Octopus Energy and Ombudsman

julia817

Im interested to know what is fair in terms of being been offered “compensation “? 

Background is in feb 22 our in house display for the gas stopped working - electric was fine - but no gas … phoned emailed, went through various resetting, reconnecting and regardless of me telling them no still not working - they would close the call and say it’s fixed - so we’d go round the loop again and again - then energy crisis hit and I started to get a bit panicked - then in July we got a bill that only went up to March for the gas. I again made contact saying I want someone to come out and look at the meter- after that same shenanigans I said if you don’t respond to me with an appointment to come out and look at the meter I’m taking it to the ombudsman. 

So I did 

All of a sudden people from Octopus started to actually call me at a time convenient to me. After going around the loop once more they have agreed that the comms unit on my meter is broken (no shxt) and someone is coming out to look at it in about 3 weeks. They have offered my £200 compensation to accept this outside of the ombudsman intervention. Personally I just want the thing to work as its intended but £200 is a nice bit off my bill but is this a low ball offer?

ecraig

Hang on. You say you just want it to be fixed. So surely you would be happy with £0..?
If your motivation is to get it fixed and get some compensation, you ought to suggest a sum higher than you really want to achieve and see if you meet somewhere closer to your target. Old school negotiation!

If money is your motivation, I wouldn't be entertaining an agreement until the meter is actually fixed and working to your satisfaction. 

Spoonie_Turtle

I'm no expert but from what I've read on here, you'd be exceptionally fortunate to get the Ombudsman recommending that level of compensation, especially as on the face of it you've not actually suffered any monetary loss, only time and inconvenience.

Gerry1

Take the money and run: I'm amazed it's so high.

In effect your SM and IHD were both freebies, you haven't paid any more than if you didn't have them.  (In fact, we're all paying over £400 whether we have them or not, but that's a different story.)

The only disadvantage you've suffered is having to read the meter on the wall, but that's how it always was when you had a traditional meter.

I'd have thought £30 was very good going for such a minor inconvenience.

Chris_b2z

The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) have estimated that smart meters save a typical household £56 each year by reducing energy use. The IHD is an integral part of the smart meter solution designed to help us identify where savings can be made. Therefore, you could argue that someone without a working IHD is potentially missing out on £56 of savings each year.
https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/update-on-the-rollout-of-smart-meters-summary.pdf

Gerry1

Chris_b2z said:

The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) have estimated that smart meters save a typical household £56 each year by reducing energy use.

Well, they would, wouldn't they?

Chris_b2z said:

The IHD is an integral part of the smart meter solution designed to help us identify where savings can be made.

Nope, it's like the freebie in the cereal packet, here today and gone tomorrow.  It's only supported for 12 months.

debitcardmayhem

My hid never could turn off / Down the rads, unplug electrical stuff, it can’t even get the costs right. Still when I work out the energy at my current tariff I realise that I have spent about 40p less per day, so it’s saving me roughly 145.00 / yr., or is that me doing the saving. Government propaganda at its finest, from a department that seems to change its name more often than my tariffs change.

37pisntenough

julia817 said:

Im interested to know what is fair in terms of being been offered “compensation “? 

Background is in feb 22 our in house display for the gas stopped working - electric was fine - but no gas … phoned emailed, went through various resetting, reconnecting and regardless of me telling them no still not working - they would close the call and say it’s fixed - so we’d go round the loop again and again - then energy crisis hit and I started to get a bit panicked - then in July we got a bill that only went up to March for the gas. I again made contact saying I want someone to come out and look at the meter- after that same shenanigans I said if you don’t respond to me with an appointment to come out and look at the meter I’m taking it to the ombudsman. 

So I did 

All of a sudden people from Octopus started to actually call me at a time convenient to me. After going around the loop once more they have agreed that the comms unit on my meter is broken (no shxt) and someone is coming out to look at it in about 3 weeks. They have offered my £200 compensation to accept this outside of the ombudsman intervention. Personally I just want the thing to work as its intended but £200 is a nice bit off my bill but is this a low ball offer?

What do you mean by compensation? If you've lost money because of a problem and you can quantify it then that's what you should get in compensation plus an additional amount for goodwill. 

From what you're saying the meter doesn't work and is charging more than it should. You could get Octopus to recalculate what you've used previously over a period of time and take the average. In fact you could get a rough idea by doing it yourself and seeing if £200 is enough. 

My suspicion is that Octopus have had a look and are offering less than this would work out to if recalculated.

I've been through this and won so I know how frustrating the whole process is. If you go to the ombudsman it will be slow so it's your judgement about where to go with this.

debitcardmayhem

@37pisntenough this thread is over a year old!