Yesterday my OVO Energy account was £529.96 in credit and I was paying £200 a month for both the gas and electricity account via direct debit. Yet the forward plan for the next 12 months was I’d be in debit by £1,005 and my payments should be increased to £284 a month. For the last 4 years I’ve had to ring up every three months when they try and automatically increase my monthly payments from £200 to as much as £450. I have to repeat every time that I don’t have a regular account, that I’m on the V2G scheme and pay up front for electricity which I store in my car overnight and sell back to OVO in the evening for use on the grid….so my account is not just topped up by £200 from my bank account but also a rebate of £250 at the end of the month, hence in the summer months my OVO account is never in subtraction but is constantly in addition….But OVO’s computer isn’t programmed to understand this and trying to get the call centre people to understand is like trying to make a U turn in a train. They can’t go against what the computer says.

Rather than go through the hassle, having an unexpected spare amount of cash I thought I’d deposit the £1,000 I’d be in debit by the end of the year and reduce the monthly payments form £200 to £100 a month. Made sense after all for the first £1,000 I’d be earning 5% interest with OVO. So, BACs transfer from my bank account and at the click of a button it was shown withdrawn from my account and showing deposited in my OVO account….miraculous…it took just a second or two for it to instantly transfer over the ether….modern technology is brilliant.

The next move was to reduce my monthly payments to £100 using the same online method from OVO…..and that’s where I hit a snag. The OVO Computer was still saying I’d have to pay more per month not less and wouldn’t let me drop the payments, despite still having enough in my account…even without the FIT credit….come the end of the 12 month period.

Straight on the phone and I hit that train, the one that won’t make a U turn and go against what the computer tells them, despite having to tell the same story, yet again to an operator and her supervisor. She explained that in order to drop the payments they would have to monitor the usage over a 3 month period….despite my insistence they have 4 years of records of my usage which wasn’t going to change. In the end I had better things to do with my day than argue on the phone for another hour….so I accepted the compromise of dropping to £152 instead of £100 which I wanted…despite still being over £1,500 in credit…so I thought I’d have £500 of that initial deposit back, after all I can make 3.5% interest in my ISA rather than nothing in my OVO account….only to receive the e mail…..Your money will be credited within 10 working days or less…..10 days? 2 full weeks? It took seconds to go from my account to OVOs but the other way takes 10 working days or 2 full weeks?…See what I mean about trains making a U turn. The money train can’t reverse, it has to continue the full circle of The Earth before it arrives back in Bristol in 10 days time….by which time I’ve lost any interest on it but OVO have gained…

So that was how I left it yesterday, over £1,500 in my OVO account waiting for them to return just £500. This morning my FIT credit has been added so I’m now £1,747.02 in credit (actually £1,247.02 when they eventually return my £500)….yet still the account is stating I’ll be £365 in debit at the end of the 12 month period and asking me to increase my payments to £183….GGGRRRHHH.

HMG paid £5 million for the V2G scheme yet those few of us who have stayed loyal and are still on the scheme have been treated like second class citizens. We are carrying the cost of buying a battery, being connected to The Grid for 16 hours a day plus the degradation of the battery and OVO can’t write a line of code on a computer (figuratively speaking) to accommodate a Feed In Tariff credit into it’s projected formula. We must endure the same argument every three months just to keep our own financial house in order and do OVO’s housekeeping for them as well..

Oh arguing I get 5% interest on the money in advance? ….that’s £50 a year or £4.17 a month…yet put it in premium bonds and the return is average 4% return with the chance of winning from £25-£1 million…..now if OVO could offer that then there’d be no excuse to complain….but they won’t…and I have….Or I’d even settle for 3p per kW after all OVO isn’t paying us anything extra regardless of how much we pay for electricity. The 15p per kW is compensation for the use of out batteries, it’s rent not a reward.