OVO complaint

SnakePlissken

Troytempest said:

Advice please. I am with OVO, not in contract so on the standard rate. 
I have been paying £78 per month for quite a while. I make occasional top ups such as putting back in the 67 pounds per month plus the 500 pounds winter fuel allowance.
I am currently £850 in credit but they have put by DD up from £78 to £102.

I am simply not prepared to fund the bank of OVO at my expense. 

Obviously, getting through to anyone sensible on the phone is impossible. 

Not justifying ovo keeping your credit  balance and increasing bill.

But are you aware they pay interest on your balance they hold of between 3% & 5% apr depending upon how long you are with them.?

I recently left Ovo and this was given back as a £2.50 credit per month to me on my bill.
If you have £850 you should be getting at least a £2.xx pence credit per month.

I think OVO are the only supplier who give interest on customers credit blance.

km1500

I think your balance of £850 is too high. Log on to the OVO system (app or online) and request a refund. Keep doing that regularly if the balance gets too high. 

If you don't want to fund the bank of OVO, why do you keep adding irregular payments? Don't do that - just let the DD do the work.

Effician

SnakePlissken said:

Troytempest said:

Advice please. I am with OVO, not in contract so on the standard rate. 
I have been paying £78 per month for quite a while. I make occasional top ups such as putting back in the 67 pounds per month plus the 500 pounds winter fuel allowance.
I am currently £850 in credit but they have put by DD up from £78 to £102.

I am simply not prepared to fund the bank of OVO at my expense. 

Obviously, getting through to anyone sensible on the phone is impossible. 

I think OVO are the only supplier who give interest on customers credit blance.

IF you joined OVO before Sept 2021, a  discontinued perk after that.

I was a SSE refugee & moved to OVO in March 2022 , had a similar experience to the OP so switched supplier after 4 months as it was like banging your head against a brick wall.

SnakePlissken

Effician said:

SnakePlissken said:

Troytempest said:

Advice please. I am with OVO, not in contract so on the standard rate. 
I have been paying £78 per month for quite a while. I make occasional top ups such as putting back in the 67 pounds per month plus the 500 pounds winter fuel allowance.
I am currently £850 in credit but they have put by DD up from £78 to £102.

I am simply not prepared to fund the bank of OVO at my expense. 

Obviously, getting through to anyone sensible on the phone is impossible. 

I think OVO are the only supplier who give interest on customers credit blance.

IF you joined OVO before Sept 2021, a  discontinued perk after that.

I was a SSE refugee & moved to OVO in March 2022 , had a similar experience to the OP so switched supplier after 4 months as it was like banging your head against a brick wall.

Thanks, I wasnt aware they discontinued it.

I always keep a large credit balance to cover emergiencies like rate rising or higher bill due to freezingweather, but i can get why for some they would prefer to spend money on other bills if they are finding things difficult.

km1500

They have only discontinued it for new customers. I still get it, for example.

rodmaker

SnakePlissken said:

Troytempest said:

Advice please. I am with OVO, not in contract so on the standard rate. 
I have been paying £78 per month for quite a while. I make occasional top ups such as putting back in the 67 pounds per month plus the 500 pounds winter fuel allowance.
I am currently £850 in credit but they have put by DD up from £78 to £102.

I am simply not prepared to fund the bank of OVO at my expense. 

Obviously, getting through to anyone sensible on the phone is impossible. 

Not justifying ovo keeping your credit  balance and increasing bill.

But are you aware they pay interest on your balance they hold of between 3% & 5% apr depending upon how long you are with them.?

I recently left Ovo and this was given back as a £2.50 credit per month to me on my bill.
If you have £850 you should be getting at least a £2.xx pence credit per month.

I think OVO are the only supplier who give interest on customers credit blance.

Ovo have stopped interest rewards on all tarrifs. Currently for those with ovo, ovo only pay interest on a very small part of your balance. Not the whole. And it varies!  (See details of that below)

It is hardly worth getting and certainly not worth using it as a persuasion to stay with them. Currently I'm £300 in credit and have always been in credit, I recieved 80p in interest for the past 12 months in total.. They use a very convoluted method of figuring out that interest. You can lose the will to live trying to figure it out!

"As of 27th September 2022, we’re no longer offering the OVO Interest Reward scheme with our tariffs. If you signed up for an eligible tariff before this date, you’ll still get rewards. Learn about how the scheme works and how we calculate your payments on this page.

How does OVO Interest Reward work?

The OVO Interest Reward is aimed at customers who have kept their energy account balance in credit. We pay it on positive account balances that are higher than your Direct Debit amount.

For example, if you have a positive balance of £150, and your Direct Debit amount is £100, we'll pay the reward on the extra £50.

Your interest rate will also go up the longer you’re with us. In the first year you get 3%, in year 2, it goes up to 4%, and in your third year and beyond it’s 5%.

How Interest Rewards are paid

We work out your Interest Rewards each month – and we add interest to any positive balance on your energy account balance between Direct Debit payments.

We’ll apply it to your account balance just before we get your Direct Debit each month. When you go to the billing screen in your online account, you’ll see the amount of interest you've earned during each current billing period. You can [login to your account] to see these updates.

It’s also good to know that while we give you interest when you're in credit, we'll never charge you interest when you have a negative balance.

How is OVO Interest Reward calculated?

The OVO interest reward is worked out the day before a Direct Debit (DD) is taken using the balance on that day.

This is how we work out the OVO Interest reward:

"(days since last calculation / 365) x balance prior to payment x interest reward percentage"

Here’s an Example

You have a balance of £100 when their previous DD was taken. Your last payment was taken two days ago and your level of OVO interest reward is 5%.

= 2(days) /365 x £100 x 0.05 (interest percentage) = £0.027 (rounded up to £0.03)"

peter_the_piper

We are £748 in credit but the only reason for this is that we have only had 1 statement since August.Their system is a bit wierd.

Troytempest

I am happy to be £850  in credit, my choice, however the tp ups I have made are government money - winter fuel allowance plus the 67 ponds per month.
Reasonable to add this back in as it was intended to help people with fuel bills. 
Although happy to be £850 in credit, I was hoping to work this off by keeping the DD the same. 

pochase

Didn't you post yesterday that after you send in your meter readings are now only £124?

Further update. After I put in meter readings yesterday the system reckons I will still be £124 in credit at the end of my billing year.
This increase is a cynical attempt to improve cash flow at my expense. 

A £124 credit in January will be gone by the end of winter, more likely will result in a debt.

Troytempest

At the end of what they call the billing year - October I think