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

Hey @Kris67,

I’m sorry to hear this, when you get your discount depends on what ‘core group’ you’re in. 

England or Wales

If you live in England or Wales you don’t need to apply for the Warm Home Discount but you will need to meet the eligibility criteria set by the Government. This is split into two Core Groups:

• Core Group 1 - for people who get Guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• Core Group 2 - for people who get qualifying means-tested benefits or tax credits

The eligibility qualifying date for both groups is 13 August 2023. The Government will write to benefit claimants between October and December 2023.

What do I do if I don't get a letter?

In some cases the Government will write to you to request more information. It's important you give them this information by 28 February 2024 to be considered for the discount. We can only apply the discount once we’ve been told to by the Government.

When will I get the discount if I’m eligible?

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.

I don't think my message was read correctly, I already got a letter saying I qualified in October then I received an email from Ovo in December saying that if I top up on 5 separate days using the same shop my warm home discount will automatically go on my meter which it didn't then after complaining the person I spoke to said she would put a complaint on the system but I never heard anything else obviously closed down for holidays then went on the online chat and they said I would have to wait for a cheque to be sent out which for some reason takes 28 working days to write out!!!! But after being told that if I don't pay my bill I'm going to be charged a late fee yet they should send me a late fee for not sending me what they owe me and after going online again to speak to someone she just kept repeating that they have until end of March to pay me, she even rudely cut me off while I was messaging back so staff are not helping at all. I just want my money so I can move to another company as I didn't even want to go to Ovo as I never had problems with SSE 

Sorry, @Kris67, this isn’t making much sense. If you normally top up at a shop, then how come you have an unpaid bill? Bills are issued to customers who aren’t on prepayment meters, but it’s prepayment customers that top up. 

Could it be that you used to pay on receipt of bill but switched at some stage to prepayment? If this is the case, then it may well be the cause of the delay if different parts of the OVO system think you’re using different payment methods.

If you talk to the Collections team (0800 069 9831), they may be able to help if you’re relying on the Warm Home Discount to pay off an old bill. 

I have to top up my electric meter but pay bills for my gas which I used to pay quarterly but since Ovo took over it's been changed to monthly for some reason. I hope this clears this now 

That would explain it, thanks. Have you tried talking to Collections?

Hey @Kris67,

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

I’ll ask Forum_Support to reach out. Please keep an eye on your private messages. 

Still no joy with getting my warm home discount after being told I would get a cheque by 9th February which I didn't so I rang them and was told that it was put on my meter in January which it hadn't and I had to press the blue button and read the numbers and was told it hadn't gone on so now I know I was never going to get this cheque which I was promised in the first place. So I was given a code which would put the money straight onto my key but told to wait about an hour to make sure it worked or wait the next day so I waited until the next day but guess what???? It came up as an invalid code so I still haven't received it!!! The shop assistant said they've had a few in with these codes and they haven't worked either. While I was on the phone I even asked if they could take the £150 off my gas bill which I owe them but she couldn't get in system to do it but I'm going to be charged £10 late fee if I don't pay my bill so they owe me £10 too if this is the case after waiting from December for my money 

Hi @Kris67 

I’m really sorry to hear about this situation.

Do you have a complaint already raised? If you’ve already got one raised, I think it might be a good idea to have the Support Team escalate that complaint, so they can hopefully get that resolved and either apply it to the gas account or get the cheque sent out.

If not, they can certainly get one raised for you. You can find out more here on our complaints procedure.

I have finally got some good news my warm home discount code has worked, I ended up trying another shop today just in case it took longer to go on the system before giving them a ring and it worked, soooo happy now, so anyone else who gets a code and it doesn't work try waiting a few days and another shop to make sure. Thankyou to everyone who tried to help. 

Hey @Kris67 

I’m really glad to hear that’s worked for you now. Thank you for letting us know, hopefully anyone else how may be in the same situation can find that useful too.

If you’ve ever got any other questions, always feel free to pop back to the Forum.🙂