Ovo Energy

stuart264

I'm posting this because I wanted to ask if anyone else has come across it when dealing with Ovo energy, as I can't decide if the conversation I just had was down to an inexperienced junior call handler misunderstanding management instructions, or I should be contacting Ofgen.

Ovo e-mailed me yesterday to hike my monthly direct debit amount to £212, I knew I had to increase it slightly, but that figure seemed too high, so I went to my online account to change it to £200 to hit the middle ground. Their website would not let me do that and kept coming up with an error message that it could only accept a value between £210 and £2000, so I e-mailed Ovo who called me back about half an hour ago. The call handler that called me said he would sort it, and they could "discount" (his exact words) up to 15% off the direct debit which I queried as that's not a discount, it's just lowering the direct debit amount by 15%, and you are paying the same amount and the balance remains outstanding. Call handler repeated that twice, saying it was what his management had instructed him to do.

If that's true, then it's a pretty sharp and misleading practice that may give someone a nasty shock down the line, I want to think it is a junior staff member making a genuine mistake, but I also want to check it to make sure someone more vulnerable doesn't end up in a worse position.

[Deleted User]

If you are unhappy then raise a written complaint. The supplier then has 8 weeks to respond before you can escalate your complaint to The Energy Ombudsman. Ofgen does not exist: Ofgem, the Regulator, does not accept consumer complaints but there is nothing stopping you from emailing consumer.affairs@ofgem.gov.Uk to apprise them of your concern.

FWiW, I just think that the OVO CS member used a poor choice of words. Clearly, management has given CS the authority to reduce the monthly DD amount by up to 15% if the customer is unhappy. I think that we all guilty of mis-speaking at times.

Troytempest

Not so sure. I am with OVO and it's a constant battle to keep DD to a reasonable amount even in credit. Constant need to escalate just to speak to someone with common sense.