Meter readings wrong OVO

DDB_3

I was with SSE with electricity only. I moved home and my then landlord took meter readings the day I moved out. I subsequently received a final bill from SSE/ OVO which I thought was high but paid it to close the account. I now have a different provider. I have since received a further adjusted final bill which is £600 in addition to what I had paid. Having reviewed all of the meter readings and bills I have discovered that their meter readings were all estimated and are actually 10000kwh more than my final meter reading. I have raised this with OVO but they say they cannot help as it was with SSE(who OVO now own). They have been investigating it since September and now in November I have received a debt collection letter. What can I do.? I believe they actually owe me money.

QrizB

DDB_3 said:

I was with SSE with electricity only. I moved home and my then landlord took meter readings the day I moved out.

Do you have records of the meter readings on the day you moved in, and the day you moved out? If you do, do you also have any inbetween readings?

DDB_3 said:

Having reviewed all of the meter readings and bills I have discovered that their meter readings were all estimated and are actually 10000kwh more than my final meter reading.

This makes me think you do have readings?

DDB_3 said:

They have been investigating it since September and now in November I have received a debt collection letter. What can I do.?

Who has billed you, SSE or Ovo? Have you provided them with your actual meter readings?

DDB_3

My original final bill was from SSE but OVO took them over the day after I moved out. The recent adjusted bill is from OVO. Of course i don’t have an account with them so everything has been difficult. It all seems a little odd but then a debt collection agency is involved when they are meant to be investigating it all. I do have meter readings and my old landlord has time stamped photos of the final readings.

QrizB

So when you moved into the property, you provided SSE with your opening meter reading? Is this correct on your very first bill?

Where did they begin to use estimates?

DDB_3

When I moved in the meter readings were taken. They were then estimated from then on. We never could submit a reading ourselves as their system was often down. We then moved out and their final estimated reading was 10,000kwh higher than what our true reading actually was . We paid the first final bill which was high but thought we should just pay as we weren’t paying that much up until then. OVO then sent us an adjusted final bill which was really odd., that’s  when we realised all of the previous bills were estimated.

Gerry1

As a general rule you should  never let anyone read your meter for you, apart from an official meter reader.  Apart from the possibility of making a mistake (all too easy with these hopeless modern meters) it's not unknown for dodgy landlords and agents to 'massge' the readings so that tenants pay for some or all of the void period between tenancies.

RogerPensionGuy

I know of 3 different people who were with SSE and got automatically put on to OVO.

SSE apparently had problems recording meter readings at just about every opportunity, they just seamed to make continuous mistakes and like customers to always be in far too much credit. 

All these 3 people had problems when swapped over to OVO and SSE & OVO not interested in understanding the problems apart from asking for extra payments to be made immediately or debt recovery agencies will be employed.

Suggest people having these issues just advise the regulatory agency at first opportunity. 

Jyana

DDB_3 said:

My original final bill was from SSE but OVO took them over the day after I moved out. The recent adjusted bill is from OVO. Of course i don’t have an account with them so everything has been difficult. It all seems a little odd but then a debt collection agency is involved when they are meant to be investigating it all. I do have meter readings and my old landlord has time stamped photos of the final readings.

Makes sure to get a copy of the time stamped photo. 

I would make this an official complaint, including the photo of the closing readings, as this doesn't seem to be going anywhere at present with them. Keep all correspondence in writing from now on, and after eight weeks you can take it to the ombudsman. 

Tell the collection agency that an official complaint about this bill is in progress with them and ask them to hand it back over to the company as they are dealing with it.

Green_hopeful

Sorry it’s frustrating but you are just going to have to get complaining. When we had a dispute with our aunts energy provider I rang and explained until I was exhausted. In the end I did a request for all personal information known as a DSAR request and that seemed to get them to focus. I can’t say if it was related but it did get resolved. 

RogerPensionGuy

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/21/ofgem-orders-ovo-energy-to-improve-customer-service-serious-concerns-complaints

DDB_3

thanks all. Having spoken to OVO again today, yet again they weren’t very helpful. The operator even interrupted me when I was reading out my account no. saying that they had no record of my account. They didn’t let me finish reading the number!! Wouldn’t pass me to a supervisor, wouldn’t put me through to complaints department but as soon as I mentioned the ombudsman they registered a second complaint promising a call the same day. I eventually received a basic holding email from them. I raised it with the ombudsman anyway so let’s see what happens. I also spoke to the debt collection agency who were very helpful. They were surprised they even had the account because all of the readings were estimated. I’ll  post on here once I get some sort of resolution.