OVO from Economy Energy >>> creative billing >>> chapter 2

Sterlingtimes

Be very careful with OVO (ex Economy Energy). The bill shows an "Actual Reading" of 30 January 2019. This is actually a 6 January reading. It is contrived.

Note that I have used 537 units which OVO calculates at 13,977 kWh. This is seriously wrong.

537 x 1.02264 * 39.3 / 3.6 = 5,994.97 kWh.

The price is 5,994 x £0.0354 = £212.18 whereas OVO is trying to charge me £494.58

I hope that this is a mistake rather than cheating. Economy Energy tried to cheat me and I referred the matter to OFCOM previously. I thought that OVO was a reputable supplier.

brewerdave

1. They must have you down for Imperial meter - your calculation shows you have a metric meter??
2. How do they get 100 days standing charge? even from 6th Jan to 23rd March would only be 77 days.

Sterlingtimes

Thank you. Yes, I have a Secure (OVO provided) Smart Meter.

Yes, the number of days is wrong. None of the readings are smart meter readings. They are attempting to charge from 12 January (their date of taking over from Economy Energy) to 18 March, my day of transferring to Octopus, but they have that wrong too.

I think that OVO has taken on more than it can chew. Every communication is full of errors and seemingly invented figures: dates are incorrect, readings are incorrect, prices are incorrect, arithmetic is incorrect ...

Lisa_Tom

brewerdave wrote: »

1. They must have you down for Imperial meter - your calculation shows you have a metric meter??
2. How do they get 100 days standing charge? even from 6th Jan to 23rd March would only be 77 days.

If it were an old imperial meter assumed, then the figure would be more like 16965 kWh rather than 13977 kWh

No idea where the days comes from.

I suggest this bill probably covers a different period to that shown by the dates.
That would also explain the higher usage than tyhose given by the meter readings

Lisa_Tom

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

537 x 1.02264 * 39.3 / 3.6 = 5,994.97 kWh.

....

Be very careful over the calorific value Ovo use.

They are not allowed to assume an overall average of 39.3

They should be using the actual value (averaged over the period being billed?) for your specific supply region. It should usually vary from bill to bill (i.e. supply periods). If it doesn't I suspect they are chaeting and using an average.

I think another supplier (now gone bust) attempted this and were told to amend their billing by Ofgem.

Sterlingtimes

Lisa_Tom wrote: »

Be very careful over the calorific value Ovo use.

Thank you, Lisa Tom, I didn't know this. This is another factor for me to take into account when OVO comes round to understanding what it is doing.

The_Big_Bamboo

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

Thank you, Lisa Tom, I didn't know this. This is another factor for me to take into account when OVO comes round to understanding what it is doing.

Lisa Tom is spamming;...don't take note of anything he/she posts.

Raxiel

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

Thank you, Lisa Tom, I didn't know this. This is another factor for me to take into account when OVO comes round to understanding what it is doing.

It was Iresa that were doing that. I ended up learning all about Calorific value calculations as a result of their shenanigans.


National grid have moved where they store the data so any old links have been broken, if you want to go right down the rabbit hole you can find the data here:


http://mip-prod-web.azurewebsites.net/DataItemExplorer/Index
(source: https://www.nationalgridgas.com/data-and-operations/calorific-value-cv)


You need to expand 'calorific value' and then tick your region. I'm in the east midlands so mine was LDZ(EM), then select your start and finish dates. The average is taken for each bill, so for complete accuracy you may need to complete this exercise multiple times with start and finish dates for each billing period.


The explorer will spit out a long list of dates & times with the CV for each, you need to export it to a CSV then use something like excel or google sheets to calculate the average CV (rounded DOWN to 1dp, so 39.3999 is 39.3), which should match the one used on the bill.



A competent supplier will have all this completely automated as part of their billing software. A supplier trying to cut costs might have bought more basic software that doesn't do it or pre-dates the rules banning the use of an 'assumed' fixed figure.

The_Big_Bamboo wrote: »

Lisa Tom is spamming;...don't take note of anything he/she posts.

I haven't looked at any of their other posts, but that one was completely accurate.

vickyelaine

Ovo have taken over my gas supply without my authority. My supplier is calling it an erroneous transfer but when my supplier has tried to claim the supply back Ovo are objecting. I'm bloody objecting. I've tried calling ofgem and they say I've got to put a complaint in to Ovo and then give them 8 weeks to sort it. Well I've done this and they've got my postcode but they cant find me they want my full address but I don't want to give it to them because then they can bill me and possibly blacklist me for something I haven't agreed to. I don't mind paying for the gas but how much are they going to charge me for it. Does anyone know if I give them the MPRN will that give them my postal address