Can't get a bill from Ovo - waiting 6 months

noisla

I signed up with Ovo when I moved house in February, and was finally switched across to them in March.

Since then, I have a had no bills and no idea of my energy usage and cost.

They gave me a smart meter on June 2nd which would apparently automate everything, but they forgot to tell me that there was a 16 week time frame to get that meter working, during which time I cannot log on their website, get readings or know my usage / costs. 16 weeks has passed and they still have no idea of when this will be done. They are apparently "swamped" with this work. They cannot say how long it will take.

I want to rent a room in my property, but I need to be able to give the person moving in an idea of energy costs (I appreciate summer will be lower, but having never lived in a 2-bed house before, I don't even have a ball park figure).

They tell me that a £60 exit fee applies if I leave them before the end of the fixed deal (18 months' time). I don't really feel I am getting much of a service. For me it is important to be able to monitor my energy usage and costs, and I would even pay extra for this.

In my old flat we were with EON and they refused to take our readings for 2 years, before finally sending someone round, and issuing us with a £1,000 surprise bill. I really don't want this to happen again!

Any suggestions on what I could do? Why won't the companies help you PAY in a timely manner?

macman

You can still read your own meter, do a calculation of the amount owing from that, and pay something on account if you wish.
Your room rental can be calculated by estimating your annual kWh usage and using a comp site to calculate the monthly billing- but you must surely know this anyway as your DD will have been set when you signed up with Ovo?

noisla

Yes, they set me up on a direct debit. Not sure how that was estimated, as I have never had an account with them before and they had not serviced the property before. That's a good idea about using a comparison site to estimate the costs, hopefully prices today are similar to 6 months ago. I don't know what my actual opening readings are nor the actual cost of my tariff because all the info and paperwork is stored online, and currently my account is suspended and I can't log in. I guess I have been a bit stupid not to take pdfs / screen shots of everything, just in case they stopped my online access.

macman

The tariff rates are all available via their website, or any comp site. If you are on a fixed tariff then they won't have changed since you went on supply.

jbainbridge

What's your DD setup at?

For a 2 bed house you're probably looking at around at total of £70-80 / mth total (for electricity and gas) maybe less if it's well insulated, you're careful etc. Obviously your winter usage will be higher and summer lower - so it balances out.

Anyway, make sure you pay something otherwise you _will_ be hit with a large bill.

System

noisla wrote: »

They gave me a smart meter on June 2nd which would apparently automate everything, but they forgot to tell me that there was a 16 week time frame to get that meter working, during which time I cannot log on their website, get readings or know my usage / costs. 16 weeks has passed and they still have no idea of when this will be done. They are apparently "swamped" with this work. They cannot say how long it will take.

I must be missing something here. Are you saying that Ovo will not setup a MyOvo account for you, and let you submit manual readings in the interim? Seems a silly position to put a customer in when a system for manual billing already exists.

noisla

Hengus wrote: »

I must be missing something here. Are you saying that Ovo will not setup a MyOvo account for you, and let you submit manual readings in the interim? Seems a silly position to put a customer in when a system for manual billing already exists.

Exactly. When you get a smart meter they suspend your accounts indefinitely (they say 16 weeks but they are swamped with a backlog) - no online account at all, and nothing they can do for you by phone either i.e. can't submit meter readings, can't get statements, can't see any receipt for your direct debit payments. This applied for both my smart meter (elec) and normal meter (gas). Apparently smart meters are a legal requirement for everyone by 2020 - so I'll have this pain again when they do the gas meter. However, this time I know it will happen and can take opening reading just before they do the work.

The last time I was the one in charge of utility bills (admittedly about 3 years ago), the charges varied based on the time of day it was, with scaling rates for the first so-many-kw etc, so I didn't realise that it would be possible just to manually count the kw used and calculate the bill yourself. Plus my fixed deal is no longer advertised on their website, so I would need to estimate costs based on a different tariff - guess it would be similar. So apologies if I seem a bit stupid with this and thanks for all the suggestions on how best to do this.

However, as an update - I sent a written complaint and they manually sorted it out within 2 days. Very impressed. It seems I have just pushed myself to the top of the queue. First I could log in finally, then after a few more hours, data appeared on my account. Having now seen their online account services for the time, they are really excellent.

OVO_Energy

Hi Noisla,

We’re sorry to hear this. We agree thatit’s important to be able to monitor your usage so if something’s stopping youfrom doing this, we want to help. Can you please send your account number andfull name to [EMAIL="socialmedia@ovoenergy.com"]socialmedia@ovoenergy.com[/EMAIL]and we’ll look into what’s happened?

Thanks, OVO

PG4

I too am having problems with not receiving bills from OVO, since July 2014 when the smart meter was installed. Numerous exchanges of emails, often giving conflicting answers from them, but no mention of there being a suspension of the account for at least four months or a backlog because of the volume of workload. So it seems I have the same problem as Noisla, despite one of their customer services people saying he hadn't heard of this problem before.
After nagging I did get confirmation that my direct debits adequately cover my (low) consumption, which is good to know.
I would like to be able to check my smart meter readings myself but don't know how to do it - I can't see any instructions in the booklet left by the installer and haven't been able to find any help online. It would be useful to do so and keep a record so I have the necessary readings should I decide to switch from OVO next January when the contract is due for renewal (and if this mess isn't sorted by then I will definitely want to leave them).
Unfortunately I gather this smart meter will probably be of no use with a different supplier ....

Terry98

PG4 wrote: »

I
I would like to be able to check my smart meter readings myself but don't know how to do it - I can't see any instructions in the booklet left by the installer and haven't been able to find any help online. It would be useful to do so and keep a record so I have the necessary readings should I decide to switch from OVO next January when the contract is due for renewal (and if this mess isn't sorted by then I will definitely want to leave them).
Unfortunately I gather this smart meter will probably be of no use with a different supplier ....

Assuming your meter(s) started at zero when they were fitted you can read them from your In-home display unit. The Cuml: total showing under the Month screen shows the reading in Mwh.

PG4

Thank you Terry98, that is helpful to know.