Trying (and failing) to get account information from OVO

Sorry, I can’t help with the lack of response from OVO. However, there are a few long-term customers who frequent these forums that may be able to help you get at least some of the information you’re looking for. To do that, we’d need some details from you.

1. What type of meters do you have - make and model? It may be easiest just to post photos of them.
2. Do you have an In-Home Display (IHD) paired with your electricity meter? If so, what sort? Again, a photo would help.
3. Visit Switch your gas and electricity to OVO (ovoenergy.com) in a private browsing window (to ensure that there are no cookies to interfere). Enter your postcode and address and fill in the other details. If and when results appear (they don’t always - sometimes you’ll see just an invitation to call), click on the one you think applies to your current arrangement. Then click on the Tariff Information Label links to see the rates that apply. Note that these include VAT at 5%.

It may be possible to see the tariff that is being used on the meters and/or the IHD. The IHD may also make it possible for you to access your half-hourly data via a third-party application like Bright, which gets them from the DCC on your behalf. Showing us the meters and IHD would help us help you.

PS I submitted an SAR to OVO several weeks ago for a completely different reason. After confirming my email address, I’ve heard nothing, so I won’t be surprised if you don’t get anywhere either.

Hmm… Setting this stuff to run via Transcend would probably fix all this. It’s effectively an automated system so once it’s set up, it wouldn’t even need anyone at OVO to do anything other than just sit back and sip coffee.

iirc it’s pretty fast so you can sometimes get the data package in a matter of hours.

Hey @Guinea Pig 42,

I’m really sorry for the bad experiences you've had,

You are entitled to raise a ‘subject access request’. You certainly should have received a welcome confirmation email which includes your tariff details. We don’t have access to your account here on the Forum but it sounds to me like something may have gone wrong with the sign up. I’d have assumed if a Welcome Letter had been created we could re-send that or manually attach it as a pdf.

I’ll ask Forum_Support to reach out and see if they can shed any more light on this. 

Hi @Emmanuelle_OVO   @Firedog @Blastoise186 @Tim_OVO

Apologies everyone, I will get round to replying properly sometime. I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with other things, and what little time I’ve had left has been spent fighting OVO.

I do get a reasonable estimate of my electricity usage downloaded, as a by-product of my EV charger, so this will not leave me too shocked! I will however check out your suggestions, when I can.

The current state of play is that:

• My electricity is definitely with OVO. Since 29th July.
• I have had no welcome letter,
• I have had no bills or statement.
• I have had no written (email or anything else) information about my tariff
• I have no Direct Debit in place.
• I am not going to get online access to my data until at least December.

I have been through the complaints process and we have reached deadlock, so I am now in a position to refer this to the Energy Ombudsman.

I have also submitted a Subject Access Request  to get my data, and to attempt to find out how OVO has (mis)handled setting up my account, and why they can’t correct their error in putting me on an archaic account.

It is unfortunate that OVO is apparently totally unable to meet the Information Commissioner’s deadline by many months, so I will probably be online with before I get a response. However, I will inform the Information Commissioner if(when) OVO fails to meet its obligations.

BTW Emmanuelle, none of these comments are aimed at you or anyone connected with either the Forum, or the Smart Homes Trial. I have had nothing but useful help from all of you. You will have my complete support if you stage a Palace Coup!

Hey @Guinea Pig 42 

It’s always a shame when the Ombudsman needs to get involved but hopefully they come back to you soon with a resolution for everything. 

It’s really good to know we’ve been a helpful space during all of this! Do still keep us update with how things play out. 

Thanks @Abby_OVO 

I’m not sure that I can go to the ombudsman quite yet. I’ve had an email from one of the Advanced Resolution Team, which says that they are unable to reach a resolution.

However, I don't think this is the deadlock letter that I need to contact the ombudsman. I have requested a clarification,

I suspect that OVO may be dragging its heels, and wait until the eight week deadline on 30th August.

