Solved

Is the OVO website really going to be down for the rest of 2023?

Show first post

173 replies

Tim_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 7

Hi @Beprecise 

 

My sincere apologies for this. We have a private group with the OVO Forum’s top members. These members get access to OVO staff on monthly calls, which is what I was suggesting. I didn’t mean to post this in a public topic and I’ve updated my response now to avoid any further confusion. 

 

If this event took place I’d be happy to pass on any insights to you if you’d find that valuable? I’m fairly certain you just want this sorting and I don’t blame you for that. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
B
Rank
Badge +1

@Tim_OVO Correct yes, I just want it sorted. And thanks for clarifying.

Being techie, I admit to being intrigued. It strikes me that going forward, Energy Providers will need to be able to support multiple period rate type billings. When I look at Octopus (sorry) I note that they now offer a number different contracts, one called Cosy (aimed at Heat Pump users) has 3 different time of day charging rates which can occur over 4 periods of the day. Clearly this all needs Smart Meter data. And I guess that’s the challenge for Energy Providers, to provide new time of day billing rate capabilities, whilst handling customers that want to stay with an old rotating meter who provide 4 readings each year! 

So I do find it interesting as a view on which Companies are anticipating the future. What holds me back from Octopus is that their gas price is not so competitive and like most people in the UK I have GCH …..

So if you’re happy to pass information on, I’d be happy to receive it. 

D
Rank
Userlevel 2

Am I one of only a few who are being told OVO may take the rest of the year to get their new app sorted, how can this be and annoyingly seems to be worst for longer standing customers 

 

it’s already been months that I get the auto message that things are being improved, I have no access to consumption or day to day bills

 

at least it’s summer and the bills are less frightening now, but at a time when energy costs are so high how do OVO justify to themselves such a farcically long changeover period

 

very frustrated and considering moving supplier after nearly 15 years loyalty 

 

 

Abby_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hey @DavidG58 

 

It sounds like you’re on our old billing system. OVO have closed this down and are in the process of moving these remaining customers onto our new billing system as soon as possible.

 

Online account use won’t be available for the foreseeable future but you can contact our Support Team in the meantime to submit readings and you will receive email attachments with pdfs attached for your bills.

 

You can top up via bank transfer, cheque or by calling 0330 303 5063, you’ll continue to get monthly statements, OVO will contact you if your direct debit needs increasing. For anything else including to submit meter readings please contact our Support Team. 

Location: Electric Avenue
Caino78
Rank

Hi,

 

I tried to log into OVO app and also my online account afterwards, to check my usage and billing, but i can't log in. 

 

After searching on Google I came across a article that said "OVO customers logged out of account till end of 2023", is this true?? 

 

I wanted to look at new rates in July and see if it's best for myself to go to fixed rate, as I'm hoping more Tarriffs will be available in July . 

 

Does anyone know what's happening??

 

Thanks in advance for your help

 

😃

Blastoise186
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Hi,

Do you use your email address to login, or a My OVO ID?

In the meantime, https://plans.ovoenergy.com should provide the tariffs.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
P
Rank

It will work now, it was a major outage, website & app lasting maybe 30mins.

Here is the info your looking for just in case, I would stay on variable for now, I am and I probably use more elec and gas than buckingham palace!

 

New Energy Price Cap

rates from 1 July to 30 September 2023

Current Energy Price Guarantee

rates from 1 April to 30 June 2023
Gas 

Unit rate: 7.51p per kilowatt hour (kWh)

Standing charge: 29.11p per day

Unit rate: 10.31p per kilowatt hour (kWh)

Standing charge: 29.11p per day
Electricity

Unit rate: 30.11p per kWh

Standing charge: 52.97p per day

Unit rate: 33.21p per kWh

Standing charge: 52.97p per day

 

 

 
Caino78
Rank

Hi, @Blastoise186 

 

I use both but I can't access my account at all. Ive seen a post on here I think with someone saying they couldn't acces account, not being able to access my information, I don't know my usage, what I owe, or able pay money in, plus I can't see standard tariff rate.

My mum is with a different energy company and has had an email to say her electricity rates will decrease in July, I haven't had an email from OVO, I thought everyone would do?? 🤔

 

Blastoise186
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

They get sent out in batches - there’s a LOT of emails to send so it may take a while.

If you need to access your account, https://help.ovoenergy.com for Live Chat can help you out.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Abby_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hey @Caino78 

 

Sorry to hear about this.

