Changing from Coop to Octopus

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Octopus Energy Complaint Advice.

middleyard

I had been with Co-op energy for some years and signed up to a new fixed term deal in July 2019 that goes to July 2022. In December 2019 Octopus took over as my supplier.  Co-op had installed smart meters that were working fine. I supplied initial meter readings as requested but then relied on the smart meter readings and I was told by email that that was in order as in the Octopus email below:

"I apologise, as we have been experiencing issues where our data has not been received by our collectors when a request has been made. As such, when we do not receive the read back a request is sent to customers automatically from our system. We are advising Smart meter customers to disregard this reading, as we will reconnect shortly and take a read where necessary. " Having been alerted by some very low values on the Smart Meter Home Display I went back and not only checked the email statements from Octopus and then also downloaded the PDF files. Further inspection revealed that only the gas was shown on the statements and not electricity for all of this year's statements. On 8th June I emailed Octopus to inform them of this error and was advised that the appropriate department would look into this. I was advised to send an electricity meter reading but when I tried to do this I found that the meter only displayed a blank screen and I could not send a reading. On 30th July I was sent a statement for electricity only with a charge for £616 and then informed of an increase from £106 per month direct debit to £168 in order to clear the underpayment that had accrued. I have no way of checking the meter reading that they give, as the electricity meter still only shows a blank screen. I am on the same deal as last year and have had the direct debit of £106 taken for each month. There has been no change to our use of energy but I am being asked to pay substantially more per month than to the Co-op and that is based on the reading from a faulty meter. Octopus failed to detect that the electricity meter was not sending the electricity data and this is contrary to the procedure described on the Octopus website about problem Smart Meters. Further, Octopus failed to notice that electricity was not included in their statements for my dual energy supply. When I raised these issues by email with Octopus they claim that it is all down to problems with the transfer as in their email: "I'm very sorry your electricity was not billed on a monthly basis like the gas was - This may have been caused by the length of time it took for all of your account information to fully transfer from Co-op to Octopus.  Between December and July we were unfortunately unable to pull a smart meter reading - again, this could have been due to the change-over process from Co-op to Octopus. " If there were problems with the transfer, who is responsible, the Co-op or Octopus Energy? Is it reasonable that any transfer problems would still have been affecting meter readings and statements in July, more than six months after Octopus had taken on my account? I acknowledge that I was wrong to trust Octopus energy and to accept their advertised assurances about their standard of service.

MWT

You say that the meter has a blank display, just to be clear are you talking about the 'In-home Device' (IHD) which is the little screen that they gave you when the meter was installed that you keep plugged in somewhere inside the house, or do you mean the actual meter itself?

The meter reading can be obtained from either the IHD or the meter so hopefully one of those is working.

If we are talking about the meter then yea, most of them will have a blank screen until you press the right button... Does yours remain blank even after buttons are pressed?

Which meter do you have? There will be a make and model on their somewhere...

We can address all of your questions I'm sure, but it would help if we can get you to the point where you can at least submit a meter reading first...

MSE_ForumTeam2

Hi @middleyard
We have created a new thread for your question. 

Robin9

Middleyard - describe your electric meter to us please - does it have a little keypad ? A photo would be good.

PennyForThem_2

I have the same problem (I think) as I am a Co-op customer transferred to Octopus and Octopus cannot read my SM2 Gas and electric meters even though supposed to be able to.  My IHD does work though and I send meter readings by email once amonth which wholly defeats the purpose of having SM2 meters.  
Otherwise fairly pleased with Octopus and not sure there is any difference between Co-op and Octopus tarifs.