OVO charging me £578 for gas used in July, help/advice please?

lanceuppercut

https://imgur.com/a/xl5zF5g

Moved out of a property at the end of July this year and closed down my OVO account, or at least I thought I did. Above are the statements from the last 3 months with them, including the most current one with the £578 gas charge on it!

In the May and June statements the bill shows estimated readings for the start and end of both months, but the July statement it says actual readings for both the start of the month and at the end of the month.

What seems a little suspect to me is that this summer was rather hot, I can't see how I've spent £578 on gas in this time, the central heating was off and the cooker was an electric hob, not a gas one.

If the July statement had an estimated reading at the start of the month and an actual reading at the end, then you could argue that the estimates were wrong somehow, but they both say actual..

Can someone look over this to make sure I'm not going crazy here? Going to give them a call in the morning to explain themselves but a second set of eye would be good.

Robin9

Did you give OVO the final reading and the other readings ? I am thinking that its very easy to misread modern meters.

victor2

It looks like the only "actual" reading is the one for 3 August 2019. The rest were estimates, including June 30, despite the contradictory references alongside it.
You haven't used £578 worth of gas in one month, OVO have finally caught up with using low estimated readings for months and corrected your usage with one big "catch-up" bill. That is unfortunately one of the risks of not supplying regular readings.

lanceuppercut

We didn't give OVO a final reading as the meter itself was not easily accessible to us.

What's confusing me is that their final statement says the start of the month is an actual reading as is the end of the month's reading.

victor2

lanceuppercut wrote: »

We didn't give OVO a final reading as the meter itself was not easily accessible to us.

What's confusing me is that their final statement says the start of the month is an actual reading as is the end of the month's reading.

Well, somebody gave OVO a reading and you have no means of challenging the figure. Whoever moved in probably went to the trouble to get a meter reading so that they had a clean start with their utilities. Possibly you could drop by and take a reading now, but it will almost certainly support the final reading OVO used.
I hope you took meter readings when you moved in to wherever you live now, if you have to pay for the utilties, otherwise you might inherit the previous tenant's bill...


You were a tenant at the OVO billed premises in June, so unless a meter reader came unbeknown to you, the 30 June reading was estimated. It's just some sort of system error that made it print Actual Reading against it for the July usage. The reading matches the June usage statement, so it isn't going to help matters clarifying what type of reading it was.

Gerry1

It's probable that the system generated and sent out an estimated bill on 30 June. Along comes a meter reader (from a meter reading company, not Ovo) and a few days later after the reading has reached Ovo and been processed it turns out the system had indeed estimated the reading correctly. As it should.

Along comes a new tenant who misreads the meter either accidentally (all too easy, especially when you're busy with a million other things and it's the first time you've ever seen it) or even takes the mickey by inflating the move-in reading and hopes it won't be noticed. :eek:
Ask Ovo whether the reading on 3 August was supplied by a meter reader or by the new tenant. If the latter, ask for a meter reader to check the current reading. If the former, you'll just have to pay up and make a resolution to take monthly readings in future to avoid surprises.

[Deleted User]

Hi,













You are only showing statements for 3 months, what about the previous 3/6 months, over the winter when you were using gas, were those estimated?


When was the last actual meter reading, and what was it?

dogshome

The problem is far deeper than the last 3 bills


£578 Ex VAT is the cost of appx 19,266 Kwh of gas - More than enough to supply the 'Average' home for 18 months, and that is in excess of the previous paid bills.


We need to know how long the OP occupied this rental, type of dwelling, No. of occupants and the reading on the last 'read' bill prior to this latest one

Robin9

Even worse - the £578 is only whats owing - the bills show payments of over £20 in both May and June this year.

[Deleted User]

OP says that the meter was nt easily accessible so I would think it was nt easy for the meter reader who came along. I frequently have to use an extending mirror to get to awkward meters. So easy to get mirror reads wrong when numbers are back to front and you re using a torch at an angle.
With an actual reading of 24740 at the end of June which appears to match the estimates, the next actual read of 26526 needs verifying. Ludicrous usage for a domestic property. Unless the meter has started leaking fairly fast , after the meter then it has to be a reading error
MDS read meters for OVO and they sometimes used virtually untrained (two weeks training ) agency meter readers and they don t do any training on how to get to awkward meters using extended mirrors.
My guess is that the last actual reading is in early August is wrong and Ovo will have to send someone to have another go at a correct meter reading.

Mr.Everready

Tariff says 20 March 2018. I would hazard a guess that this is the same old issue on here. Had a contract for 18 months and never taken a reading. Final bill comes in and wonders why they wern't told that the £30 per month wasn't enough to cover the bills.