Incorrect energy billing adjustment

JG26012012

TheMilkmansDad said:

I may have missed this, but all those readings appear to be estimates. Have any bills been generated using meter readings you've submitted?

Edit - ignore me, I read the E as estimate as oppose Electric. I hate Mondays  assume all those reads are the actualls?

You and me both!

They are the actuals which do align with my monthly billing statements.   

pochase

Good find @Mstty.

Only problem is that when he moved to OVO @JG26012012 had used a total of 206.85 on his SSE account.

Nothing really justifies an almost  £400 adjustment for an account that has a total use of £207.

Mstty

👍 @pochase totally agree

Maybe the OP could post a message on the OVO boards and get someone from OVO to directly respond.

I hate things on bills where they aren't explained like this, really gets my goat

JG26012012

Thanks for the article @Mstty. 

I've already gone through that debacle with OVO back in early Jan when they stuck me with a balance adjustment claiming it was my final bill with SSE. Admittedly I let it slide as it was only a minor amount but I'll definitely take your point regarding the OVO forum and will report back. 

theoretica

Is your monthly DD £78 as you say, or actually £78.26?  Which would mean they have decided to deduct 5 months DD from your account - perhaps matching the payments you made to SSE?  Did your account transfer over with a balance of 0 or +/-?

JG26012012

***Update***

Having posed my issue to the OVO forum, I was instructed to call customer service (again) were I was told that the additional balance adjustment was migrated to my account by SSE over the weekend. Bare in mind I had already had a balance adjustment earlier this year with the exact same reason given. 

As SSE added the balance adjustment, OVO are unable to do anything their end and instructed me to discuss this with SSE. Surprise, surprise, another frustrating call, this time ending with SSE telling me that all of my account and data info was transferred over fully in January (with credit apparently) and they have no evidence to suggest where the extra £400 came from nor can they do anything about it.

Bang head against wall! 

pochase

Do you still have access to your SSE account and can you download the final bill?

I would raise a complaint with OVO, they are the ones saying you are owing money, it cannot be your job to proof that you don't owe the money.

PolyVinalDistillate

I've been dealing with this issue since May with a £388.70 balance adjustment. I've refused to pay, and have contacted OVO by email on a few occasions to explain that I won't pay until I have the balance adjustment itemised. They have never got back to me, and I'm starting to get final demands. Today I went through the web chat - no point in going by phone as I can't record phonecalls - to sort this out with them once and for all. Turns out you can't get a chat transcript without a freedom of information request! But I copy-pasted as I went along. The upshot is that the onus is apparently on me to contact SSE for clarification, and that I need to put a complaint in to OVO to get them to halt the threats of legal action. It's utterly appauling they can slap a completely arbitrary £388.70 on a bill with no explanation in meter readings as to why it's there and then threaten to take me to court! Worse, that I have to waste my time trying to sort it out. Transcript below for anyone who wants to see it:

Hi! I’m Charley. How can I help? Just to let you know, this chat will continue to be open for the next 10 minutes. But don’t panic! If you’re unavailable now, just drop us another message when you can and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. An Advisor will be with you as soon as one becomes available. You are currently position 1 in the queue. Thank you for your patience Ok, let's find someone for you to chat to. Great, thank you.

Hello, Nick here. I seem to have an ongoing issue with OVO despite requesting that this be sorted by email

to fill you in on the history of my complaint, I have a £388 "balance adjustment" that has not been sufficiently explained, and that I refuse to pay until it is explained. OVO's response is to ignore my concerns and send me final demands and threats of court proceedings

I apologise you feel this way, let me have a look into this for you.

I first emailled hello@ovoenergy.com to query this on the 7th June 2022. I emailled again on the 8th September to hello@ovo AND collections@ovo following reception of a demand for payment. I have apparently been ignored, as I have not seen any responses to my concerns

Note that I am not willing to do this by telephone, as I wish to have a record of the conversation that I can refer to later if needs be.

So the balance adjustments usually happen when we either over charge or under charge our members during the migration period from SSE to OVO.

That's fine - and were it a £20 balance ajdustment, I would take it just to avoid all this trouble. But we're talking about a £388.70, unexplained balance adjustment here. That is not acceptable without a solid explanation
it needs to be itemised. I need to be able to corellate it with my metyer readings
and I first asked for this on the 7th of June. It is completely not acceptable to ignore this request and start threatening me with court action

I do apologise that you feel this way. I am going to look into this further for you.
Okay, so you have an electric meter which is a Smart Meter and a gas meter which is dumb meter. You were migrated over on a reading of 3402. You then submitted a reading of 3525. If you were sent over on a reading that was a 100kWh lower than what you were actually using we will have to acquire the money for that when we do our balance adjustments.
As I have not received a response I will end the chat, however you can still contact us back if you have any further questions

sdf

Welcome back

An Advisor will be with you as soon as one becomes available. You are currently position 1 in the queue. Thank you for your patience

sorry - I was reading bills and corellating

from the start of my billing with you I was on 3402. This stayed estimated until (and including) April, yes?
then on the 1st May, there is an estimated reading of 3570 and I submitted a reading of 3580