 

It sounds like you’re on our old billing system. OVO have closed this down and are in the process of moving these remaining customers onto our new billing system as soon as possible. You won’t need to do anything to get your account migrated. We’ll contact you with any next steps once the new website is ready. Online account use won’t be available for the foreseeable future but you can contact our Support Team in the meantime to submit readings, and you will receive email attachments with pdfs attached for your bills.

 

You can top up via bank transfer, cheque or by calling 0330 303 5063. You’ll continue to get monthly statements, OVO will contact you if your direct debit needs increasing. For anything else please contact our Support Team. 

Location: Electric Avenue
N
Rank

OVO has ended  my access to ‘My OVO’ with no warning, just an insulting message that, “We're in the process of migrating groups of customers to our new website so access to your online account won't be available until the end of 2023.”

Any firm that was both caring and competent would have kept the old website going until the new one was ready.

Do community members members think this is.

  1. completely unacceptable
  2. just very, very bad customer service 

Should I tell the regulator that I complained in writing about this on 20 May, but have had no reply other than an acknowledgement saying that they would reply within 8 working days?

  1. Yes
  2.  No
Blastoise186
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Actually, this migration has been taking place for a few years in the background and there’s fewer than 30k accounts left to migrate - all of which require some kind of manual action. Millions of accounts have already moved to the new platform and work just fine. There’s no longer enough accounts still on the old system to justify the costs of keeping it running.

So here are my answers.

Do community members members think this is:

C: Perfectly understandable given that I’m aware of the full context and story. It goes back several years in fact.

Should I tell the regulator that I complained in writing about this on 20 May, but have had no reply other than an acknowledgement saying that they would reply within 8 working days

No. Just ping Live Chat again via https://help.ovoenergy.com for an update.

If your complaint is about the time the migration is taking and/or access to online services in the meantime however, I’d recommend against pursuing it. No amount of complaints can speed up the work needed to get the migration completed and you’ll just end up collecting case numbers for no real purpose.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
N
Rank

Thanks for that, Blastoise, it’s good to hear from an ordinary OVO customer who looks out for all the other customers. 

When you say you know the ‘full context’ of ending people’s access to My OVO, and speak of the costs, does the full context include the £370 million profit made in 2021?  OVO can well afford to do the right thing, and provide the promised service for all the customers who gave such wealth to its directors and owners.

I say that it’s unacceptable to  chuck a single customer out of ‘My OVO,’ but you tell me that they have done this to nearly 30,000 people!  You have thereby made me aware of the wider context of what had seemed like a wrong against just me.  It is in fact a serious and systematic failure of customer  service.  

I am unable to give meter readings, make payments, and most importantly, unable to check old statements and bills.

As for the idea that I should chase OVO’s failure to deal with an acknowledged complaint, let’s be clear about roles here.  Mine is to complain, OVO’s is to address the complaint, and the regulator’s is to ensure that OVO has a functional complaint system.  Continuing silence suggests that OVO does not.

I will give two months for the ‘eight day reply,’ and will then complain to the regulator on 21 July, if there is still silence.

Regards

Neil

D
Rank
Userlevel 2

Rather than putting out the standard reply to these comments regarding updates can we please have a bit more clarity on the timescale , somebody surely must know 

 

To keep saying ‘this year’ is just adding salt to our wounds , in this day how can any company take so long for a web site upgrade 

 

totally bonkers 

Caino78
Rank

Hi @Abby_OVO 

 

I'm new to OVO, I transferred over from SSE so I would assume I am on the newer billing system?? I'm going to try logging on to the App now as I have just had my monthly bill, if I can't access it I will contact customer services.

 

@Padster thanks for your input, it makes alot of sense to stay on variable as on Martin Lewis site, he says unless you're fixed rate tariff is less than the Energy Price Cap, then don't change. I'm all electric, and will be sticking with variable tariff until there are fixed tariffs which do actually save you money.

 

👍😊

Blastoise186
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Hey, welcome back @Caino78 ,

I can confirm that if you’ve moved over from SSE, you will definitely be on the new billing platform rather than the legacy one. The plan (which I think I can reveal openly) was always to put SSE veterans on the new platform by default.

I also know that the old system has now been turned off almost completely. So it wouldn’t make sense to have migrated you there. :)

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
juliamc
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

 

To keep saying ‘this year’ is just adding salt to our wounds , in this day how can any company take so long for a web site upgrade 

@DavidG58 its not the website or app that’s being upgraded, it’s your account that’s being transferred from an old system to the ‘new’ one that most customers are now on.

It’s not that new it’s just a lot newer than the one your account is on!!

Blastoise186
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

I can also give another example of an “upgrade” that’s actually more of a “migration”, albeit in a different context.

