OVO Energy - anyone else tried to use these?

Arion

I've recently switched from Eon to Ovo and ,apart from a 4 week delay getting Eon to repay £60 I had in credit, everything went smoothly.

However, please see the following chain of emails sent this week.

MY QUERY
I’ve recently joined Ovo from Eon.

So far I’ve manually given two sets of meter readings, but I have Smart Electric and Gas meters fitted. Is it not possible for you to get your readings via the smart meter technology?

OVO REPLY
...[FONT=&quot]With Smart technology the meter installed is typically linked to the company that installed it and a new supplier is not always able to communicate with the meter to take readings. I have spoken to our Smart Metering team who have confirmed that we are not currently able to communicate with your meter and so I would ask you to provide monthly readings so that we can accurately bill your account...


MY RESPONSE[/FONT]

You answered my question, but didn't explain why Ovo have a smart energy meter team, but cannot access my smart meters.

Surely access to my smart meters data should have been transferred from Eon to Ovo when my switch was completed.

Or is it the case that my smart meters are effectively 'dumb meters' and shall remain so until Ovo install their own?

Your comments/advice are welcome...

rockm87

Ive had a couple of problems.

My gas switchover date kept changing, so I ended up paying twice for my gas bill. But they did give me a refund.

They emailed me to ask me to complete my online metre readings, but I logged on to find it wasnt yet available.

Still waiting for a final bill from my previous supplier as they said they are waiting for information from OVO.

Its only a few little niggles, overall they are good. Im glad I havent been bombarded with junk emails or too much paperwork.

Fairzo

Nover had a problem with Ovo, always found the staff helpful. Online chat very good.

Smiley_Dan

Arion wrote: »

However, please see the following chain of emails sent this week.

...

OVO REPLY
...[FONT=&quot]With Smart technology the meter installed is typically linked to the company that installed it and a new supplier is not always able to communicate with the meter to take readings. I have spoken to our Smart Metering team who have confirmed that we are not currently able to communicate with your meter and so I would ask you to provide monthly readings so that we can accurately bill your account...


MY RESPONSE[/FONT]

You answered my question, but didn't explain why Ovo have a smart energy meter team, but cannot access my smart meters.

...

They're correct. Smart meters typically only send data to the original installers.

Utterly, utterly ridiculous I know. But what do you expect from the UK energy sector?

Some more interesting info here: http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,22866.0.html

OVO_Energy

Hi there, we’re really sorry to hear this L.We’d really like to help you sort this out. If you would us like to, pleasesend an email to [EMAIL="socialmedia@ovoenergy.com"]socialmedia@ovoenergy.com[/EMAIL]and we will do everything we can to fix this. Thanks, OVO

laburnum01

We have been with OVO Energy as electric supplier for 2 years.

However, the last 6 months has been a nightmare in the making. 1st line customer service is polite by phone, but never deliver on a promise to follow up or call back. Forget about sending an email, no one ever replies. The only way to get service is to raise a complaint at feedback@ovoenergy.com.

I just found out tonight that a recently installed Ovo Energy Smart meter is not very smart as OVO Energy cannot currently communicate with any of their newly installed electric Smart Meters and the consumer still has to provide meter readings online until the problem is fixed. Lastly, our meter was swapped out 6 weeks ago and OVO Energy still have not reflected the meter change online and consequently our electricity account is in limbo accruing a credit balance in the absence of any statements and we are unable to withdraw any excess credit funds.

I suspect OVO customer service has has been overwhelmed by consumer demand.....

Officer_Dibble

My switch from 1st April has yet to be sorted out properly. Their staff are unfailingly polite and seemingly helpful, but nothing ever seems to get fixed properly - I suspect they have major IT hurdles to overcome. How they can ask for readings, then come up with an estimate 2 days later which bears no relationship to the reading I've given defeats me. If you send an email asking for readings, why not base a bill on those readings, rather than guessing how much has been used in the 2 days after the readings were taken? Too obvious, I suppose.

One of our problems is that we've only been in our house a year, and the previous owners ran a business from home and enjoyed heating switched on at tropical levels. EDF managed to quickly adjust to the fact that our usage is way lower than the previous years. OVO's software is much thicker.

SnakeDoctor_2

At the end of July OVO had Smart Meters installed at my house. The engineer told me that I could get the total kWh used by pressing the 9 button. When I asked him about my Economy 7 he referred me to OVO. When I contacted OVO they told me that I could get the total kWh used for both Day and Night by pressing the 6 button but didn't tell me which figures to use.

OVO kept referring me to the In Home Device (IHD) and sent me multiple copies of the useless User Guide.

I have emailed OVO numerous times asking them to tell me exactly which figures on the Meter will give me the information that I need; and what figures on the IHD Menu > History > Electricity > kWh > Month actually are, but they have decided to ignore my emails.

The Tariff figures on the IHD are also wrong but I’m not interested in using the IHD to calculate cost as I have a spreadsheet that does that – if I will ever be able to get cumulative kWh figures out of the meter.

Also, my MY OVO account started refusing my login attempts shortly after my not so Smart Meters were installed with error message ‘Really sorry but we're having trouble retrieving your estimated annual usage. Please try again, if the problem persists call 0800 5999 440’. As I am a new customer to OVO and I have my monthly usage figures for the last 10+ years, I am 100% sure that I can provide more accurate estimated annual usage figures than OVO can.


Does anyone out there have any documents that can explain to me what I need to do to get the figures for total electricity that has gone through the meter since it was installed, split into Day and Night usage?

rasb0

I switched in April/May this year from EDF. I got the cashback offer through switching with MSE but they did mess up the switch by only switching one utility in April and having to switch the other in May. They admitted their mistake immediately, apologised, reimbursed the difference between their charges and EDF and made a "Goodwill" refund to my account of £40.
Since then everything has gone like clockwork.
The meter readings have been made even easier by using the iPhone App. That will be redundant however later this month, as we are having a "Smart" meter fitted.
Someone else said, "they don't have to do much, day to day, so they shouldn't really get it wrong." The true test is, how they deal with those matters when they do go wrong. In my case, they responded well.

shopaholicz

I've been with OVO for about 5-6 years now. I send my meter readings at the end of each month, online. They are very good at monitoring your usage and altering your dd so you'll have enough money to pay the whole year's bill.

:jI also like the comparisons you can do online, ie with previous years, other similar houses etc.