Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

niktheguru

Telegraph_Sam said:

Re: "Are you sure about that? Whenever a smart gas meter is installed, the supplier, and for that matter the consumer, need to know when, for example, the gas meter battery needs replacing: no battery power, ......"

The consensus of informed opinion seems to be that whilst running a smart (gas) meter in dumb mode is nothing new  - battery replacement is no great issue - on balance it would be better to replace the existing old style gas meter with the same (refurbished) non-smart variety to suit my preferences. And run this alongside a smart electricity meter.

I think this chimes with what Dolor is saying above.

Can’t say I agree with your logic about this, but each to their own.
what if tou tariffs do come for gas, then you’ll swap meters again? It makes more sense to just swap it now seeing you already have a coms hub for your electricity meter. It just makes no sense at all. I understand the anti smart meter argument in general (tho again, don’t agree with it) but what I don’t understand at all is the half way house measure.

id be very surprised if octopus come and fit another non smart gas meter. Tho I guess if any company would try it’d prob be them. It would seem more likely you’ll get a smart meter put in dumb mode.

let’s hope you don’t get a world of problems from that meter!

BrummyGit

I'm a new customer to Octopus Go and I'm having a really poor experience so far. Given their Which? recommendation and previous reviews I'm wondering if my experience is unusual or if they are victims of their own successful expansion?

My switch completed at the end of May and then a couple of weeks later I was able to move to Go Faster as they were receiving 30 minute readings. I then realised that my consumption didn't match my usage and worked out that the time is wrong (6.5 hours slow) in my SMETS2 electricity meter. This is causing my billing to be incorrect every day that it's not resolved.

I contacted Octopus by email and initially the person was helpful but after a couple of days all went silent. I was receiving no replies to requests for an update and so eventually just over a week ago I wrote to the CEO Greg to raise my concern. The following morning a member of staff replied telling me Greg had asked them to take a look as he was too busy to reply personally and someone else would be in contact. A second technician then emailed (made an excuse the that original had left the company), confirmed that the issue was the meter time and said they would sync it overnight asking me to confirm the following morning. That was the last contact I have received from them and despite multiple emails back from me confirming that the sync didn't work, I have had another week of silence.

I have written again today to Greg's email address but so far no reply. Am I unlucky, or is that what I should expect from Octopus?

Telegraph_Sam

Octopus' preferred method of communication seems to oscillate between email, phone and Twitter, and I am not sure which phase of the lunar cycle we are in at present.  They certainly went through a bad batch for phones recently from which they seemed to have recovered. I'd try phoning and then twittering.  There is some doubt if emailing to an individual employee actually gets better results than using "hello@ .." contrary to expectations. Other forumites may be able to add to this.

bristolleedsfan

BrummyGit said:

 just over a week ago I wrote to the CEO Greg to raise my concern. The following morning a member of staff replied telling me Greg had asked them to take a look as he was too busy to reply

Irony  Tweets with replies by Greg Jackson (@g__j) / Twitter

niktheguru

BrummyGit said:

I'm a new customer to Octopus Go and I'm having a really poor experience so far. Given their Which? recommendation and previous reviews I'm wondering if my experience is unusual or if they are victims of their own successful expansion?

My switch completed at the end of May and then a couple of weeks later I was able to move to Go Faster as they were receiving 30 minute readings. I then realised that my consumption didn't match my usage and worked out that the time is wrong (6.5 hours slow) in my SMETS2 electricity meter. This is causing my billing to be incorrect every day that it's not resolved.

I contacted Octopus by email and initially the person was helpful but after a couple of days all went silent. I was receiving no replies to requests for an update and so eventually just over a week ago I wrote to the CEO Greg to raise my concern. The following morning a member of staff replied telling me Greg had asked them to take a look as he was too busy to reply personally and someone else would be in contact. A second technician then emailed (made an excuse the that original had left the company), confirmed that the issue was the meter time and said they would sync it overnight asking me to confirm the following morning. That was the last contact I have received from them and despite multiple emails back from me confirming that the sync didn't work, I have had another week of silence.

I have written again today to Greg's email address but so far no reply. Am I unlucky, or is that what I should expect from Octopus?

