Is it worth me going to the ombudsman about Octopus Energy?

krabople

wakeupalarm said:

Yes, it's worth going to the energy ombudsman in this case highlighting Octopus Energy's customer service failures if not the money.

You are likely to get at least £25 goodwill from the ombudsman plus Octopus Energy will be hit with a £460 fee from the energy ombudsman to deal with the matter.

So win win all round.

Thanks for this. I guess there's nothing to lose by putting my case to them and seeing what they say in that case.

masonic

krabople said:

wakeupalarm said:

Yes, it's worth going to the energy ombudsman in this case highlighting Octopus Energy's customer service failures if not the money.

You are likely to get at least £25 goodwill from the ombudsman plus Octopus Energy will be hit with a £460 fee from the energy ombudsman to deal with the matter.

So win win all round.

Thanks for this. I guess there's nothing to lose by putting my case to them and seeing what they say in that case.

Have you actually had a Stage 2 response from a "specialist"? If not it may be worth one more try to resolve it before doing so (as it will be quicker for one thing). The social media team (Twitter) might be an option if they didn't respond to email.

krabople

masonic said:

krabople said:

wakeupalarm said:

Yes, it's worth going to the energy ombudsman in this case highlighting Octopus Energy's customer service failures if not the money.

You are likely to get at least £25 goodwill from the ombudsman plus Octopus Energy will be hit with a £460 fee from the energy ombudsman to deal with the matter.

So win win all round.

Thanks for this. I guess there's nothing to lose by putting my case to them and seeing what they say in that case.

Have you actually had a Stage 2 response from a "specialist"? If not it may be worth one more try to resolve it before doing so (as it will be quicker for one thing). The social media team (Twitter) might be an option if they didn't respond to email.

It was through a link on Facebook I originally contacted them, and someone from the 'Community Management Team' emailed me back in response. Someone different replied to my follow up email the next day, but it didn't say which department they were from, I assumed just general customer service.

Keep_pedalling

wakeupalarm said:

Yes, it's worth going to the energy ombudsman in this case highlighting Octopus Energy's customer service failures if not the money.

You are likely to get at least £25 goodwill from the ombudsman plus Octopus Energy will be hit with a £460 fee from the energy ombudsman to deal with the matter.

So win win all round.

Who do you think actually ends up paying those costs? 

Reed_Richards

I don't know if Octopus do things differently but every electricity bill I have ever encountered indicates whether the reading it is based on is estimated or not.  If Octopus were issuing monthly bills as normal then I don't think you can blame them if you did not read those bills carefully enough.

You might be able to take issue with the reduction in your direct debit, given that it was the wrong thing to do and done without any hard evidence in the form of actual readings.

Marvel1

krabople said:

Ectophile said:

The back billing rule from Ofgem allows them to bill you for up to one year after you used the energy.  So I don't think the ombudsman would be very interested.

Do the meter readings on the bills have an "e" after them?  Bills normally have a code letter after them to indicate what sort of meter reading they are.

Yeah, the bills do have the e after them. I'll definitely be checking this in future, I just naively assumed a company like Octopus would let me know if there was any issue getting readings from my smart meter. Or, more to the point, I guess I didn't really think about it at all, as I assumed the days of estimated readings were over for people with smart meters.

Exacatly, so called smart meters not doing their function - sending automatically so you don't have too.

I looked at my parents energy bill last year and thought what does this mean 0 E (I;m on a prepaymnt so don't have bills).  They had same issue smart meter that was suppose to send them automatic but wasn't  

Phones4Chris

krabople said:

 I guess I didn't really think about it at all, as I assumed the days of estimated readings were over for people with smart meters.

Big mistake I'm afraid. You should always check every bill, no matter who it's from or what it's for!
There could be a comms issue or some incorrect registration of the meter etc. so the data isn't being retrieved.

Marvel1 said:

Exacatly, so called smart meters not doing their function - sending automatically so you don't have too.

