OVO’s billionaire owner holds on to our Warm Home Discounts paid to him by his cronies in the Tory government. I wonder how much interest he’s made on all the payments since 27 October 2023?

This is absolutely shocking behaviour from OVO. Someone needs to be held accountable, but I know very well that they won’t.

Btw, I would like to know why it says Solved at top of this thread, which I started. It clearly has not been solved. Do the forum administrators work for OVO Energy?

The Solved status on a forum thread here is not linked to whether your problem is actually solved (which is tracked elsewhere anyway). 99% of the time we never find out anyway as most folks don’t come back to tell us. It is instead used when there’s a solution that helps the community in general. You can’t ask to have it undone in cases like this one.

As for the Forum Moderators, yes they do work for OVO - helping to run the show here is their primary role and they mostly help with housekeeping, managing the Forum Volunteers and keeping the place in good shape.

The Forum Volunteers however (which includes me) are not OVO employees. We are instead a group of volunteers who may or may not be OVO customers who help out for free in our own time. We don’t get paid in cash, but we do sometimes get rewards in other ways as a thank you.

I’m sorry you’re still waiting for your WHD, and that you’ve not been given a satisfactory explanation for the delay. However, I’d like to point out that usually when a scheme like this is set up, the Treasury make very strict rules about how the funds are to be handled. One of those rules is that any interest accrued in the interval between funds being transferred to the paying organization (here OVO) and their being transferred to the payee has to be returned to the Treasury at the end of the scheme. So however much interest has been earned, I don’t think OVO will see a penny of it.

On top of that, it’s worth noting that as well as the interest, every penny of whatever WHD funding that doesn’t get paid out also has to be sent back to the Treasury at the end of the scheme.

I don’t think it has to be transferred the very second the scheme closes, just as long as it’s done within a reasonable timeframe.

Ridiculous to have to wait until 9th February for Ovo to send me a cheque for my warm home discount after being promised it for 19th December with no explanation for this delay but they want me to pay my gas bill! I'll pay after I receive the money they owe me first so I can earn more interest too 

Hopefully OVO have learnt a lesson about setting expectations so this doesn't happen next winter

I suspect many vulnerable people had planned around getting the money on the date specified by OVO in the letters.

It is particularly not great as by its very nature these WHD payments are targeted at people who may be struggling with bills and their physical and mental health.

Got mine by post on Jan 17th (last Wednesday) so all solved. Sorry to anyone still waiting.

OVO shouldn't make promises they can't keep after been told I was going to receive my warm home discount in December then got told I have to wait for them to send me a cheque out in February I've now been told they have until the end of March to give me it now, even though they've already received it from the government. I owe them a bill and I've been told that if I don't pay it I'm going to be charged a late fee surely they owe me a late fee too. I'm going to speak to citizens advice about them now and make sure everyone else knows what this company is like