Ovo Energy - Massive charges and don't know what to do

Mantisguy

If things keep going this way I may even have to file for bankruptcy if they start charging me the full debt. I've been with Ovo since October 2014, I think. To be fair, they're a friendly bunch on the phone but they're also as stubborn as hell and don't seem to want to help me with this. I'm a single guy. While I work from home there's only so much electricity I can use, surely? Now let me show you an example from a bill and you can take a guess as to whether I run some giant generators here:

Ovo_Energy wrote:

Your annual electricity summary
For 27 October 2015 to 26 October 2016

• Over the last 12 months you've used 111324kWh
(based on actual and estimated readings).
• Your total costs were £6,986.73.

I'm no expert on these things, but this seems legit, right? Congrats for scaring the hell out of me, Ovo. :T This has been going on for years. After they eventually charged me over a grand that I couldn't afford to pay last year, I gave them a call about that and they were kind enough to refund that temporarily and freeze the larger charge, instead billing me for £62 a month. One guy on the phone agreed the charge was ballistic (I talked to many and some seemed rather apathetic), yet nobody either had the authority or the care to sort this out. They did however ask for photos of the meter at different times of the day which I sent, but they still complained. Time for MSE, right?

Following the first recommendation I sent a report to the Ombudsman. After several weeks they got in touch and completely sided with Ovo. Makes me wish I took a trip to Trustpilot before sending them a message. They said the reason Ovo's readings were incorrect was that they accidentally switched the day/night readings, which still doesn't make much sense to me and doesn't explain these invisible giant generators I've presumably been running while sleep walking. The Ombudsman's message just simply wasn't helpful and it's clear to me their further messages would not have been either. I was delighted to see Ovo agreed to send £50, a letter of apology and nothing else! Made my day. I cannot wait for that (now a little over £5500) minor charge to come crashing down on my life!

I read a few threads here. Apparently they have to send a meter reader at least once every two years. They actually did send somebody last month after nagging them, but nothing came from it and after they told me they'd call me back they never did. Before this guy though I'm pretty sure they hadn't sent somebody for two years. I decided to reject the Ombudsman's "resolution". Citizens Advice Bureau agreed to help me with this but only after the case with the Ombudsman is closed, so I'm waiting for them to respond to this, but I'm not even sure if CAB can help me. I might end up having to take it straight to court, and having agoraphobia the idea is very worrying.

Any help, fellas?

matelodave

Now you've had a good rant the only advice would be to find a few bills that are based on actual meter readings and compare them with your readings now.

If you think you've got a problem with the meter or it's readings then you should be reading it daily and recording the results so you can see if anything is going wrong.

Were you checking your bills and making sure that they corresponded with meter readings and getting them corrected if they weren't. I'm guessing that you weren't as you seem to have racked up an extremely large debt

It's hard to see what you've done to try and sort it out rather than get upset about ever increasing bills.


You can check if the meter is increasing if you turn everything off. You need to accumulate some evidence to see how much you are using and when you are using it.

Trying to argue over hsitorical or estimated bills without having some actual evidence is difficult.

Mantisguy

Fair enough then. Over the next few days I'll gather some readings for day and night along with some old bills and what I've had turned off/on. But in the meantime, if anybody else has anything to add I'd appreciate that too.

victor2

It sounds like a meter reading has got completely out of step at some point. Your meter wasn't changed some time in 2016 was it?
For a domestic supply to use over 111,000 kWh in a year is going some. If you have or can get your previous bills, look where the huge jump is. Maybe day and night figures did get switched over at some point, but you would expect OVO to see that when investigating the complaint.
As already suggested, check your current actual usage, by reading your meter daily at the same time for a week or so, and see if the combined usage is reasonable for a summer period. If you're all electric, I would expect daily usage to be in the low double figures of kWh per day, even in a sizeable property, unless your work involves quite a bit of electrical use.

System

Up until Apr 16, suppliers had a Licence obligation to read your meter once every 2 years. The requirement is now once per year.

Your usage is extremely high: what exactly do use electricity for? Are you sure that you are not being billed for adjacent properties?

The other problem you have is that having now taken the complaint to arbitration, the EO’s decision is final. Having rejected the decision, neither the EO nor the supplier is required to discuss the matter with you again.

Your best hope is to prove that there is a problem with your meter. You have the right to ask for it to be checked. The supplier will bill you for this if the tests show that the meter isn’t at fault. Sorry if the above isn’t very helpful.

matelodave

Is the obligation for the supplier to read the meter once a year or is it to obtain a reading once a year?