Smart meters don't send automatically! The Comms unit attached to the meter sends the data upon a data request by the supplier (assuming that it's not got a signal problem). Or on request from a 3rd party App or Data retrieval routine such as n3rgy or Bright to name two. Only the supplier can retrieve the meter readings. 3rd party Apps can retrieve your usage for each 30 minute time slot, as well as the tariff currently loaded on the meter.

@krabople If you have a Smart phone, have you got the Octopus App? Is that not showing any real usage data?
If not, try signing up to one of these 3rd party apps, assuming you have an IHD you shouldn't have any problem doing so. Try n3rgy first, you can do that on a PC, as in my experience they generally start retrieving data quicker after sign up, but it'll be in csv format. If you can successfully get your data then the problem is with Octopus.
If for some reason you can't get it to work, try the Bright App on a smart phone, as they are quite good with customer support when things don't work.

TheElectricCow

krabople said:

Ectophile said:

The back billing rule from Ofgem allows them to bill you for up to one year after you used the energy.  So I don't think the ombudsman would be very interested.

Do the meter readings on the bills have an "e" after them?  Bills normally have a code letter after them to indicate what sort of meter reading they are.

Yeah, the bills do have the e after them. I'll definitely be checking this in future, I just naively assumed a company like Octopus would let me know if there was any issue getting readings from my smart meter. Or, more to the point, I guess I didn't really think about it at all, as I assumed the days of estimated readings were over for people with smart meters.

The estimated readings appearing on bills effectively would have been them informing you that they weren’t receiving your meter readings, so if you do intend to escalate this to the ombudsman stage you might not want to rely too heavily on this as the basis of your complaint. 

However, I’d say that you do have a reasonable case for them reducing the DD based on those estimates, and if escalated either within Octopus or to the Ombudsman this could potentially achieve a small goodwill credit.

EssexHebridean

Keep_pedalling said:

wakeupalarm said:

Yes, it's worth going to the energy ombudsman in this case highlighting Octopus Energy's customer service failures if not the money.

You are likely to get at least £25 goodwill from the ombudsman plus Octopus Energy will be hit with a £460 fee from the energy ombudsman to deal with the matter.

So win win all round.

Who do you think actually ends up paying those costs? 

Oh, that’s fine, it just gets spread out among all consumers, including those of us who haven’t brought vexatious claims to the EO just for the sake of it… 😏

EssexHebridean

For others coming to this thread in the future. 

Personal responsibilities around energy use.
- Even if you have smart meters, still take your own readings occasionally. I’ve maintained a habit of doing my electric weekly as I always did, and gas monthly but even reading each meter every second or third month is still decent practise if as far as you know your SM is still allowing the supplier to access your actual use. 

- when you get your bills, check them to ensure that they are showing readings pulled from your meters. Every few months at least, check those readings against the actual meter readings you have taken - this way you catch any discrepancies earlier, when they will be both less of an impact, and easier to sort out. 

- do your own - even rough - calculation around what you would expect to be paying. Your bill should show an estimated annual use - although this cannot be 100% relied on it is in most cases a starting point at least. Then work out what your DD should be - again, even if roughly. If a supplier then says they are dropping your DD and you think “hang on, that doesn’t sound right” your option is either to request that it is changed back, or to ringfence the “saved” money in a separate savings account ready to pay it back to the account if needed later. (Note - unless things have changed, you cannot do this if you are with Utility Warehouse as they do not have the ability to apply standalone payments to your energy account). 

- if you encounter a problem, deal with it immediately. Meter gone blank? Tell your supplier.

I’m deliberately not aiming the above at the OP as they have already had lots of folk telling them where they’ve gone wrong, and seem to have accepted that they did have a responsibility to do things differently which they have overlooked, albeit from a position of simply not knowing that this responsibility was there. This is what it comes down to though - at one stage, none of us knew this stuff - and we can’t possibly know something which we have never learned about!