Octopus Tracker

mmmmikey

I think billing dates are linked to spinning the wheel of fortune :-) It has to be said that my experience of EDF billing was better than my Octopus experience - but no doubt at all who the better supplier is on balance. There do seem to be some anomalies in some Octopus processes, the contract end date being another one of them. But I do get the impression these are just borne of growing quickly and have a lot of confidence that things will all come right again.

MultiFuelBurner

mmmmikey said:

I think billing dates are linked to spinning the wheel of fortune :-) It has to be said that my experience of EDF billing was better than my Octopus experience - but no doubt at all who the better supplier is on balance. There do seem to be some anomalies in some Octopus processes, the contract end date being another one of them. But I do get the impression these are just borne of growing quickly and have a lot of confidence that things will all come right again.

I also think we are a bit harsh on billing being on their "beta" tariffs. I suspect (but don't know for certain) legacy type tariffs are billed in the correct way?

Slinky

mmmmikey said:

I think billing dates are linked to spinning the wheel of fortune :-) It has to be said that my experience of EDF billing was better than my Octopus experience - but no doubt at all who the better supplier is on balance. There do seem to be some anomalies in some Octopus processes, the contract end date being another one of them. But I do get the impression these are just borne of growing quickly and have a lot of confidence that things will all come right again.

I'm astonished that you think EDF with their bills every six months is better than Octopus. My experience with EDF was pretty woeful.

LtMike77

MultiFuelBurner said:

I have a strange situation, mentioned before....long story short setup variable pay full monthly when we started on tracker but was in credit for some 6 months until 8th November 2023

December 8th 2023 bill came in and my account said payment holiday (no money taken)

January 8th 2024 bill has come in and now the debit on the account is -£260.

I'm not going to contact them as happy with my money in the interest bearing account but will be interesting.

I'm not concerned as it's working in my favour just thought I would update all on the anomalies of Octopus variable DD.

So you had a good credit balance with OE before changing to variable DD, or am I misreading what you are saying?

I joined Octopus 6 months ago, so no credit balance, went straight onto variable DD and have had no issues. Each month I get a bill and then money is taken about 14 days later.

double_dutchy

Telegraph_Sam said:
....added to which I am uncertain if you get the 2 x Wh of F's per fuel if the hard work is done by the smart technology.....

I'm on Tracker for both gas and electric. I never supply any meter readings but I get a bill on the same day each month using the smart meter data. I also get 4 wheel of fortune spins per month

MultiFuelBurner

LtMike77 said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

I have a strange situation, mentioned before....long story short setup variable pay full monthly when we started on tracker but was in credit for some 6 months until 8th November 2023

December 8th 2023 bill came in and my account said payment holiday (no money taken)

January 8th 2024 bill has come in and now the debit on the account is -£260.

I'm not going to contact them as happy with my money in the interest bearing account but will be interesting.

I'm not concerned as it's working in my favour just thought I would update all on the anomalies of Octopus variable DD.

So you had a good credit balance with OE before changing to variable DD, or am I misreading what you are saying?

I joined Octopus 6 months ago, so no credit balance, went straight onto variable DD and have had no issues. Each month I get a bill and then money is taken about 14 days later.

When I switched to OE (we weren't already customers) I came with a £50 referral credit when I added £10 to my account (by bank debit card) but day one I asked for variable DD full bill monthly. We didn't use that in the first month so no DD was taken. Come the second month we have a customer service goodwill gesture on our account due to an error on OE part and then a smart meter missed appt added. We then got 3-5 friends to join OE over the next few months adding another £250 credit to our account plus the missed meter fitting of £30 and good will gesture of I think £125.

So come November 8th nothing due as we had credit being chipped away at and never has a DD been taken although I can see in on my bank DD list.

Hope that clears it up

Spoonie_Turtle

mmmmikey said:

I think billing dates are linked to spinning the wheel of fortune :-) 

Not at all.  My monthly spins reset on the 1st of the month, automatic billing has always been ~22nd (ish) with the DD on the 20th.

MultiFuelBurner

Spoonie_Turtle said:

mmmmikey said:

I think billing dates are linked to spinning the wheel of fortune :-) 

Not at all.  My monthly spins reset on the 1st of the month, automatic billing has always been ~22nd (ish) with the DD on the 20th.

Same here spins available 1st month billed on the 8th.

marlot

Me too.  Spins available on the 1st.  Billed on the 5th every month.

masonic

masonic said:

Qyburn said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

Invoicing: Do you find now that Octopus is at last quoting the opening and closing meter readings on the invoices, both from the smart meter and / or from manual readings? If so this makes the job of reconciling things much easier.

All my Octopus bills have quoted opening and closing meter readings. Initially a mix of estimates and manual until I persuaded them to only bill once a month, then smart meter readings after that was installed last January.

How do (or did) yours present consumption without quoting meter readings.

Note I had one bill where the Tracker total kWh billed didn't match the increase in meter readings. Presumably a rounding error but only 0.1kWh.

None of my manually generated bills have quoted any meter readings except when I was on Flexible. This may be a side-effect of being on Agile before Tracker as discussed earlier in the thread. The only figures on the bill are Rate (p/kWh), Consumption (in kWh) and Cost (£). Then total consumption and total cost before the standing charges are added. In the app, under Meter reading history, I have the Usage tab which presents kWh used for each day, and a Readings tab, which doesn't get used for billing. 

Bills do not get produced automatically, so I only get them when I ask for them. Despite pointing out the problem on three separate occasions, I've yet to find someone knowledgeable enough to understand that something is amiss, let alone know how to resolve it. It is no great hardship, but it would be easier for all concerned if the billing system could produce a monthly bill. When I was on Agile, billing was working correctly.

This issue might have been fixed (at least for me). I thought I'd try submitting a manual reading to see if it kicked the billing system into action. It has! I've been debited for energy used, which has not happened before, and it looks like a bill will be coming my way. The only slight issue is that the amount charged differs by about £1.20, so that looks like it may be my heavy and cheap Christmas usage spread over the month. I'll find out for sure when the bill lands. If it hasn't taken into account my actual daily consumption, then that will be the first time it has happened to me. Possibly my reading is at odds with previous consumption data as it was taken late in the day and I didn't think to subtract usage back to midnight.