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Hi all,

I have been living in a rented property for the last 2 years. Since moving into the flat, we have been toping up the gas and electricity via pay-as-you-go. However, during all this time, the account has been under the name of the landlord.

I finally decided to update the account details to my name yesterday (15/04/23). The change was surprisingly quick and painless… or so I thought

I have just checked my meter and all the credit we have built up over the past few months (a combination of the government monthly payments plus our own top-ups) has vanished and we are now on emergency credit! We had around £200 credit on our account (circa £100 in gas and electricity each).

What I think has happened, is that Ovo recognised this credit as belonging to the landlord - so they have either paid it back to him (which would be weird seeing as its a pay-as-you-go account, there should be no debit card on file to refund the credit to), or the have taken the money for themselves?!

I currently cannot get in contact with them seeing as the call centre is closed for the weekend. I should add that I did not take any pictures of the meter credit before I updated the account details, plus all the historical payments we have made seem to be wiped from the meter’s memory.

Will this be an easy fix, or are we screwed?

 

Edit: I should also add that our account only just migrated over from SSE to OVO this week (I know this because I called the helpline to update the account details earlier in the week, and was unable to do so because the account was in the middle of the migration process). So there is a chance this issue could be related to the migration rather than me updating the account details, but I am unsure.

It’s more likely migration related and will be restored.

However, you really should take control of the supply account as soon as you move in, rather than waiting two years.

It’s more likely migration related and will be restored.

However, you really should take control of the supply account as soon as you move in, rather than waiting two years.

Okay, thanks for the response - that is good to know

And yes, going forward I will. This is my first flat and I was under the impression that the gas and electricity supplier was down to the landlord and the tenant just had to deal with whatever they had in place.

You’re welcome.

When you call to take control of the supply, I’d also recommend exploring switching to Pay Monthly during the same call. That way, you won’t ever run out of credit and can get everything back when you move out. It’s much easier to live with!

You’re welcome.

When you call to take control of the supply, I’d also recommend exploring switching to Pay Monthly during the same call. That way, you won’t ever run out of credit and can get everything back when you move out. It’s much easier to live with!

Can I piggy back this response and ask another question, if you don’t mind of course.

Despite your assurances of me getting the credit back into my account, I am trying to top-up with some more credit as I really do not like being on emergency credit - even if it is only temporary.

However, I am trying to top-up online via here https://ovoenergypayments.paypoint.com/energy and the webpage and Android app both seem to be extremely sluggish. I either get timed out or get a message saying there is a server issue.

Is this common, or are there currently problems on Ovo’s side of things? I never seemed to have this issue when paying via SSE’s web portal.

 

Thanks again

The original issue is probably because you’re not fully migrated yet. The slow site and app on that link is PayPoint’s fault, not OVO. I will try to feed that back though via a forum moderator.

The original issue is probably because you’re not fully migrated yet. The slow site and app on that link is PayPoint’s fault, not OVO. I will try to feed that back though via a forum moderator.

Okay, I think I figured the slow site/app issue. I think my gas (which I was trying to top-up) is on the “non disconnecting ‘credit’ setting” which I have seen mentioned in threads describing issues similar to what I am experiencing. I think this setting means I cannot top up.

Though it is strange because I am able to top up my electricity okay - that doesn’t seem to be on this setting.

This seems to be reflected on the smart meter tracking device I have. The electricity half of the display is green as usual, whereas the gas half in “greyed” out, which it doesn't usually look like.

Gas takes longer to migrate. If it’s not done soon, try 0330 175 9669 as they can help

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