Hi Clive - I’m not sure what you were saying either but what’s happening is that you are paying your direct debit as usual and OVO is passing the government money to you via your OVO account, as you described in your point 3. OVO does this by reducing your charges.

… consisting of fuel charges £159.05 plus £7.95 VAT less £67 EBSS. It passes through the system just like the marbles your dog swallowed, but by doing it like this there is a visible record of its passing through your OVO account on its way to your bank.

Just rubbing it in in case Julia’s explanation didn’t convince you.

Thanks for your responses. Still don’t see it. Words mean different thing to different people so I will go for numbers. I give my OVO projected bill for this Jan, that is up to 10th Jan bellow. Please explain how this is correct.

Starting Balance 1 Jan                   £64.54 in Credit

Total Charges (To date)                    27.16 out

Refunds 9 Jan                                    67.00 out

Direct Debit 9 Jan                           240.00 in

Today Balance                                  214.38 in credit

I read this as having £305.54 credit reduced to £214.38 because I used £27.16 of Charges.

At the same time my bank account receives credit from OVO for £67.00 followed by a debit from OVO for £67. I gain nothing in my bank account but lose £67 from my OVO account.

Please tell me where I am wrong.

BIG Sorry everyone I got the last paragraph of previous post wrong. Should have read, At the same time my bank account receives credit from OVO for £67.00 which is my money from my OVO account.  I read this as losing £67 and gaining £67. How does this help pay my energy bill?

The government decided the cash should go to your bank account rather than your energy account. So despite the name, it actually doesn’t pay your energy bills.

Each of the six months from oct ‘22 to mar ‘23 you will be paid £66 or £67 by OVO from the government. OVO do this by reducing your charges as shown in the Charges in detail on your bill. Some months may show two entries of Energy Bill Support Scheme, so some may show none, but as long as there are 6 altogether you are quids in. OVO have chosen to refund this money back to the bank account of direct debit customers. They show this as a refund in the Balance section of your account. 
If you only look at the balance section it appears that you are just getting your own money back. However your charges for each month are reduced (as above), so you need to see both sides of the transaction. You are able to see that on your actual bill, which you can download from the app.

Thanks to all. I can see it now but why oh why split the adds and omits of one small account over two billing pages. Thanks again.

Ever since I was forcibly moved from SSE electric and moved to OVO Energy I've had nothing but errors,however the £66 then £67pm support payments are paid to my bank account but then I see on my bills since October '22 it's being taken off my direct debit as a charge which then cancels it out completely? So my overall payments are showing as £9,£12 and similar when they should be showing my £75 direct debit and the £67 aid payments as N/A or £0.00 since it was paid to my bank account, what's happening is I'm being TOTALLY IGNORED by OVO after sending 3 or 4 emails last year and no response then I used the complaints form twice and got one response from a computer generated email! Part of my disabilities makes it extremely difficult for me to use the phone and I'm getting ignored and I don't know what I can do,if someone else can help I'd be very grateful, thanks 

Hi

May be someone can help to explain my problem. 

Referring to my monthly statement , I wonder why my refund has to be deduced from my starting balance.

Suppose it the benefits from council but not from my prepaid credit

Thanks 

Not sure what you’re actually asking  but does this help?

I have, just this morning had £67 added ro my account. How they have used it is to take the £67 off my usage so far this month which in turn automatically increased my credit by £67. After my direct debit has cleared it will paid into my bank account, then reducing my credit by £67. Don't ask!!

Yes that sounds like the normal way it’s been done. You gain £67 

Well blow me down….OVO did as I messaged earlier and added the £67 to my credit. Now a couple of hours later they have taken that £67 off my credit and now show it as a refund, obviously yet to enter my bank account My credit is correct, all I wait is the £67 being put into my bank account after my direct debit has cleared…..Pheewww

Euclid, Pythagoras, Archimedes, etc will be turning in there graves!!!

Nice. You ok to hang in there for about 5 working days? The cash should be in your bank account by this time next week if memory serves.

Yes, all fine as long as the maths add up))

I have received £67 from OVO , but at the same time they have charged me the same value. I think there is no any sense of payment process!

Besides putting the £67 in your bank account and reducing your bill @Mido ?

They applied the £67 to my account then the next day it said £67 refunded so I rang ovo and they said its because I pay by dd that they pay me the money into my bank

I asked Ovo why they didn't keep the £67 because the government are giving this to me to contribute to my energy bills. They said Ovo had decided to give it back, I have decided to pay it back to them every month so yes, additional admin for Ovo and me.  No benefit for either of us.

Yes, so your energy bill is reduced by the £67 and then this is paid back to you. It’s slight different for those not on dd

Thank you for your response.They applied this valve to my account, so there’s an extra charge. I have returned the money, and the balance restored as before.

It’s barmey that OVO have confused so many people by refunding the £66/£67 to dd customers and obviously not explained it sufficiently. Maybe there could be an explanation on the phone line along the lines of ’if you’re a direct debit customer and you’ve seen £66 or £67 refunded to your bank, don’t worry: this is correct, your ebss has been paid into your account and you can see it in your Charges detail’. 
The phone lines are busy enough without that added in.

You can’t win. There are some who’d like to see the rebate added to their account balance, while others would complain that ‘OVO is hanging on to my money’ if that happened. Some would say ‘deduct it from my DD,’ but what if it’s more than the DD? ‘Just pay it into the bank account and leave it out of the account completely’ - fine for those who have an account registered with OVO, but what about the rest? And where’s the audit trail showing that OVO did its job of passing the rebate on to the customer?? 

I reckon OVO have hit on the best solution for the greatest number of users, even though the most complaints are from DD customers who didn’t follow that trail. It’s explained well on the website, but not anywhere that I could find on the Android app.

Is it just our account or have anyone not had there monthly direct debit taken out on the set day ? Has OVO refunded money back to anyone else leaving there account in debt through no fault of there own ? This has been raised with OVO Energy on several occasions but they seem slow on coming up with a resolution too what happened there end. A complaint has been sent 48 hrs ago but haven't had a acknowledgement email.

Thanks