Sadly, I am left with the feeling that, because I am trialling a new type of boiler for OVO which commits me to stay with OVO for 12 months, OVO has no interest whatsoever in helping.

As far as I can tell, my smart meter data has not yet reached OVO, so the effort involved by your IT in closing my account, and re-opening, where it should have been, it in the current system, is minimal. This is just incompetence.

I’m left with the sad conclusion that the only way I am likely to get online data before December is if OVO collapses, and gets taken over by Octopus. Unless of course you and the Smart Home Trials team stage an uprising!

Just to follow up on this, eight months later.

I complained to the Ombudsman, who upheld my complaint, and directed OVO to move me to a platform that would allow me online access to my account.

OVO said that they would move me… sometime. And said that they had completed this remedy. The Ombudsman then closed the complaint.

I still have no online access to my account. However every email I get from OVO tells me how much easier it would be to access my account online. They really do know how to offend their customers.

The Ombudsman also directed that I should get half hourly meter reads. The meter sends half hourly readings. OVO dumps all except one per day. It gives me one reading per month on my monthly bill. I now submit a Subject Access Request every month to get the daily readings.

By the time I eventually managed to find out how to set up a direct debit, I decided that I did not trust OVO to have any access to my bank account. The estimates on my bills bore little relationship to my actual usage. So I have been paying monthly ever since.

I only have just over a month until I can leave OVO and get back to sanity and a sensible Time-of-Use tariff.

However, I am still trying to get OVO to provide Octopus with an opening meter reading, so that I can close the Octopus account that I last used nearly a year ago, and retrieve the £200 that Octopus can’t refund me.

This is going to the Ombudsman on Monday, following two months of trying to work out what to do. It took the Ombudsman to get OVO to sort out my smart meter readings, so perhaps they can stir OVO into action here as well.

My biggest fear is that I won’t be able to move my account at the end of next month, because there is a query over it. If that happens, then I am going to try one of the more active newspaper consumer columns.

You’re sadly not alone, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Putting my pedant hat on for a moment, I’d point out that:

1. The meter doesn’t send half-hourly readings. A smart meter stores usage data - how many kWh were used - for each half-hour and transmits them to the DCC.  OVO can then retrieve these data, usually every morning, and for the lucky ones display them on a bar chart for the day.
2. Meter readings are different, and what OVO retrieve is a snapshot of the reading on the meter at midnight (GMT) each day, or at the end of each month if the customer so orders.
3. No-one can see your meter readings other than you (or anyone else with access to the meter itself) and OVO. Since bills are produced monthly, only opening and closing readings are normally necessary. Exceptions would include a change of tariff in mid-month.
4. There are plenty of other organizations that can also retrieve usage data for a particular smart meter if the customer permits. This may be your best bet if you want to see your half-hourly data. I use n3rgy.com (part of SMS, the smart meter people) for this, via Guy Lipman’s excellent site.  There are several other options.
5. It is quite possible to construct meter readings from a known value by adding usage data to it, despite what you might read elsewhere.
6. It may sound as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you 🙂

@Firedog 

Many thanks for the info. It fills a few gaps.

There is nothing wrong with a good helping of pedantry! I tried to throw my own hat away when I retired, but couldn’t quite do it. The hat still sits in a corner somewhere.

I qualified for full membership of the Institute of Pedants while working as the senior software specialist in the Computer Audit department of a significantly larger energy company than OVO. Gained honours years later, by writing technical reference manuals for computer processors.

The resolution of my problem is near. I am free to leave OVO after 30th June, and will do so.

I can actually get pretty good half-hourly approximations of my electricity usage via my EV charger, although a CT clamp is obviously never going to be as accurate as the meter.

I will be returning to Octopus at the start of July, so I will go back to downloading my half hourly data.

I believe that some of the third party CADs give local access to the meter data in real time. I was going to look at this seriously once I’ve properly implemented Home Assistant.