New kid on the block - OVO

yabbadoo

I'm in the Eastern region, just coming off a Scottish Power capped deal. They want an 18% increase to cap to end 2013.

Having established my annual usage (dual fuel) I shopped around - came across OVO, who started supplying in 2009. They offer 12 months rolling fixed prices - no frills, no discounts, just straightforward pricing.

I called them to ask when they last put up their charges (April, 3%)
Per my spreadsheet, I save well over £200 changing to them, and they are the best of several other suppliers serving Eastern region. (Probably the same for other regions, others may confirm that)

I don't like "standing charges", but theirs are by far the cheapest of the rates of others. I don't like split rate charging either, which is the only alternative to standing charges.

It's monthly Direct Debit, ONLINE only, and the account cannot go into the red. Coming into the winter (high usage) period, they ask for 125% of annualised monthly usage for the initial Direct Debits, to ensure tye account is in credit. You can provide monthly readings on-line. The account is monitored, and overpayments refunded PLUS 3% INTEREST twice a year. Direct debits can be adjusted once the actual usage history is established.

Their customer service is friendly and helpful (and freefone), and they say their aim/ethic is to supply/service customers well and charge fairly - Martin, I think they've been taking notes from you!

They say they aren't advertising, don't need to as they're taking on new customers at a very comfortable rate already, via one search engine only plus "word of mouth" referrals. Service is key, they don't want to be overloaded and thus compromise their service.

I'm moving as of Oct 3rd ... (took 5 weeks to set up)

If anyone's interested, the link is www.ovoenergy.com

eurmalian

I'm not entirely sure of the point of your post. OVO are fairly well known on the forums here and have the same sort of mix of good and bad experiences as most others...

yabbadoo wrote: »

I called them to ask when they last put up their charges (April, 3%)
Per my spreadsheet, I save well over £200 changing to them, and they are the best of several other suppliers serving Eastern region. (Probably the same for other regions, others may confirm that)

Did they say they won't be putting up their prices? As if they put them up the usual 15-20% then there goes a lot of your saving.

yabbadoo wrote: »

Their customer service is friendly and helpful (and freefone), and they say their aim/ethic is to supply/service customers well and charge fairly - Martin, I think they've been taking notes from you!

They say they aren't advertising, don't need to as they're taking on new customers at a very comfortable rate already, via one search engine only plus "word of mouth" referrals. Service is key, they don't want to be overloaded and thus compromise their service.

I'm not entirely sure that one phone call is really a good way of judging an entire companys customer service (unless it took you more than one call to sign up, itself a bad sign). I'm pretty sure every company can claim to be both godlike and utterly useless by that measure.

As for 'they say', of course they do. Find me a company who's spokesperson says their aim/ethic is to supply/service customers terribly and to charge completely unfairly and I'll be impressed by that.

The same goes for the second 'they say'. It's a good reason to give, but there's no guarantee at all that it's in any way accurate.

yabbadoo wrote: »

It's monthly Direct Debit, ONLINE only, and the account cannot go into the red.

Why not? And what happens if it should?

yabbadoo wrote: »

Coming into the winter (high usage) period, they ask for 125% of annualised monthly usage for the initial Direct Debits, to ensure tye account is in credit... ...The account is monitored, and overpayments refunded PLUS 3% INTEREST twice a year.

That actually sounds like a good plan. Both parts here sound like something other suppliers could do with taking up.

Plushchris

A few mistakes there..

Its not online only, they do paper billing for an extra £20 per year (my mum has signed up like this)

Account CAN go into the red (I've done this)

I'm not sure what you meant by "via one search engine only" as they come up in searches made on google, ask, lycos, yahoo etc. they also feature on all of the comparison sites I've used.


Dont get me wrong, I'm with Ovo and have been for over a year now and have found them to be very good, however I'm not sure I would be taken in by all that guff...

grahamc2003

yabbadoo wrote: »

They say they aren't advertising, don't need to as they're taking on new customers at a very comfortable rate already, via one search engine only plus "word of mouth" referrals. Service is key, they don't want to be overloaded and thus compromise their service.

They say!

Ovo Energy has hired a head of comms and is now in talks with a number of top PR agencies as it prepares to hand out a six-figure PR and lobbying brief

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1077556/Energy-provider-Ovo-steps-comms-challenge-big-six/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Oh, and according to Wiki, OVO is owned by British Gas.

Edit - sorry, last sentence is totally incorrect, thanks to JD87 for correcting me.

ginvzt

I have been with OVO for 9+ months now. I am paying more than I sue by Direct Debit - took a while to get it reduced, and I am still in credit by about £400-£500. The initial DD was set at £120, based on the previous usage that was sent to them by British Gas. I think we paid just over £1k for the lst year with British gas for gas and electricity. However, we have changed the 20 year old boiler for a new one (viessman with weather comp), and I think only had heating off very briefly this year, so our gas usage is nowhere near what it used to be.

I haven't had any refunds as yet - so I am not sure about 'being refunded twice a year'.

jd87

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Oh, and according to Wiki, OVO is owned by British Gas.

Pretty sure this isn't true, and I can't find anything on their wiki[pedia?] page that says they are (either currently or in recent previous page edits). Perhaps you'd like to provide a source?

grahamc2003

jd87 wrote: »

Pretty sure this isn't true, and I can't find anything on their wiki[pedia?] page that says they are (either currently or in recent previous page edits). Perhaps you'd like to provide a source?

Mea culpa, I do apologise. I googled 'who owns ovo energy' and came up with this ...

