Help please - OVO have taken over my SSE account

MikeJXE

pseudodox said:

I see my name mentioned above.  I was likewise handed over from SSE to OVO.  I do not have smart meters & had always provided readings & got quarterly bills which I paid by DD for the whole bill.  Nice low gas bills in summer!  OVO wanted to put me on monthly Fixed DD amount, which would equate to double any kWh usage they could see from my 15 year history.  There was no negotiating with them (they would have been taking 29% of my only income, state pension) so I told them to take a hike & moved to EDF.  I am on monthly Whole Bill DD & all seems to be hunky dory to date.  In fact my first DD goes out tomorrow.  I monitor my usage carefully & when the bill appeared on my account I had over calculated on my spreadsheet by 2p.

I was going to apply for smart meters but there seem to be a lot of issues, although I am aware that it is only people with a problem who tend to post on forums.  So I will hang fire for now, but even when I do get new meters I will continue to check the readings regularly.  I am a control freak!  Which has never done me any harm.  I like having my money in my bank/savings & not in the pockets of OVO et al.  I am fully aware of the winter bills spike as we live in a country with generally cold winter's so paying those bills was never an issue to me.  But I think those who prefer to pay the same each month are as entitled to their choice as I am to mine.

Regarding your thoughts on smart meters

I was always against them until I moved to a new address that had them fitted and I have changed my mind.

I was with SSE and now OVO and because I have a smart meter I can see every little detail of what I use and I can highly recommend smart meters 

I do still check my readings monthly against the reading the smart meter gives OVO and they do check out 

pseudodox

My main doubt about smart meters is my being in a mobile signal blackspot.  And no meter will be a better guage than me when it comes to measuring my energy usage.  I don't need an IHD to tell me there is a surge when I switch on the kettle or toaster.  And as I don't intend to make coffee with cold water or eat "raw toast" then I will have no incentive to save fractions of a kWh.  A smart meter in future (if it works) may be my route to cheaper time of day tariffs.  Currently I could only save by sitting in the dark without even my minimal use of heating.  I use average 4kWh electricity & 45kWh gas per day in mid winter.  Electric does not vary much through the year, gas will be virtually zilch from April to October.  Smart meters will make no difference to me as I was brought up to switch things off when not needed.  I got Tapo plugs to check out a few appliances.  Only fridge & freezer use more than pennies & they are my essential 24/7 items.  Just been measuring TV - 17p for a week's viewing, so not about to give up favourite programmes to save tuppence!  I was even surprised how little my desktop PC uses.

pseudodox

Well as regards my Whole Bill DD to EDF due to go out today (referred to earlier)  they have not taken it.  Instead they have applied the January £67 so that my account is now in credit to the tune of about £23.  By the time I get the next bill (I am due to send readings by 30 January) for payment date in early Feb I will perhaps have the February £67, which could reduce the bill very nicely.  This is so much easier than the £67 coming back to me only to return to sender as part of a bill payment.  My account position could not be clearer (to me anyway). 

Had I stayed with SSE/OVO by now they would have relieved me of over £650 against usage to date of less than £250.  Since I joined EDF in mid November nothing has gone out of my bank to them & my accumulated money for accumulated usage is sitting in a savings account earning very modest interest.  May only be about £1.40p by end of January so far - but pennies for me to spend on sweeties!

User70200

Regarding your smart meter and spikes what frequency are the readings being collected? If it’s monthly and not in sync with your bill being issued then they’ll estimate for the period between the reading and the bill to date. If the estimate is off what you’ve actually used then this could cause the spikes you’re seeing when your next reading gets collected. If you switch to daily reads then this should sort out the spikes or give you more info to go on to see if there’s any correlation between the spikes and any activity that could be causing them.

The_miser_2

Thank you all for your help.

Here is what OVO has said regarding giving 2 different usage readings for the same day (12th Dec 2022)

Regarding your latest email, I want to start off by apologising for any inconvenience which has been caused.
What has happened is; The two main systems which we us are both demonstrating two different reads for your smart meter. This should never happen, which is why we can label this as a system error This has happened to many accounts, and we are aware of this.
We are currently in works on locating all the accounts this has happened to and doing a bulk fix for them all. Since we are doing this, it may take a bit of time, so please be patient with us.
 Once again, I do apologise for this error. Please be assured our billing department are aware of this error and is aware your account is also affected by it.

Two main systems to read the same smart meter? And they seem in conflict...puzzling to me! Can anyone shed some light on this?

If they have 2 main systems are they also using subsystems that could cause more conflicts?

