Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

Northern_Wanderer

Vegastare said:

Each month around 29th to 30th email from Octopus suggesting read meter.....this month nothing.

Are they hoping folk will forget or what.  Or simply like me have got the message.

If you havn't forgotten you don't need a reminder. Maybe their crystal ball told them you remember so they can save on bandwidth...or maybe the email is lost in the ethernet.

youravinalarrrf

Northern_Wanderer said:

If you havn't forgotten you don't need a reminder. Maybe their crystal ball told them you remember so they can save on bandwidth...or maybe the email is lost in the ethernet.

I think the reality of the situation is that their customer services have become slipshod and extremely poor of late and are getting worse by the day.

They are all too willing to continually blame any delays or errors on anything and anyone except themselves and their apologies are both meaningless and worthless.

It might have something to do with Octopus employing ex Avro staff and the old Avro work ethic and corner cutting has started to rub off on all the staff or there are simply not enough customer service staff to deal with the recent increase in customer numbers.

Their previous reputation for excellent customer service has been trashed and has now all but vanished.

MarcoM

youravinalarrrf said:

Northern_Wanderer said:

If you havn't forgotten you don't need a reminder. Maybe their crystal ball told them you remember so they can save on bandwidth...or maybe the email is lost in the ethernet.

I think the reality of the situation is that their customer services have become slipshod and extremely poor of late and are getting worse by the day.

They are all too willing to continually blame any delays or errors on anything and anyone except themselves and their apologies are both meaningless and worthless.

It might have something to do with Octopus employing ex Avro staff and the old Avro work ethic and corner cutting has started to rub off on all the staff or there are simply not enough customer service staff to deal with the recent increase in customer numbers.

Their previous reputation for excellent customer service has been trashed and has now all but vanished.

Yes I've noticed their customer service has crashed, emails not answered, promises not actioned and a lot of their smart metering seems to be problematic. 

masonic

Doesn't bode well for them taking on Bulb's customer base, if it happens.

Alnat1

Hope they don't take on Bulb CS staff, eeeek.

Vegastare

You do know that Octopus have developed a first class billing and customer service platform - well capable of sending account reading reminders....clearly not required this month.  Seems Greg Jackson wonderful company and state or the art system has a few gremlins.  But TBH I think they are a lot better than some.

pochase

GingerTim said:

MarcoM said:

Hi, 

I was currently paying 250 pounds per month dd. 

Earlier today I asked them to change to variable direct debit and now upon logging on my account it reads

You are paying a variable amount depending on your usage and

£250.00

on the 15th of each month

Have they made a mistake and they are about to charge me twice? 

I pay by variable direct debit with EDF, and mine says this - it seems to be a placeholder to say they would take X amount on a particular date each month if they don't receive a meter reading a few days beforehand. But they always get one I've always been charged the variable figure, and never charged twice.

That is exactly what happens with EDF, if you don't give them a reading they will debit the "fixed" amount.

gt94sss2

Vegastare said:

Each month around 29th to 30th email from Octopus suggesting read meter.....this month nothing.

Are they hoping folk will forget or what.  Or simply like me have got the message.

If you think VAT on energy may be reduced soon, and manually submitn meter readings, you may not want to do so right now 

This is because the rate of VAT applied depends on the date the bill is produced..

mtc95

There seems to be some knowledgable people on here regarding smart meters and IHDs so I'm wondering if anyone has insight into my issue.  The meters and IHD were both working fine with my previous suppliers (Bulb and Pure Planet) and I switched to Octopus last year just before Pure Planet went under. 

After the switch, Octopus were able to read the electricity meter but not gas and the IHD only updated to show the Octopus tariff for electricity.  In May, they sent an engineer who replaced the gas meter and also gave us a new IHD (IHD 6 or 7 I think).  Since then, Octopus have successfully been taking monthly readings for both gas and electricity which is progress.  However, the IHD is still only showing electricity usage.  The gas usage remains constantly on 0.  I have tried the "download your geek data" link from the Octopus site and also the Bright app but in both cases, I only get electricity data - nothing for gas.

I have raised this via their support a couple of times with no help forthcoming so far.  I know it's unlikely but is there anything I could try to resolve this myself?  Alternatively is there something specific I could request Octopus to do to fix this rather than just reporting "it's not working".  Thanks.

youravinalarrrf

There is nothing you can do yourself as it's work that the Octopus smart metering team should have done and haven't.

From what you describe it sounds like they need to fully complete the commissioning process of the new gas meter and ensure it's connecting to the IHD7.

If my past experience is anything to go by they will require you to provide a photo of the new gas meter showing make, model and serial number together with the GUID number shown on the label on the bottom of your IHD7. To save time you may as well provide these in your email.

If you've tried emailing customer service previously and got nowhere email them again with the heading COMPLAINT.

Doing that does tend to focus their minds but be aware that the commissioning process can take quite a while to complete once started and the smart metering team always seem to have a backlog/waiting list.

If just one part of the commissioning process fails the cause will need to be identified and the whole process will need to be started again.

Don't waste your time contacting them by phone.

This may be worth reading https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-issues-octopus-energy/