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/who_owns_ovo_energy

then went to wiki to see if they agreed, and must have inadvertently put 'Gas' into the following. How embarrassing.

Ovo Energy is an independent supplier and is British owned

Fairzo

Just switched from Ovo after 12 months. Imho customer service has declined significantly during that time and it proved very difficult to get DDs reduced to realistic level even when logical calculations presented.

Catherine_Johnson_2

yabbadoo wrote: »

I'm in the Eastern region, just coming off a Scottish Power capped deal. They want an 18% increase to cap to end 2013.

Having established my annual usage (dual fuel) I shopped around - came across OVO, who started supplying in 2009. They offer 12 months rolling fixed prices - no frills, no discounts, just straightforward pricing.

I called them to ask when they last put up their charges (April, 3%)
Per my spreadsheet, I save well over £200 changing to them, and they are the best of several other suppliers serving Eastern region. (Probably the same for other regions, others may confirm that)

I don't like "standing charges", but theirs are by far the cheapest of the rates of others. I don't like split rate charging either, which is the only alternative to standing charges.

It's monthly Direct Debit, ONLINE only, and the account cannot go into the red. Coming into the winter (high usage) period, they ask for 125% of annualised monthly usage for the initial Direct Debits, to ensure tye account is in credit. You can provide monthly readings on-line. The account is monitored, and overpayments refunded PLUS 3% INTEREST twice a year. Direct debits can be adjusted once the actual usage history is established.

Their customer service is friendly and helpful (and freefone), and they say their aim/ethic is to supply/service customers well and charge fairly - Martin, I think they've been taking notes from you!

They say they aren't advertising, don't need to as they're taking on new customers at a very comfortable rate already, via one search engine only plus "word of mouth" referrals. Service is key, they don't want to be overloaded and thus compromise their service.

I'm moving as of Oct 3rd ... (took 5 weeks to set up)

If anyone's interested, the link is www.ovoenergy.com

I have to say, this sounds more like an advert than anything else. I assume that wasn't the intention.

OVO was mentioned on the BBC recently because they hadn't increased their prices as much as some other suppliers (in fact I believe they reduced either gas or electricity prices, can't remember which?). However, when I look on the comparison websites they don't come anywhere near the top of the cheapest rates (based on my gas and electricity usage). So, I would assume their charges have always been rather high - in that they didn't increase them very much recently but are still higher than a lot of other utility companies.


Rather than taking the marketing blurb from the company at face value, I think the only true way of seeing how good they are is to do a direct comparison. In my case they weren't very good as far as pricing is concerned - which, to me, is the overriding factor.

Premier_2

yabbadoo wrote: »

...Having established my annual usage (dual fuel) I shopped around - came across OVO, who started supplying in 2009. They offer 12 months rolling fixed prices - no frills, no discounts, just straightforward pricing.

...

I don't like "standing charges", but theirs are by far the cheapest of the rates of others. I don't like split rate charging either, which is the only alternative to standing charges.

It's monthly Direct Debit, ONLINE only, and the account cannot go into the red. ...

Well as another said, the account certainly can go into the red.

What I'm wondering is, based on your criteria, why didn't you opt for Ebico?

No standing charges or 2 tier pricing, pay however you like, (and if you pay on receipt of bill, by DD if you wish, then you won't go in the red), simple unit charging with no extras or discounts (unlike OVO who do charge extra for paper billing as already mentioned by another poster) etc.

All you appear to want

Ebico are not the cheapest (unless a very low user or you are on PPM), but it appears price is not your deciding factor (else use a comparison site and choose the cheapest), but appear to tick all the boxes you are looking for.

Also no tie-ins, so you can leave without penalty if you find you don't like them for any reason

yabbadoo

Go to EBICO ??? You MUST be joking !!

Per their site, todays's prices are GAS 4.788p per kwh and ELECT 14.501p per kwh (Eastern region rate). My annual usage is (gas) 18875 kwh (= £903.74) and (elect) 5427 kwh (= £786.97) giving an Ebico annual cost of £1690.70.
OVO - same usage figs, Gas is 3.400p and Elect 9.560p (giving £641.75 + £518.82, plus standing charges £129.15 - OVO total £1289.72. (Both suppliers' prices incl VAT).
Ovo versus Ebico, when Ebico is £400.98 more expensive? This is a moneysavingexpert forum, not a joke shop!

Further observation - Ebico's site makes no statement about pricing policy or fixing. Ovo's prices are fixed for 12 months from date of contract. Ebico's supply partner is Scottish and Southern Energy - how that affects their pricing strategy is unclear.

I see various sceptical comments upstream in this thread. To clarify - I'm a fully retired 69 year old pensioner, unconnected with energy supply or advertising. My comments/observations are mine alone, unsolicited and unpaid. They are backed by simple maths on a spreadsheet - (Determine annual usage, multiply by published rates, and where appropriate add/subtract standing charges/discounts to arrive at annual cost).

Using this method, Scottish Power would have cost me £1439.36 (fixed to 31/10/2012) or £1578.49 (capped/fixed to 31/12/2013) including discounts for dual fuel and direct debit.

Similarly, EDF would have been £1262.43 (fixed to 31/12/2012) or £1389.65 (fixed to 31/3/2014), all discounts included, All calculations used mid-Aug 2011 published VAT-inclusive rates.

Based on these calculations, EDF would save a further $30 or so, but the many adverse postings put me off. I am more than happy to save a minimum £150 versus my existing Scottish Power, and OVO's commitment to transparent billing and service makes a welcome change (as does earning 3% interest on refunds - a rate difficult to acheive on the high street)..