Octopus Tracker

Telegraph_Sam

Re accounts and accounting systems.
It comes as little surprise when we read reports of accounting errors affecting those that have moved to Tomato. In contrast I have always held Octopus' systems with greater respect over the many years that I have been with them.

Until now. Inexplicably they are proposing to retro-invoice me for a whole series of charges (adjustments) some going back to 2022.  The "backlog" comes to several times what would be my normal monthly payment. This covers a long period at the start of which I opted to pay my bills by variable direct debit, precisely to avoid such situations arising. The bottom-up "explanation" that they are offering is so full of past minutiae as to drive any (non) accountant to despair.

Sorry Octopus, you have come down several notches in my estimation.

tlcgrantham

Something similar happened to me a couple of years ago. It turned out to be AI. Check the meter readings shown and phone and speak to a human. Once I got through to a helpful customer service agent from the billing team it was sorted. Good luck ✌️

Telegraph_Sam

Tks for the moral support!   I have tried voice, email and Twitter-X to date. The odd thing is that there doesn't seem to be or have been any issue when I input my readings and got confirmations, rather it looks like some bug (AI by another name) hidden deep in their software that has suddenly come to light.  Unreasonable as I think their stance is I cannot exclude the possibility of "escalation". I have asked but does anyone know how to go about this, if it comes to the crunch?

Chrysalis

My X account is forbidden from sending DM's (due to musk's weird new policies, I dont pay and have been identified as a low quality user) but luckily as I had DM'd Octopus before, it still lets you still DM people you had previous interactions with.

Telegraph_Sam

I must come well within your low quality definition and had previously had some modest X-communications with Octopus.  But within a limited word count, unless I pay for an upgrade. I'm pondering about airing my accounts woes on Twitter-X in case that way they might have more clout. Or be a stepping stone on the way to escalation.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Until now. Inexplicably they are proposing to retro-invoice me for a whole series of charges (adjustments) some going back to 2022.  The "backlog" comes to several times what would be my normal monthly payment. This covers a long period at the start of which I opted to pay my bills by variable direct debit, precisely to avoid such situations arising. The bottom-up "explanation" that they are offering is so full of past minutiae as to drive any (non) accountant to despair.

Sorry Octopus, you have come down several notches in my estimation.

I had the same issue (you may remember). After a couple of months where they rebilled me for 18 months of consumption, with no credible reason or assurances they wouldn't go back and do it a third time the following month I raised a formal complaint. It turned out one of their specialists had been retrospectively changing my contracts and meter information behind the scenes. I had to instruct them to change everything back to how it was originally and the issues stopped. I accepted a goodwill payment for the inconvenience.

If they are billing you any extra for energy used more than 12 months ago, and you don't have credit on your account to cover it, bear in mind the back billing rules. They had to write of a few quid of my charges due to cancelling and reissuing old bills when it left me with a slight negative balance.

Having left Octopus for TE 10 days ago, there is no movement towards my final bill (which will just be for my last day at Octopus). I'm more than happy for them to take their time, preferably >30 days so I get the automatic compensation payment.

masonic

Chrysalis said:

My X account is forbidden from sending DM's (due to musk's weird new policies, I dont pay and have been identified as a low quality user) but luckily as I had DM'd Octopus before, it still lets you still DM people you had previous interactions with.

For reference, Octopus is on Bluesky now as well, for those who are X-iled.

Telegraph_Sam

I like the Twitter pun (?)
I could end up treading where you have trod (how to go about doing a formal complaint / escalation?)
I think their tactics are to bury me in a multitude of detail reckoning that I will soon get lost and throw in the towel. Whereas my defence is that I did everything by the rules. And if there is some software accounting bug that wants now to recreate the past, that leaves me seriously out of pocket then that is for them not me to resolve.
I wonder if cases such as this are very much the exception

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I like the Twitter pun (?)
I could end up treading where you have trod (how to go about doing a formal complaint / escalation?)
I think their tactics are to bury me in a multitude of detail reckoning that I will soon get lost and throw in the towel. Whereas my defence is that I did everything by the rules. And if there is some software accounting bug that wants now to recreate the past, that leaves me seriously out of pocket then that is for them not me to resolve.
I wonder if cases such as this are very much the exception

If you need it: https://octopus.energy/unhappy/
I had thought my case was quite exceptional, but there are a limited number of people who regularly post to this thread. If two of them have had this issue within a few months of each other, it suggests it is rather more common than I had thought.

OhhLongJohnson

masonic said:

For reference, Octopus is on Bluesky now as well, for those who are X-iled.

They are but have sadly have yet to enable direct messaging.

As soon as they do I'll be deleting our twonker account as the Octopus support on there is the only reason I created it.