System

matelodave wrote: »

Is the obligation for the supplier to read the meter once a year or is it to obtain a reading once a year?

It’s the latter, but like most things written by Ofgem it is ambiguous. I think that Ofgem has smart meters in mind; I doubt whether an actual meter reading taken by a customer will count. I give my suppliers a meter reading once every month but a meter reader called last week.

Mantisguy

Thanks a lot for the replies. First of all, I should say I have an Economy 7 meter. I'm not certain on how it works and I'm going by memory here since I'm not at home right now. At the left is a white digital box with an LCD display that displays the power usage. I assume that I should get the numbers (with photo evidence) at on-peak and off-peak times, though I'm not certain what the best times would be. Maybe 11AM and midnight? To the right of that box is a larger transparent plastic box with a dial inside.

I did send quite a lot of information about the changes in the bills to the Ombudsman but it seems it wasn't very useful without my own additional evidence. I admit this is my error, but what's done is done. What matters is what I can do now. I'm going to create a Google Spreadsheet with my readings (along with their own estimate readings to the side) to summarise the information and I'll have it ready in a few days. I can see the statements now however. From October 2014 until a year after it was pretty consistent, usually £62 a month for the whole duration of being with Ovo. But in November 2015 I received a bill of £443.96 for November 13th until November 27th. From the 28th of November until the 27th of December I got a £963.75 statement. At least a week of this time was spent with family. For January 2016 my statement was almost a grand. From February to July 2016 the statements were £934.75, £802.54, £734.39, £629.88, £605.49 and £571.04 respectively. From August onwards (when they agreed to freeze these charges) the charges have just been the £62 a month.

As for what I usually do, I have a desktop computer, although only since August last year (coincidentally when they stopped adding those insane charges) I've had this powerful system with a 600W PSU. Before then I used a computer with a 400W PSU. I don't game regularly either. There have been periods of time when I've had my system on all the time. However, there have also been times when it's been off over the night. My setup uses two screens, but the second isn't on all the time. (And of course they're both off overnight.) I have stereo speakers for it as you'd expect. Sometimes I leave the hall light on more than I should. The only other light I ever use is an RGB light for my living room. Of course I have a fridge-freezer. No oven, just a George Foreman grill for cooking. In my bedroom I have a few things connected but nothing too serious. Most days I use my projector for at least a couple of hours which (or so I've read) likely uses the same amount of power as most LCD TVs. Oh, there's also an Xbox One which I only use during the times I have my projector on. Not sure what else really.

As for other properties, I live in a flat and we all have our own supplier. Perhaps I was a bit hasty with denying the Ombudsman's decision. Technically, if I really wanted I could accept their proposal on the website as I said I didn't want to proceed by e-mail, but I don't know if there's a point since it seemed like it would go downhill if I accepted anyway and they wouldn't help waive these debts. Any thoughts?

I will do as suggested and produce a document adding as many details as I can. I just don't know how these readings could be correct. There's a chance that one of the above statements is from a time I spent an entire month in hospital, obviously with the biggest power sucker (PC) turned off. (Need to confirm the date.) Sorry that was a bit long!

Sparx

That's crazy, to put into perspective, last year we (3 adults in our house, average usage) we use approx 3500-4000 kWH per YEAR.

We also have 2 gaming PCs used regularly, overall your computer uses naff all in terms of power!

Definitely need to monitor your readings as averaging over 9200 kWh a MONTH is insane. You'd probably have to be running your own cannabis factory to get those numbers! You're not, right?!

That has made me thought it's not possible a neighbour has tapped into your electricity or meter is it? No strange dealings going on around you?

kelpie35

I'm with ovo and have an online account where I submit my meter readings on the last day of the month.

I also keep a spreadsheet of units used every month so I know exactly what I have used.

If for some reason one month seemed to jump sky high I would know there was something wrong.

matelodave

Unfortunately most people dont start reading their meters or checking bills until a ginormous bill come in which means they don't have any information to fall back on to try and establish what or when something went wrong.

I've been reading and recording my meter readings monthly for years and checking the bills against the meters ever since I've been paying for energy (50 odd years)

This became especially important since I started swapping suppliers - I send a reading on the first of every monthand. On the odd occaision that something has gone awry either with the billing or my consumption I've had the evidence to be able to check and find out what happened before it became a big problem.

It wasn't difficult before the internet or mobile phones, you just phoned in a reading, nowadays it's 30 seconds or so into your on-line account to check and make sure everything is OK. Hopefully smart meters will make that chore even easier, but I'll still be recording my own readings and downloading my bills/statements - just in case.