Octopus Flux to Octopus Intelligent - Quite a Journey

[Deleted User]

On Wednesday, with solar output falling, I switched from Flux to Intelligent Octopus. It proved to be quite a journey. Initially, CS changed my Flux Export to Outgoing SEG which went through at midnight on Wednesday. Yesterday morning, I went through the IO set up procedure and got a successful test charge. On checking My Account, I could see that Outgoing Fixed export had been deleted and IO had been allocated to the export MPAN.

When I called CS, I was fortunate to speak to someone who could see the problem and took full ownership of it going forward. Three long phone calls and 6 hours later the problem had been resolved. By any standards, this was exceptional customer service. 

The backend team said that they were facing a number of system challenges as people came off Flux alongside the recent increase to the Outgoing Fixed export rates. The temporary solution was to change Flux to Flexible import and to Fixed Outgoing export before going through the IO set up procedure. The ‘painful’ thing is that it takes 10 minutes to run through the test procedure.

I post this to suggest that anyone who has moved to IO recently should check that it has been linked to the correct MPAN. 

debitcardmayhem

Interesting, I have registered my interest with Octopus but have not heard anything further. Thanks for the heads up on the MPAN.

norsefox

Octopus have been absolutely brutal in my experience regarding SEG.

I made the change request from EDF to to Octopus in mid-July, and they only finalised the process on 6th of September.  At this stage they have no intention of paying for the energy exported during the 6-7 week period.

When I made the application, they asked for some extra detail by email then refused to acknowledge my follow-ups.  They had to have constant reminders and I've now raised a complaint for how poor their communication and attention to detail has been.

Their import changing of suppliers and everything else has been first class, but the whole SEG experience has been woefully short of my expectations.

[Deleted User]

 At this stage they have no intention of paying for the energy exported during the 6-7 week period.

Octopus has never paid for exported energy before the allocation of an export MPAN. FWiW, when I went through the sign up process 3 years ago (online) it was pretty seamless. The only delay was the time that it took my DNO to issue an export MPAN.

QrizB

[Deleted User] said:

 At this stage they have no intention of paying for the energy exported during the 6-7 week period.

Octopus has never paid for exported energy before the allocation of an export MPAN.

I'm not aware of any other supplier paying for export in that situation, either.

@norsefox were you already receiving SEG payments from EDF?

norsefox

QrizB said:

Dolor said:

 At this stage they have no intention of paying for the energy exported during the 6-7 week period.

Octopus has never paid for exported energy before the allocation of an export MPAN.

I'm not aware of any other supplier paying for export in that situation, either.

@norsefox were you already receiving SEG payments from EDF?

Yes - EDF ended our arrangement the moment they received notification from Octopus that we had requested a switch.  They confirmed the meter reading at that point, to which I immediately sent to Octopus to confirm.

I've challenged it with them.  It's an absurd position - had they been up front about it (and I did call ahead of time) then I would have waited until later in the year.  It makes no sense whatsoever to transfer during the summer months when you could effectively be subsidising the grid for 6-8 weeks.

We had solar installed in December but we were with Bulb, and they point blank refused to install a smart meter.  They used every excuse possible.  In the end I got £75 out of them as a goodwill gesture, and moved to EDF as they were reported as being good with installation.

EDF installed the smart meter within 3 days of the transfer.  It took around 8 weeks to get the solar all arranged for export and the SEG setup, and EDF honoured it from the moment the meter was installed.

It strikes me as odd that EDF would honour an arrangement from the moment a meter was installed, but Octopus won't honour an export (for an existing solar arrangement with all existing paperwork with the incumbent all complete) until they finish their processes - when I've had to prompt them numerous times, with them asking for me to complete their online form multiple times.

Anyway, I'm going through their complaints process right now.  We'll see how far they are willing/able to flex.

QrizB

norsefox said:

QrizB said:

Dolor said:

 At this stage they have no intention of paying for the energy exported during the 6-7 week period.

Octopus has never paid for exported energy before the allocation of an export MPAN.

I'm not aware of any other supplier paying for export in that situation, either.

@norsefox were you already receiving SEG payments from EDF?

Yes - EDF ended our arrangement the moment they received notification from Octopus that we had requested a switch.  They confirmed the meter reading at that point, to which I immediately sent to Octopus to confirm.

Just to make sure I'm not missing something, you were already being paid for metered export with EDF? And you already had an export MPAN?

If that's so, I can't really understand why Octopus aren't able to begin paying you at the meter reading they agreed with EDF when you switched.

norsefox

QrizB said:

norsefox said:

QrizB said:

Dolor said:

 At this stage they have no intention of paying for the energy exported during the 6-7 week period.

Octopus has never paid for exported energy before the allocation of an export MPAN.

I'm not aware of any other supplier paying for export in that situation, either.

@norsefox were you already receiving SEG payments from EDF?

Yes - EDF ended our arrangement the moment they received notification from Octopus that we had requested a switch.  They confirmed the meter reading at that point, to which I immediately sent to Octopus to confirm.

Just to make sure I'm not missing something, you were already being paid for metered export with EDF? And you already had an export MPAN?

If that's so, I can't really understand why Octopus aren't able to begin paying you at the meter reading they agreed with EDF when you switched.

Yes that's correct.  We had the SEG with EDF and export MPAN etc all in place.  When we requested the export switch to Octopus (directly to Octopus), EDF ended our export agreement and paid up to that point.  

I provided Octopus with their remittance, letter, and confirmation of the meter's export value at that point.

For some reason Octopus only want to honour our export from the 6th of September despite the switch request being made on the 17th of July.

norsefox

Just providing an update.

Their email customer service was dreadful, but got hold a very helpful person on the phone yesterday (after 2.5 weeks of repeated emails being ignored).

They honoured the July transfer date, so backdated a £60 payment using the 15p/kWh export.

I can now switch to Go for the winter, and the 8p/kWh export.

Happy that it's now all resolved.  But yes, though they encourage email, phone calls seem to be more effective.