Octopus Billing Issues, have been with Octopus for a long time

Raxiel

This threw me for a few minutes as I puzzled over my Octopus bill while I tried to figure out what's going on.

As Astria says, the OFGEM price cap changed on 1st January just as it did on the 1st of October. Normally this would come with much fanfare, but because of the EPG it doesn't actually mean anything for the consumer. The amount paid stays the same, the EPG absorbs the rise.

I was previously aware of the price changing, but because the EPG runs until April, I'd actually forgotten about it.

It still has to be accounted for on the bill though, hence the two batches of readings at different rates, and pro-rata estimates at the switch date for customers who didn't provide a reading that day.

BooJewels

gail322 said:

             Hi BooJewels, Thankyou for your kind reply, I just want a plain easy to understand bill, no small print I see nothing to clearly show where the government help has been applied other than just the acknowledgement that it has been added. I would like a clear transparent bill so that should I choose to look for another supplier I could then clearly see the difference in charges, at the moment Octopus do not to me make the bills clear

There are currently two lots of Government assistance, the Energy Price Guarantee / EPG, which reduced the unit price of fuel and then the 6 monthly Energy Bills Support Scheme/ EBSS of the £66/£67 per month discount from your total.  Hopefully you can see from my bills above, where these two items are accounted for. 

Granted, it does make it a little more confusing, but Octopus, like all other suppliers, were not expecting their systems to have to cope with these two schemes and their billing systems were not designed to accommodate them, so each one had to find a way of administering these discounts to consumers quickly and in a way that they could easily undo once they'd finished - so this was how Octopus chose to implement it.  If you think this is confusing, you should see the mess British Gas bills are at the moment - I'm on top of my energy use and fully understand it, but cannot make sense of my bills from them.

There's not really much of an opportunity or incentive to switch at the moment - most companies aren't taking on new customers, any fixes being offered are more expensive than the variable rate at present and just about all companies are at about the same price - just with regional variations, in accordance with the price cap.

Gerry1

My Octopus gas bill is by far the clearest I've ever seen, and I've been with umpteen companies over the years.  It's particularly good at showing the volume to kWh conversion and making it clear that they're converting from cubic feet.

I don't think we can really help much more without seeing some of the OP's (redacted) bills.

BooJewels

I'd concur @Gerry1 - Octopus has by far the most efficient and clear billing systems of any company I've used and if I wasn't already managing my elderly aunt's BG accounts under the umbrella of my own under an LPA, I'd certainly try and persuade Octopus to take my gas account too.  I take a meter reading at the end of the month, work out what I think my bill should be and submit the reading to them - and a few hours later, get a bill that is almost always exactly to the penny what I'd worked it out as.  In fact, once submitted, if I go back to the dashboard, it has already knocked off the value of my bill from my account balance.

I had an email from BG asking me to submit meter readings from my aunt's smart meters which don't seem to be any more.  They'd been estimating since around May it seems.  So the electricity one I submitted is 41 kWh less than their latest estimate (so less than about 15 quid difference) and at the moment, they're showing her consumption as 99959kWh (about £34k) - rather than considering that her estimate was maybe a little high, they seem to be assuming she's gone around the clock!   I'm dying to see if that bill appears or if they see sense first!

gail322

Hi Gerry, and Thankyou for your reply which is very much appreciated, I do however fail to understand your logic in your reply
I appreciate that you may well fully understand your Octopus gas bill, but it is I that have raised the issue both in this forum, of which in the past used to have reps from each company and I am not sure why Martin changed the layout where you could see each supplier, eg British Gas, ect then a rep in each. I raised a concern over plain English easy to follow information, it does not really help me an old age pensioner that you know your bills, its me that does not love, but thank you for your time in responding

Spoonie_Turtle

gail322 said:

Hi Gerry, and Thankyou for your reply which is very much appreciated, I do however fail to understand your logic in your reply
I appreciate that you may well fully understand your Octopus gas bill, but it is I that have raised the issue both in this forum, of which in the past used to have reps from each company and I am not sure why Martin changed the layout where you could see each supplier, eg British Gas, ect then a rep in each. I raised a concern over plain English easy to follow information, it does not really help me an old age pensioner that you know your bills, its me that does not love, but thank you for your time in responding

I think the point is if you don't understand Octopus' bills then there's no chance of you being able to understand any other supplier's bills.  (And I mean that as a neutral observation, not judgemental at all - some people find these things easy and others don't, and some can't make head nor tail of it even with help because their brains simply don't work like that.  Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.)

For anyone to give specific help you ideally need to post an image (or link to an image as explained on the first page) and identify exactly which part(s) you don't understand.  Perhaps then with a visual reference people can understand what's confusing you and be able to explain it.

LindsayT

People on here can't really give any useful help unless they see the bill, as other people have mentioned.

