Left Octopus and can't get my money back

JSHarris

TBH I had a similar experience with getting money back from Octopus years ago.  The original error was understandable, the meter database got corrupted during the move from Iresa, probably not the fault of Octopus (I never found what the cause was - wasn't anything I did, of that I'm 100% certain).  The way they dealt with it was exceptionally poor, though, took months to resolve with a lot of stress involved.  Ended up going to the ombudsman to get my money back.  Did leave me more than a bit wary of ever dealing with Octopus again, though, once bitten and all that.

EssexHebridean

brig001 said:

Smart meter, but they configured it wrong 
It still gave up to date readings though 

How do the readings you have records of from the meter compare with what Octopus are showing on your bills? 

brig001

EssexHebridean said:

How do the readings you have records of from the meter compare with what Octopus are showing on your bills? 

They match exactly, but with economy 7, day and night are usually R01 and R02 respectively, but with Octopus they have always been the wrong way around. Every now and then they would swap the readings on the bill, and I think this is what is happening on the latest bill. I once had a bill for minus £400 during the night - I have no idea how they thought I was doing that 

Gerry1

brig001 said:

EssexHebridean said:

How do the readings you have records of from the meter compare with what Octopus are showing on your bills? 

with economy 7, day and night are usually R01 and R02 respectively, but with Octopus they have always been the wrong way around.

Nope, there is no defined standard, it varies from meter to meter.  For over 20 years my non-smart digital meter has always been R1=Night and R2=Day.

You just have to make sure they're shown correctly on the bills.

brig001

Three other suppliers had R01 for day, Octopus configured day as R02, but kept billing day as R01

MWT

brig001 said:

Smart meter, but they configured it wrong 
It still gave up to date readings though 

It doesn't matter if they changed the registers used for day and night as long as the bills match the actual register they were using to accumulate the use...

brig001

MWT said:

brig001 said:

Smart meter, but they configured it wrong 
It still gave up to date readings though 

It doesn't matter if they changed the registers used for day and night as long as the bills match the actual register they were using to accumulate the use...

Octopus configured day as R02, but kept billing day as R01

Final bill number 4 arrived this morning. How many final bills do you have to accept? It’s over three months since I left Octopus 

MWT

brig001 said:

MWT said:

brig001 said:

Smart meter, but they configured it wrong 
It still gave up to date readings though 

It doesn't matter if they changed the registers used for day and night as long as the bills match the actual register they were using to accumulate the use...

Octopus configured day as R02, but kept billing day as R01

Final bill number 4 arrived this morning. How many final bills do you have to accept? It’s over three months since I left Octopus 

All that matters is that you get a bill that correctly reflects your usage split day/night and charged at the right rates.over the period you were there.

The corrected bills can look daunting with a lot of reversed and reapplied charges, but there is still only ever going to be one right answer...

Do you know from your own records what the right answer is? (not based on whatever credit or debit your Octopus account may have been showing at one time or another).

brig001

I don't know unfortunately. I have the meter readings from the bills, but calculating the rates with government rebates etc., would be quite time-consuming. I'll have a go between Christmas and new year - there is over £800 difference between the first "final" bill and the last (so far) "final" bill, so it's worth doing

How far back can they go?
They are saying two years, but Ofgem say one year of back billing

Brian

QrizB

brig001 said:

They are saying two years, but Ofgem say one year of back billing

It's not back-billing, is re-billing. You only left them in the past three months, and they've billed you already.

Edit to add:

brig001 said:

I don't know unfortunately. I have the meter readings from the bills, but calculating the rates with government rebates etc., would be quite time-consuming. I'll have a go between Christmas and new year - there is over £800 difference between the first "final" bill and the last (so far) "final" bill, so it's worth doing

Three years, assuming you've been on the SVT, will be tariffs for:

1. April-Oct 2020
2. Oct-Apr 2021
3. Apr-Oct 2022
4. Oct-Dec 2022 (EPG applies)
5. Dec-Apr 2023 (EPG applies)
6. Apr-Jul 2023 (EPG applies)
7. Jul-Oct 2023

Seven tariffs in total.

If you have actual smart meter readings for all the changeover days it will make calculations easier, but if not you can see how well Octopus's estimates compare to your readings either side.

You should be able to rattle through that longhand in an hour or two, less if you're a spreadsheet whizz.