OVO charging me for incorrect usage

abbyw

Looking for some advice about my consumer rights. 

I moved into a flat in September and organised my electricity with SSE. They then migrated us to OVO in November and we continued paying £38 a month as before. I have recently received an email from OVO saying that I have a £600 debit on my account so they’ll be charging me £600 this month and for the months going forward as my usage is apparently extremely high. 

Turns out after many phone calls with them that the debit was on my account from SSE and carried over to OVO. There was an incorrect reading produced in October which was extremely high and doesn’t fit with the other readings I’ve manually submitted. On the phone OVO have agreed that I should only continue to pay £38 per month but they don’t have the power to reduce my direct debit until the £600 debit has been investigated. So there is £600 due to leave my account next week, which I cannot afford. 

They’ve told me they have submitted the case for investigation but they can’t give a date of when it’ll be looked into. I’m extremely worried and angered by the fact they are expecting me to pay this due to a fault in SSE’s system.

Please let me know if you have any advice or guidance on how I can go about escalating this so that I don’t get charged the incorrect amount. The phone operators seem really unbothered by the damage and stress this is causing and I feel like I’m hitting a dead end every time I call them. 

QrizB

abbyw said:

I moved into a flat in September and organised my electricity with SSE. They then migrated us to OVO in November and we continued paying £38 a month as before.

That's quite a low monthly payment. Do you have gas heating as well?

Can you tell us the meter reading when you moved in, the reading today and the tariff you're currently on (how many pence per kWh and pence per day)?

On the phone OVO have agreed that I should only continue to pay £38 per month but they don’t have the power to reduce my direct debit until the £600 debit has been investigated. So there is £600 due to leave my account next week, which I cannot afford.

The nuclear option is to cancel your DD, then they can't take the payment. If OVO really can't change it from their end, this is your only option. Do beware, though, that cancelling your DD might result in you being charged a higher tariff (at least until you reinstate the DD) and potentially you'll be bumped off your current deal (this may or may not matter, depending on what your current deal is).

Archie_Duke

What did you pay SSE in total (looks like it should have been £114 in direct debits from your OP) while you were with them, and what opening and closing readings did you have before you switched to OVO? Did you check the account debit is from your usage and not carried over from a previous tenant (or period of time when unoccupied, and presumably accruing standing charge and billing via estimated readings only)?

Robin9

If you were underpaying last year at £38 and owed £600 in September  you almost certainly will be now that things (unless you are on a fix)  be even more so after April 1st  - £600 suggests £50 a month so your DD today quite possible be well over £100. Add to shortfalls from October to now and  ..............

What is your monthly usage please (in KWh not £) ?

pochase

Was the reading in October an estimated reading or did you submit a wrong reading?

What was your start reading in September and what is the reading today? It would be great if you have the readings for 30th of September and 31st of March also. I assume you are on standard variable rate?

Looks like you don't have gas, what do you use for heating?

If the reading in October was to high the next manual readings you submitted should have overwritten it. But give us above figures first and we can look at your account in its total.

jbuchanangb

You can instruct your bank to refuse the DD request from OVO while you are in dispute with them. This is part of the DD guarantee. If OVO have already grabbed the money you can ask your bank to grab it back. Then when you have an agreement with OVO about the right level of payment, you can release the hold on the DD.

abbyw

Thanks for all the responses! We still get our Gas from SSE on a separate account so this dispute just concerns Electricity.

We moved in 17th September 2021 when the reading was 16379. Then in October I have a photo of it being 16423. 20th December was 16633. 12th March 2022 it was 16880. So since we have been here 6 months we’ve used 501 total. We’re on the Simpler Energy tariff with a unit rate of 4.18p and a standing charge of 26.12p.

They originally gave us a projected use of 6881 kWh per year at a cost of £382.87 and since this incorrect reading in October they have readjusted our projected cost to a ridiculous £4002 per year for 18860 kWh of usage. Even when considering the rise in costs, there is no way 2 of us are using that much electricity and OVO have acknowledged that. It’s important to note that when I’ve spoken to the care agents on the phone they have agreed that we aren’t even using £38 worth of electricity a month. 

@jbuchanangb I wasn’t too sure if refusing the direct debit could result in me being given a poor credit rating?

Robin9

Thank you for the detail of the meter reads.

No idea where they might have got the estimate from but they do have access to historic data so perhaps the previous tenant was as much a high users as you are low.

I suggest you write by snail mail a letter headed COMPLAINT (don't waste your time on the phone) and ask them to amend their estimates

Gerry1

abbyw said:

So since we have been here 6 months we’ve used 501 total. We’re on the Simpler Energy tariff with a unit rate of 4.18p and a standing charge of 26.12p.

Sounds like you're confusing the electricity rates with those for gas.  There's simply no way you would have been paying 4.18p/kWh for all your electricity.

abbyw

Gerry1 said:

abbyw said:

So since we have been here 6 months we’ve used 501 total. We’re on the Simpler Energy tariff with a unit rate of 4.18p and a standing charge of 26.12p.

Sounds like you're confusing the electricity rates with those for gas.  There's simply no way you would have been paying 4.18p/kWh for all your electricity.

Yep, sorry! So much paperwork… so our electricity rates are 20.77p unit rate and 23.30p standing charge 

JGB1955

The Simpler Energy tariff is a variable tariff, so will have increased considerably since September 2021.  Your current prices are likely to be somewhere near the price cap - Unit rate: 28.34p per kWh, Standing charge: 45.34p per day