Jyana

gail322 said:

Hi all,
 OAP here,
             I am starting to see practices by Octopus Energy that I am calling into question. Firstly I am not on a fixed tariff but a variable. I get notification that each month to submit a meter reading for gas and electricity and I duly pay. However this month of January I decided to look at the PDF file and noticed some worrying information, given that I have already paid my December Bill and that I pay monthly I am confused to see yet again charges for December and January I pointed out to Octopus that I have already paid in full for December and my bank statement shows this, Octopus then went on to say, "well December isn't really December its really November" oh, so why was I shown in credit from my last bill? no reply, I asked the Operative to add up the month of January which she did but then added on December, I then said ok I would like to escalate my complaint, I asked why the word Estimate appeared on my bill given that I get notification to take a meter readings and always pay in full on time, oh said the Operative estimate isn't really estimate its, well you know the price of energy going up and down, "oh I replied", then where is the asterisk with an explanation of what estimate means? phone goes quiet and I am at that stage cut off.
The bill is set out in a confusing manner why does my monthly bill show two months when I pay monthly why am I being asked to pay December when December was paid and there is clear evidence of this, if as they  say December isn't December, rather December is November then surely this is not acceptable? I do not mind paying what I owe I have clearly cut down on my engergy usage even the totals for January are considerably lower yet I do not see where the government assistance was added. I feel that the bills are miss leading why offer a monthly payment option when they take two months, why call December November? why use the word Estimate to mean changing tariff rate?
what happened to plain English By the way my bill for January was eighty seven pounds, they say my bill is actually 160 pounds yet no debt on the bill, but no explanation as to why a bill total with vat and standing charge goes from eighty seven pounds to one hundred and sixty pounds, it gets worse, at the bottom of the page it then goes on to say pay bill, with no billing period but then jumps up to two hundred and twenty nine pounds. Can anyone help ? 

If you are paying January's bill now on meter reads you have already submitted before today, how on earth are you paying for the whole month of January? It's pretty obvious how you are paying for some of the previous month, and/or they are providing estimates on your bill, to me just on that fact alone.

Agree with other posters that no other information can be provided unless you post this bill you are talking about.

70sbudgie

I would suggest tweaking your billing period by taking meter readings on the first of the month. Then you know the usage on your account is all the previous month. 

Also, every time you are notified of a rate change, take an extra meter reading on the first day of the new rate. 

These two behaviour changes should make your bills show whole months and remove the word "estimate" from your bills.

Nothing is "normal" about the current energy crisis, so the "rules" have changed.

wild666

gail322 said:

Hi all,
 OAP here,
             I am starting to see practices by Octopus Energy that I am calling into question. Firstly I am not on a fixed tariff but a variable. I get notification that each month to submit a meter reading for gas and electricity and I duly pay. However this month of January I decided to look at the PDF file and noticed some worrying information, given that I have already paid my December Bill and that I pay monthly I am confused to see yet again charges for December and January I pointed out to Octopus that I have already paid in full for December and my bank statement shows this, Octopus then went on to say, "well December isn't really December its really November" oh, so why was I shown in credit from my last bill? no reply, I asked the Operative to add up the month of January which she did but then added on December, I then said ok I would like to escalate my complaint, I asked why the word Estimate appeared on my bill given that I get notification to take a meter readings and always pay in full on time, oh said the Operative estimate isn't really estimate its, well you know the price of energy going up and down, "oh I replied", then where is the asterisk with an explanation of what estimate means? phone goes quiet and I am at that stage cut off.
The bill is set out in a confusing manner why does my monthly bill show two months when I pay monthly why am I being asked to pay December when December was paid and there is clear evidence of this, if as they  say December isn't December, rather December is November then surely this is not acceptable? I do not mind paying what I owe I have clearly cut down on my engergy usage even the totals for January are considerably lower yet I do not see where the government assistance was added. I feel that the bills are miss leading why offer a monthly payment option when they take two months, why call December November? why use the word Estimate to mean changing tariff rate?
what happened to plain English By the way my bill for January was eighty seven pounds, they say my bill is actually 160 pounds yet no debt on the bill, but no explanation as to why a bill total with vat and standing charge goes from eighty seven pounds to one hundred and sixty pounds, it gets worse, at the bottom of the page it then goes on to say pay bill, with no billing period but then jumps up to two hundred and twenty nine pounds. Can anyone help ? 

They will be because the rates you pay changed on January 1st. Your bill will have being using some of the December rates and some for January the electric rate for me went down by 0.37p.  I have SMETS 1 smart meters and they read the electric meter but I have to send in the gas readings because they don't receive them. My billing date is the 26th use the figure(s) from the 25th to calculate the bill. All suppliers are reducing the kWh rates by 17p and this will be shown on the bill as kWh * by .17 to give a price the bill is reduced by then there is the £67 rebate to be taken off to produce the outstanding balance to be paid.