OVO after the first 12 months

Terrylw1

Fairzo wrote: »

So, what are the implications of a utility company going breasts skyward, both in terms of the credit accumulated by customers and continuation of supply?

Supply wouldn't matter, the Distribution network is totally seperate. Suppliers have gone Parton's up before (Independant Energy, for instance) and they just get bought out by other players since they can buy their customer base in the deal. Same as any other takeover which Npower did a lot of early on, just would be a bagain basement deal.

One possible complication with that (if it ever happened) would be the new Suppliers ability (and willingness) to deal with it. It would have to be part of the deal to give a cut off & all monies out, but unlikely they would continue it.

Independant Energy has things like this and not all were supported by Npower when they took them over. They all got what they were entitled to up to that point but for those on contracts spanning the takeover, a tricky affair!...since all these low level individual billing deals were not considered...well done again Ofgem!

rogcal

Terrylw1 wrote: »

When you change Supplier, your old old Supplier passes them the last 12 months of estimated usage.

Surely the sensible thing to do would be to pass the new supplier details of the actual usage over the last 12 months rather than estimated.

Anyone can grab figures out of the sky but why on earth do that when the "real" consumption figures are available?

As for the meter reading companies also suppling data, that's a laugh as they can never find us due to our remote location and anyway their scheduled visits are so far apart they would not provide any useful data anyway.

I'd be more than happy for OVO to visit and carry out an energy audit and then perhaps they would see why our electricity consumption remains pretty constant throughout the year!

Terrylw1

rogcal wrote: »

Surely the sensible thing to do would be to pass the new supplier details of the actual usage over the last 12 months rather than estimated.

Anyone can grab figures out of the sky but why on earth do that when the "real" consumption figures are available?

As for the meter reading companies also suppling data, that's a laugh as they can never find us due to our remote location and anyway their scheduled visits are so far apart they would not provide any useful data anyway.

I'd be more than happy for OVO to visit and carry out an energy audit and then perhaps they would see why our electricity consumption remains pretty constant throughout the year!

If you old Supplier was billed to exact reads, they would pass the history including it so it would be pretty good.

The readers do their own estimation based on what they take or any customer reads your Suppliers passes that you gave them. Their estimates can be bad, just like a Suppliers...but the readers estimation os how your change of supply reading is determined...hence why you always have to submit all your own to avoid all this.

This is how the industry is set up.

If you always give your Supplier customer reads and they use them, everything should be as you want it to be.

Never though allow a Supplier of any kind to sell you a prediction. Always best to store your own reads and make your own mind up. Anyone who does this with regular readings will have a lot more understanding well telling them to forget about upping those DD's!!!

rogcal

All my meter reads are given online on the 13th of each month as requested by OVO and then what do they do, base the months consumption on an estimate!

In July I reminded them of their advertising blurb "Bills based on actual meter readings" that came with previous monthly statements and suggested they do what they claim they do.

Naturally, OVO did what they're good at, ignored my request and removed the offending statement from subsequent bills.

I suppose it does prove one thing, OVO did listen to what I said and did what was best for OVO!

t0rt0ise

Ovo told me to give them a meter reading on the 10th of the month and it would be used for the 14th of the month bill. They did put my reading on the bill but then estimated from the 10th to the 14th putting an estimated reading on the bill as well. It was daft but it did mean that it was pretty accurate.

Terrylw1

t0rt0ise wrote: »

Ovo told me to give them a meter reading on the 10th of the month and it would be used for the 14th of the month bill. They did put my reading on the bill but then estimated from the 10th to the 14th putting an estimated reading on the bill as well. It was daft but it did mean that it was pretty accurate.

For many years Suppliers have used reading 30 days on either side to bill with. They also add them into consumption histories to allow more accurate estimation.

That sounds more like rather than create the bill from your read, they just added it into their consumption so that it used it in estimate creation. If thats the case, it was a pointless thing to do really with the bill that close.

dogshome

Hi Fairzo - Interesting question. Utility Co's don't come under the jurisdiction of the FSA, so I don't think there are any guarantees for the safety of customers money, unless that is OVO have themselves legally ring fenced the money in a dedicated customer account so that some future Administrator can't get his hands on it - If they have not, it will be yet another Farepack where money paid for goods by customers who have had not had those goods, was mopped up by the Liquidator

Not being an OVO customer I've not seen the documentation, but those that have refer to '3% Interest' It's my understanding that a Discount for Pre-payment is a common commercial tool, but if indeed OVO are paying 3% interest that the customer can withdraw at some point in the future, then HM Revenue & Customs will very likely take close a look.

rogcal

Perhaps I should put a direct question to OVO on the matter of customer's funds being kept out of the reach of administrators should they go belly up.

As there is no knowing how safe my money would be with them should they go to the wall, I shall in all probability cancel my DD to avoid them snaffling £50 over and above what my normal DD amount is!

Brief update on my ongoing issue. Still no call from a "manager" and no sign of response to my request for a review of the estimated consumption figure that led to them advising of the 80% increase in my monthly DD payment.

Fairzo

rogcal wrote: »

Perhaps I should put a direct question to OVO on the matter of customer's funds being kept out of the reach of administrators should they go belly up.

As there is no knowing how safe my money would be with them should they go to the wall, I shall in all probability cancel my DD to avoid them snaffling £50 over and above what my normal DD amount is!

Brief update on my ongoing issue. Still no call from a "manager" and no sign of response to my request for a review of the estimated consumption figure that led to them advising of the 80% increase in my monthly DD payment.

Please advise of (any) progress. I'm wondering about the wisdom of signing up with Ovo

rogcal

I have still heard nothing from OVO either by phone or email following my request two days ago for a review of their calculations for my increased DD payment.

At what point would others invoke OVO's own complaints procedure if they continue to fail to respond? Is 48 hours about right or should I give them longer?

Following the suggestion made by dogshome yesterday, I did email OVO yesterday with a request for information on how customers in credit were protected against losing their money should OVO go into administration.

I'll keep you posted on what if any response I get to this additional request.