@Astria , @Gerry1 Of course monthly billing may be easier for some, but the quarterly system suits me.  Why should OVO just walk in and ignore my existing contract? I am all electric, so only have one bill to pay and have never had issues with monitoring my usage or billing until the installation of a smart meter.

@pseudodox Your experience is one of many attempts by energy companies to hike direct debits by ridiculous amounts. My bank manager advised me that if a company 'demanded' payment by direct debit, set it up and then convert it to a standing order, that way you maintained control, and if they required a change they had to ask you, not notify you.

 I am waiting to see if I get the same pay every three-month offer @ev51 did, if so I would need it in writing, just in case they accuse me of being in debt at a later date.

@Robin9 @User70200 The days on which SSE had given 'estimated usage' were due to the smart meter being unable to communicate with their network, this happened on various days with no discernible pattern. From what I gather they received zero readings for those days so inserted an estimated figure at their end.

The response from OVO indicates discrepancies as to how these meters are ’read’ so how do I know their usage figures are accurate without following @Astria suggestion and having  a  dormant ('dumb') meter to check readings against?

So I did a little research into smart meters, they are telling my energy providers how much to charge me, so just how trustworthy are these devices?

Dormant meters are passive one-way devices that only record usage, smart meters are active two-way devices and can misread usage, send wrong data to the supplier  download erroneous data, or fail to communicate anything at all, and as OVO admitted, system errors can throw the whole shebang out of synch.

The government forced suppliers to fit smart meters before the infrastructure was in place to use them properly. To catch up all ‘smart meters’ are being migrated off the ad hoc suppliers' networks onto a unified centralised network, this should’ve been completed by the end of 2022 using a remote software upgrade to our smart meters.

I’ve checked and even though OVO claims my first-generation meter was upgraded to 2nd gen in 2021, DCC still lists it as 1st Gen and it’s not on the new network. (Another ‘system failure’ I wonder).

A 2017 study from the University of Twente Enschede in the Netherlands (Daily Telegraph 06/03/2017) showed that five out of nine brands of smart meters gave readings that were too high (up to 582%), due to the design of the meters and the use of modern energy saving devices distorting the readings. The greatest discrepancies appeared in systems containing dimmers combined with LED (now the majority of UK lamp sales) or low-energy bulbs.

Some of these models are fitted in UK households, but no one is saying which ones.

(NB meters used in these tests were manufactured between 2004 and 2014)

5 March 2017 published on the BBC website

Jane Allen was one of many confused customers who posted the strange readings from their SSE smart meters on social media. One customer's display showed more than £30,000 for a single day. SSE apologised and said no customers would be charged "the extra amounts resulting from errors"…….A spokesman for SSE told the BBC: "SSE is aware of the issues affecting a small number of our smart meters."The issue will be investigated as a matter of urgency and no customer will be charged the extra amounts resulting from errors with the smart meters."We would like to apologise to any customers if this has caused distress."

4 years later……

 SSE 1st April 2021. posted on their Facebook site. (OVO took over SSE in April 2019)

We're aware of a fault on some Smart Energy Trackers and In-Home Displays that’s causing them to show incorrect costs. Note this impacts the display only, not the actual meter or meter readings and you will not be billed for the amount on the display. We’re working hard to resolve this issue as soon as possible. You don’t need to do anything at this time and we’re sorry for any concern this has caused.

Some display units were showing £40,000 for one day's usage!

No one got charged these big bucks, but it does indicate that the display unit I use to track usage may not be  100% accurate. Those affected use the same SSE display unit I am using now, can I trust its accuracy?

A bill that is tens of thousands higher than expected is self-evidentially wrong, but try proving that when it's £17.58. We may suspect overcharging, but without proof of usage, there is nothing we can do.

 Will a MAT (meter accuracy test) test help? I can ask OVO to come and check my electric meter, but as this fault was at their end it wouldn’t have picked it up and they would’ve billed me £149 for the test.

@pochase I think if you ask for it to be removed they are obliged to, but the suppliers will give reasons such as lack of dormant meter supply and charge an eye-watering amount to swap them,   OVO describes it as ‘expensive and not normally worth the cost’.

I just don’t trust that this technology is accurate, or in my best interest, and believe it is failing me as a consumer

 I will try to get rid of the thing and keep the forum posted as to my progress.

Ectophile

I’ve checked and even though OVO claims my first-generation meter was upgraded to 2nd gen in 2021, DCC still lists it as 1st Gen and it’s not on the new network. (Another ‘system failure’ I wonder).

A 1st generation meter will always be a 1st generation meter.  What the DCC does is to take over the meter, so that it sends the readings to them, rather than to whoever the supplier was when the meter was fitted.

The DCC also sends out software updates.  These usually work OK, but it's not unknown for the updates to reset the meter reading to 0.