SSE to Ovo transition problems

Apples99

Prior to April I was with SSE lovely (for an energy company) to deal with, would get emails and texts when it was time to submit a reading absolutely no problem whatsoever. I hadn't had one for a while so put one in for January and got notice back I had used much less electric and was about 120 in credit ! Oh joy! BUT SSE was of course switching soon so I was unable to request a refund at that time I would have to be patient. For reference I live in a 1 bed flat and am quite conservative so I was only using around 20-30 pounds worth and paying 40 of course bills have went up but that was a nice little buffer. Or so I thought.

Then Ovo came along, in April I was switched and excitedly logged on to see my new balance and if I was still due a nice refund. Of course I was not. No my balance had dropped down to negative three hundred. I was shocked! I stared blankly for several minutes before checking my previous bills all in credit with SSE right up until March surely there must be a mistake how could I have used nearly four hundred pounds of electric in a month. I hurridly ran to my meter and took several pictures to update the website only to discover I could not. That at some point Ovo must have flown in some pixies and installed a smart meter because that is what was registered on the website.
Now I have been offered a smart meter many times, but I have also been told that since you have to keep them on you can end up spending more by having one. As I am the type of person to turn everything off after use and was very conscious of my energy usage I always refused I knew it would not benefit me.
So I was pretty upset at that point and called them up to say I really don't have a smart meter and also emailed them a picture of my actual meter. In the meantime I asked my downstairs neighbour (Im in a flat) if she had a smart meter, she said she she did and I said to her there must be some sort of mixup then maybe they have your details and funnily enough she then told me she had just received a letter saying she had overpaid.

A week later I got a call back to say it would be looked at by someone from the mysterious "meter team" well I've been doing my own little investigation my current reading is 50660 I last submitted in January 49696 scrolling through the list here I can see exactly when the Smart meter readings started to be added into my account. (Again never had a single issue with SSE or any billing problems. So not sure how they ha

27th January 2022	01793.3	Smart
14th January 2022	01751.694	Smart
13th January 2022	49696	Manual
13th January 2022	01748	Manual
12th January 2022	49696	Manual
30th November 2020	46488	Manual

Now the notification I have a smart meter is gone but it is still collecting the readings and also the restriction for me to enter my own readings has been removed. If I were to submit this new reading would the system attempt to add that from the smart meter reading that it has taken? Which today was 

9th May 2022

02172.269

Smart

And then the question is I would be charged for the difference in usage? I've called a few times and been told it is still being looked into but so far I have paid out twice towards these debts that aren't mine but am hesitant to stop the payments in case that looks bad on my part. Pretty peed off at the neighbour as well as Ovo she suffers with drug and alcohol issues and I know she has tried to claim a refund of my overpayment I've told her several times about the issue but she keeps using my address for things I return to sender her letters with my address but they keep coming. Before this (2ish years ago) she had her broadband changed and they cut mine and I got a letter saying I had moved I called and fixed it, but it happened again so they sent out an engineer that week and he had it resolved within ten minutes he realised it was the neighbour and I shared a line whatever that means. Ovo is pretty crap at getting back to me though I have to keep chasing. Has anyone else ever had an experience similar? Or knows some electricians or Ovo representatives pretty lost at the moment and considering whether or not just to take the loss pay her stupid debt and switch or just move, had an estate agent out to evaluate the property a few weeks ago prices have went up since I bought and it's been a total nightmare from day one!

Olinda99

the best way is to email hello@ovoenergy.com so you have a trail

also log on to your old sse account you won't be able to do much but make sure you download your final sse bill which will show the meter readings they used and the debit £xx passed to ovo - this should match your opening £xx debit on your new ovo account

don't worry ovo will sort it out it happened a lot on the sse-ovo switch. Give ovo your correct meter readings. Make sure the serial number of your meters match what ovo have. Din't expect it to happen soon they take their time but they are a good company and will sort it out for you. 

Apples99

Was unaware it had happened a lot to other customers, the three or four agents I had spoke to mainly seemed very confused going as far as to insist I had a smart meter because it was on their system when I'm looking at my meter and know that it is not! I have obviously emailed my evidence as well but the fact that nobody has gotten back to me or giving me a timeline as to when I will see a resolution and I'm still seeing incorrect amounts and paying towards debt that isn't mine its incredibly frustrating I certainly wouldn't say they are a good company!