Please continue to hold, an advisor will be with you as soon as possible
Hello Nicholas, my name is Toni, do you still need help with your query?

can you see the history of the query?

oh - and hello0 Toni : )

im scrolling back now, one moment

please don't vanish on me if I happen to be looking at bills again - I'll let you know if I do so you don't think I've gone!

hello I'm still here, just caching up on the conversations

no problem : )

from what I can see, I started on 3402 in December. Estimated 3440 bye end of december. Jan: 3440-3481, Feb 3481-3516, Mar 3516 (reading given on 8th that was 10 meter units more) - 3547. Apr 3547-3570, May 3570 (reading of 3580 given on 21st) - 3583. May being where the balance adjustment was applied. I do not see anything in the bills to account for this balance adjustment and Charlie's explanation doesn't make sense either, as the meter readings are accounted for and tallied in the units of gas in the bills

i'm getting further advice from the billing department on this, thankyou for your patience

no problem - thanks for your help : )

I'll wait

thankyou for your patience, billing team are replying to me now

excellent

i do apologise for your wait and thankyou for your patience

no need to apologise - I get the impression there's not a simple answer for this one!

after billing have had a look back on your account, it looks like everything from our end is inline (all reads) to us, however because the issue and the balance adjustment lies with sse, you would have to contact them for a breakdown for the balance adjustment of £388.70

then why is this balance adjustment on a bill from yourselves, and not from SSE?

there is a note on your account in May saying that sse found an incorrect opening read and as your account is with us now, they have to add the balance adjustment to your account with us

I mean, in short, if you can't provide a breakdown and plausible explanation, it's the height of cheek to threaten court action for my not paying my bills when I am very much up to date on all the energy charges you have itemised since I became your customer
this sounds very much like SSE are at fault

and it should not be my responsibility to chase SSE when my account was transferred to OVO without my having any say in the matter

so is your final response to my query that I have to chase SSE myself, and that OVO will continue to threaten legal action? If this is the case, then I would like contact details for someone higher up in the management of OVO please

i do understand your frustration, but because the query is from when you were with sse we cant give a breakdown as we were not billing you at that time, but because you have migrated over to us, we have to take over any debit that is on your account

but without an explanation of that bill, it's totally invalid - it really might as well be "here's an extra random £388.70 we felt like adding to your bill"

evidently you are not in a position to help with this, hence my request for contact details for someone further up in management

your time is much appreciated, of course - I'm in no way attacking you personally : )

if you would like to raise a complaint to speak with someone higher, I would advise to call our customer service team on 03303035063 and they can assist you further
i fully understand and i am so sorry that i couldnt help any further

0330 means I need to pay to make a complaint?

yes this is a chargeable number

also - about the threat of legal action - is this still imminent? Do I also need to get legal advice?

i would ask the resolution team at complaints to put a hold on your account until this is resolved, just so you dont receive any more letters from our collection team

Ok - I'll follow that up. Thankyou very much for your efforts : ) One final request - can you email me this chat transcript please? P----------------------------@------------

as you have every right to have the amount that you may owe explained, and this is what sse should do for you
unfortunately i am unable to do that from webchat, but you can request a SAR from your online account, i will try and find the link for you, one moment please

ok

 ---------link I'm not allowed to post------------

That's excellent thanks. Hopfully I'll get a response to that in good time! Well I'd best let you go. I hope your next job isn't as annoying as this one!

ah dont worry i know how frustrated you must be, i just i could of helped further for you, have a nice day

byee : )

bye

t0rt0ise

@PolyVinalDistillate yours is said to be from an adjusted opening read with SSE. So you need to check the first SSE bill to see why they think it was wrong. Who were you with before SSE and when did you move to them and do the readings match up? At least you have something to work on there.

PolyVinalDistillate

t0rt0ise said:

@PolyVinalDistillate yours is said to be from an adjusted opening read with SSE. So you need to check the first SSE bill to see why they think it was wrong. Who were you with before SSE and when did you move to them and do the readings match up? At least you have something to work on there.

How time flies. I should have returned here before to provide an update. I went to the energy ombudsman with this one, and because OVO were trying to get money for energy usage beyond 12 months (if I recall correctly, that's the cut-off) with no accurate meter readings, they had to write off the debt. I wound up with a £75 "sorry" payment. So anyone experiencing issues with OVO - be sure to go down the ombudsman route if OVO consistently fail to answer your questions.

If OVO had responded with a correctly itemised bill, I would have likely paid them not realising that they can't legally charge for historical energy usage without accurate records. More fool them for having a shockingly poor communications dept!