Octopus complaint, next steps?

michele-p

Hi all, back in November my elderly mum added her meter readings to Octopus, and spun the prize wheel. It spun and showed her she won the top prize of £512. She was over the moon.

By December she had no credit from them, and emailed to ask when her prize would appear in her account. Over the next months there was a huge string of emails between them. Mostly Octopus asking her for a screen grab of the win, and her explaining she doesn't know how to do a screen grab, she's nearly 80 and can do only Internet basics, and does not have a smart phone.

Octopus escalated it to a complaint for her, and got their tech team to look into it. Now they've just told her they will not pay out as they do not believe she won, and she has no evidence. Basically calling her a liar!

So what would our next step be please? Anyone know how I can take this further for her? I want to push this, as there's no way she'd make up having seen the "congratulations" message.

Thanks

Mstty

Do you think she could have made a mistake?

Has it been 8 weeks or have Octopus issued a deadlock letter? Either of those raise with the ombudsman.

I agree an elderly person may well not know how to do a screen grab so that is realistic.

[Deleted User]

michele-p said:

Hi all, back in November my elderly mum added her meter readings to Octopus, and spun the prize wheel. It spun and showed her she won the top prize of £512. She was over the moon.

By December she had no credit from them, and emailed to ask when her prize would appear in her account. Over the next months there was a huge string of emails between them. Mostly Octopus asking her for a screen grab of the win, and her explaining she doesn't know how to do a screen grab, she's nearly 80 and can do only Internet basics, and does not have a smart phone.

Octopus escalated it to a complaint for her, and got their tech team to look into it. Now they've just told her they will not pay out as they do not believe she won, and she has no evidence. Basically calling her a liar!

So what would our next step be please? Anyone know how I can take this further for her? I want to push this, as there's no way she'd make up having seen the "congratulations" message.

Thanks

Email greg@octopus.energy

Explain the circumstances in as much detail as you can.

I am not sure that going to The Energy Ombudsman would get you anywhere. Spin wheel schemes are not covered by Standard Licence Conditions so any complainant would be asking a third-party to make a decision on the basis of no supporting evidence. 

michele-p

Thanks Mystty, I really don't think she would have been able to mistakenly see the congratulations message.

The latest reply from Octopus closed the complaint, but she's replied again by email.

I'll take over from now on her behalf, is finding the ombudsman the next step?

I've tried to keep my explanation as concise as possible, which I'd use to raise to the next level.

[Deleted User]

michele-p said:

Thanks Mystty, I really don't think she would have been able to mistakenly see the congratulations message.

The latest reply from Octopus closed the complaint, but she's replied again by email.

I'll take over from now on her behalf, is finding the ombudsman the next step?

I've tried to keep my explanation as concise as possible, which I'd use to raise to the next level.

Just to be clear, EOS - a private arbitration company commissioned by Ofgem to deal with consumer complaints - doesn’t investigate anything. It makes its decision on the basis of the complaint submitted to it, and the case file submitted to it by the energy provider.

Spin the Wheel schemes are not subject to Ofgem regulation - hence it would be illogical for EOS to give a ruling on something that Ofgem does not regulate.

You are annoyed: we all get that. The email address that I posted above will give you access to the Octopus CEO’s team. I would hope that they might be more sympathetic to your Mother’s situation than EOS will be.

facade

AFAIU, "spin the wheel of fortune" works like the National lottery online games, you have virtually no chance of winning anything, and the outcome is decided before you click. (At least it is a free novelty to encourage meter readings, rather than paid gambling)

On the remote chance that you are a winner, the system triggers a winning animation when you click, otherwise you get a losing animation, stopping next to a prize to make you think you "nearly won" and that the odds are much higher than reality ( if you do the maths on the numbers of "winning" segments vs the "lose" ones ).

Anyway, Octopus know whether your account is a winner at the outset, if there was a glitch and a "winning" animation was triggered by mistake they will have no record of it, which I think is what they are saying here.

No doubt the T&Cs say something along the lines of "If there is an error- tough" There is no contract over this, no payment was made, so it will be like when the free newspaper bingo accidentally prints half a million winning cards, they don't have to pay up.

Possibly if you screengrabed the winning animation they might make a goodwill payment (because you could make a fuss with evidence that might cost them more than paying up graciously), but with no evidence I can't see what escalating the complaint will do.

The best next step would be trying to get the BBCs "Gloria's Shock Horror Ripoff" interested, if they make Octopus look like Pensioner Swindlers for a bit of TV entertainment it could trigger Octopus into paying up for damage limitation.

Mstty

michele-p said:

Thanks Mystty, I really don't think she would have been able to mistakenly see the congratulations message.

The latest reply from Octopus closed the complaint, but she's replied again by email.

I'll take over from now on her behalf, is finding the ombudsman the next step?

I've tried to keep my explanation as concise as possible, which I'd use to raise to the next level.

In my opinion it won't hurt to raise a complaint there are no downsides for you and your elderly mum as customers.

I do also like the idea of the email address @dolor has mentioned but would do both hand in hand no point delaying.

pochase

I agree with @[Deleted User] that this is nothing you can complain to the Ombudsman about. It has nothing to do with the supply license.

Without a proof that she has won there will be no possibility to claim the win if Octopus says they don't find a winning spin in their system. Everybody could just contact them and claim they did win.

The Ombudsman will do nothing and Octopus says proof it. So you will need to find a court that says Octopus has to pay out 512£ just on the word of somebody without any proof. Apart from that I am sure that Octopus will have some T&C that say that you can't take this to court.

bristolleedsfan

pochase said:

Without a proof that she has won there will be no possibility to claim the win if Octopus says they don't find a winning spin in their system.

As facade said   "outcome is decided before you spin".  " Octopus know whether your account is a winner at the outset"

pochase

bristolleedsfan said:

pochase said:

Without a proof that she has won there will be no possibility to claim the win if Octopus says they don't find a winning spin in their system.

As facade said   "outcome is decided before you spin".  " Octopus know whether your account is a winner at the outset"

Yep I also did read that information on their website,

Explains maybe the scenario even better. The system knows you are not a winner, but some glitch shows you the winning page.

If you have a screenshot you will be able to proof that there was a glitch, without it they will just stick with the information in their system, they can "proof" that somebody is not a winner from they log files.

Mstty

I wonder if this may be a better place for a complaint as the giveaway is run under England and Wales Law

https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/promotional-marketing-prize-draws.html