Octopuses email communication is dodgy. They at times just ignore you despite the email going through to them. This is something that has been happening for some time and they are aware of it. You will get much more success by calling them, they will at least see your email and get someone to respond. The wait times are very short. Though of course the smart team via emai, are usually better at dealing with smart meter issues.

BeerSavesMoney

I recently had issues with Octopus connecting to my Smart meter, basically the manufacturer Secure had it linked to another MPAN on their database. 

They were blocking the connection to Octopus as they thought I was being supplied by a different supplier. 

The old supplier still had a connection to the meter. Octopus were able to resolve this and provide regular updates throughout the process which did take 4/5 weeks in total.

@BrummyGit If you haven’t already maybe try emailing smart@octopus.energy

I have read it’s a bit hit and miss getting the query through to the right person, you can message them on Twitter too and I’ve found them to be responsive on there as well.

BrummyGit

bristolleedsfan said:

BrummyGit said:

 just over a week ago I wrote to the CEO Greg to raise my concern. The following morning a member of staff replied telling me Greg had asked them to take a look as he was too busy to reply

Irony  Tweets with replies by Greg Jackson (@g__j) / Twitter

Yes indeed - my email to him, his assistant who he asked to help, and the customer service person who had started working on the issue a week ago has now been ignored for 24 hours. Terrible when they advertise that they "Love Email" and that it's the best contact method.

BeerSavesMoney said:

I recently had issues with Octopus connecting to my Smart meter, basically the manufacturer Secure had it linked to another MPAN on their database. 

They were blocking the connection to Octopus as they thought I was being supplied by a different supplier. 

The old supplier still had a connection to the meter. Octopus were able to resolve this and provide regular updates throughout the process which did take 4/5 weeks in total.

@BrummyGit If you haven’t already maybe try emailing smart@octopus.energy

I have read it’s a bit hit and miss getting the query through to the right person, you can message them on Twitter too and I’ve found them to be response on there as well.

Thanks, I am quite accepting that smart meter issues can be difficult to resolve. However promising to look into the problem, asking for an update from me and then ignoring my emails is very poor.

I didn't have the smart@octopus.energy email address thanks - I wanted to avoid having multiple people trying to fix the same problem and to that end I asked on Twitter today that they confirm if my emails are being received. I'll try this address if the Twitter team don't bear fruit.

Telegraph_Sam

I upgraded to an electricity smart meter today and mentioned to the engineer some of the points raised in this forum. Whilst the meter appears to be working he could not tell me which tariff I was on nor how to get this info other than by phoning Octopus - who said that they would email me a form to select the tariff that I wanted to be on. In the interim the meter itself says by default that I am on 13.26 p / kwh - which may or may not vary at some point in the day - with no daily standing charge. For the North East region this strikes me as rather a good deal such that I am tempted to let sleeping dogs lie. Whatever it calls itself - and I can't find an equivalent in "All our Tariffs" -  am I missing something?

[Deleted User]

Telegraph_Sam said:

I upgraded to an electricity smart meter today and mentioned to the engineer some of the points raised in this forum. Whilst the meter appears to be working he could not tell me which tariff I was on nor how to get this info other than by phoning Octopus - who said that they would email me a form to select the tariff that I wanted to be on. In the interim the meter itself says by default that I am on 13.26 p / kwh - which may or may not vary at some point in the day - with no daily standing charge. For the North East region this strikes me as rather a good deal such that I am tempted to let sleeping dogs lie. Whatever it calls itself - and I can't find an equivalent in "All our Tariffs" -  am I missing something?

It is unlikely that Octopus has had time to send out their security certificates to your new meter. If you have an IHD6 you can see the tariff information, when it has been set in the ESME and GSME, by going into the menu option; select ACCOUNT; press right arrow and you will see the unit prices; press right arrow again and you will see the daily standing charges.

Note: No supplier uses the tariff information set in the ESME and GSME for billing. My Account will give you details of the tariff that you are on and Octopus will use this for billing.

Telegraph_Sam

It is an IHD 6 (white border). The explanation must be that it is still "waiting for (CIN)" and that when this has come through the other values will update. The 13.26 p must be some kind of interim default value.