Web hosting companies often use stuff like WHM/cPanel or Plesk to act as control panels for the servers and manage whatever customer websites are hosted on them, while also providing a way for the customers to get in to manage their own website - in the case of WHM/cPanel, the WHM side is for the server admin and the cPanel side is for the customer. A bit like how for OVO, MyOVO is the customer side that you access which lets you into your account only, and there’s an “admin control panel” for OVO to access that can get into all of them.

When you move accounts from one WHM/cPanel Server to another as part of a hardware upgrade or hardware refresh, you can’t just copy/paste all the files and databases over because literally everything would break. Instead, you use the provided tools in WHM to migrate the accounts from the old server to the new one. While all the server admin basically does is press a few buttons, in the background this fires up a ton of scripts, plugins and other tools that temporarily stops the server, scoops up all the accounts from the old server, sends them across to the new one and causes the new server to create, provision and restore those accounts to the same state, then starts everything back up. If needed, the data  for each account gets converted on the fly when it arrives at the new server.

However, if the old server has features turned on that the new one doesn’t support or you try to migrate from a server running Apache to one running NGINX (or the other way round), there is a risk things might break or the migration could fail. In those cases, extreme care has to be taken to convert the accounts before or during migration to ensure they keep working afterwards.

It’s actually a lot more complicated than that but digging that deep goes beyond the scope of this forum.

It’s a similar story with the Apollo → Orion Migration. You can’t just copy/paste everything over - it has to go through the migration process which (among other things) converts the account data to work with the new system. And that also means verifying everything with a bunch of other systems and making sure the features match.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
D
Rank
Userlevel 2

I do ‘get’ that it’s a complicated process, but we are not talking about a back street business doing an ad hoc upgrade, OVO really should bring in sufficient resources to resolve this in a more timely fashion, predicting up to 9 months wait at the start does not meet the expectations of customers of multi million £ businesses 

 

it really is farcical that they must believe it’s OK

 

we can’t see our tariff or any change options, useage, credit balance or not, check that interest is being correctly applied etc, totally unacceptable , web chat is often ‘not available’ I don’t have time to make a lengthy phone call to find out something I should already have readily available 

 

I don’t even get emailed bills, despite requesting that as a minimum need 

 

you really couldn’t make it up , if we were on a financial penalty per week to get fixed I somehow think that might focus the minds of OVO management , can the ombudsman enforce such a thing , I am going to do some research 

 

 

 

C
Rank

I’ve tried logging into my account to receive a message saying that the website is unavailable until the end of 2023.  I’ve been trying to get a refund of the credit on my account for over 6 months and have tried the webchat, phoning and sending a complaint by email. I also saw the recent feature on Watchdog on The One Show and thinking this is probably a good avenue.  Does anyone have any suggestions how I get these people to engage?

Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

Hi @cazjardine

That doesn't sound great.

I would try calling the OVO collections number and see if they will process a refund. 

0800 0699 831

If you are on the Variable rate plan you can ask them for 100% of your balance to be returned although obviously this will impact your direct debits.

Up to you how much credit you leave for budgeting getting through winter.

How much credit do you have on your account and how much is your Direct Debit currently? 

If you post how you get on I am sure it will help other customers. 

Blastoise186
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

I don’t have that power myself as a forum volunteer. However, the forum moderators are on regular patrol here and will probably stop by sooner or later.

However, I do know that your online account will be re-activated soon. There’s been whispers that it might be ready by October but please don’t rely on this - the target to get it done is by December 2023 but it could be faster.

You were on the legacy Apollo system which has been shut down because it was unreliable and there was barely anyone still on it. You’re being moved to the new billing platform that’s built in-house but it sounds like your account is one of those that required manual attention to migrate.

You might also be getting an automatic refund soon for unrelated reasons. You’ll receive an email if that’s the case.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Emmanuelle_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 7

Hey @cazjardine,

 

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

 

I’ll get Forum Support to reach out, please keep an eye on your private messages. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
Jeffus
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

Hey @cazjardine,

 

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

 

I’ll get Forum Support to reach out, please keep an eye on your private messages. 

You can see the messages on here

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview

S
Rank

Hi.

I would need help to get my account to change DD and make payments. I tried to call or log in from my account, unfortunately the website does not work and it seems that no one answers the phone. It is a problem that is already becoming frustrating for me.

I have -600£ and I can't understand why and from where!

I have NO ONE to talk to about my problem.

 

If you can help me to talk to someone, I would be very happy!

 

Thank you.

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings