Octopus Energy

LeesArt

Ry88 said:

I'm appalled by Octopus & the utterly disgraceful treatment I've had from them after being forcibly moved from Shell (who I found surprisingly good, after I was transferred from Green who went under).

Octopus persistently refuse to accept that they have my peak & off readings the wrong way round as I don't conform to their 'average user' - I'm a night owl, retired & careful - so I NEVER use kettle, cooker, washer etc. during peak rate, ONLY during cheap rate (midnight-5am; 1-4pm; 8-10pm GMT).

After 10 hours arguing with them over several days, they have now actually taken to downright lying, saying Shell interpreted my readings the same - no, they didn't, they just had day & night boxes to fill in, not R1 (my offpeak on E7) & R2 (my peak) which Octopus use & have assigned wrongly. If Shell were "the same", why did Shell only charge me less than half what Octopus say they intend to, despite Octopus actually having lower prices for both day & night usage??!

They persistently refuse to send a meter reader round; and their 'system' apparently won't accept a 46Mb file incorporating an 18 secs uninterrupted video clip of me reading the meters + time and date.

Appalling company.  My stress levels have been on the ceiling for days now as a result of this. The Energy Ombudsman won't deal with cases until the complaint's been ongoing for at least 8 weeks! (why? when customers like me don't have enough money to pay Octopus what they intend to illicitly take from my account at the end of month for consumotion I haven't used?!).

I've contacted Which? & have booked a phone appt. with one of their legal team. The magazine have said they'll do a report on my experience too.

Gosh that is almost the opposite of my experience.  In your position I would take a video, stick it on a cloud link and  send them the link.   I have found the offshore call centre unable to carry out much in the way of tasks.

You have not been FORCED to do anything, they bought Shell Energy who were the second worst energy company I have ever used. 

You still have time to do a Subject Access Request from Shell Energy, get a copy of phone calls, notes on the system

Whatever the issue with any energy company it is quite simple, refuse to pay, ask for a deadlock letter and raise the issue to the ombudsman.

They will not be able to "illicitly" take any money if you cancel your Direct Debit, you will be refunded for any losses, including tariff differences, 

If it turns out that Shell got it wrong and you have been led up the garden path, then you will only be liable for a year under back billing rules.

How the meters are wired is a matter of fact, so make a video, uses one of those pens that you run over the wire to show no energy and follow the wire to the meter.

If you have the reads and/or bills going back to days of Green.Energy then use a speadsheet to show what you should have paid for every month and what you paid right up to today.  Then audit it to show how they came up with their number, decide if it is just a swap of the reads or is there some other error.

Then just demand the deadlock letter.

Energy companies are required to read meters once every two years.

LeesArt

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

Gassed said:

Already done that Bella - I was looking for honest advice and guidance on this site.

That's good, as long as everyone puts their view on trust pilot both good and bad then that should be a good barometer. Unlike a forum like this which will generally be 90% issues and bad feelings towards suppliers imo.

I think looking at your post you have had honest advice and guidance, people in the same boat, some with other issue and complaints and then some that haven't.

Looking around those 1.3 million Shell customers are also having a rocky time of it with the Octopus takeover. Perhaps they are emailing like yourself and finding the same issues. They should also put in some trust pilot reviews. Octopus seem to value their 5 star study pilot score so perhaps that is the best place for people to make their feelings known and they will love quickly to sort those issues out to protect their score?

It is a shame if Octopus are letting customers down with their customer service.

I have been very patient with Octopus because they are swallowing over a million customers, they do reply eventually but having escalated a complaint I was disappointed to get a reply back that looks as "bot" generated as my last one.  

I complained about a specific issue and they basically said "this is how it works", my email was complaining about how it worked so that was not what I wanted to hear.

So the cycle is 

Email Octopus about issues you are having
Give them 7 days to reply
Call Octopus because I had no reply and ask them to read the email to make sure they understood
They say they will escalate
7 more days pass
Email arrives which just quotes paragraphs from their website but does not address the issues raised.

It is hard to know how to respond to such messages, are they saying take it or leave it and actually I was complaining because what they were doing was not what was conveyed on the website or it was about errors.

I think the staff in the offshore call centre have been told to answer tickets and they might be using one of those bots that is supposed to find articles, they then copy and paste those articles or maybe they just use the search bar on the FAQ page and rewrite it.

I am just replying again because they is no point calling again, eventually I will ask for a deadlock letter.

Gerry1

One problem might be that you seem to be on Economy 10 and that's probably a legacy tariff that Octopus don't support.

That said, Octopus agreed to take over Shell's customers so they should have devised a protocol to accommodate them.

bristolleedsfan

Gerry1 said:

One problem might be that you seem to be on Economy 10 and that's probably a legacy tariff that Octopus don't support.

Octopus over the years have offered a work around involving two standing charges being paid, couple of months ago someone posted on local Facebook group for advice, her father being charged two standing charges, said Octopus very helpful albeit them saying they are beholden to OFGEM regulations.

Consumers should not have to know OFGEM regulations to be sure that Octopus staff are giving correct answer.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/supplier-compliance-requirements-customers-restricted-meters

brig001

Ry88 said:

I'm appalled by Octopus & the utterly disgraceful treatment I've had from them after being forcibly moved from Shell (who I found surprisingly good, after I was transferred from Green who went under).

Octopus persistently refuse to accept that they have my peak & off readings the wrong way round as I don't conform to their 'average user' - I'm a night owl, retired & careful - so I NEVER use kettle, cooker, washer etc. during peak rate, ONLY during cheap rate (midnight-5am; 1-4pm; 8-10pm GMT).

After 10 hours arguing with them over several days, they have now actually taken to downright lying, saying Shell interpreted my readings the same - no, they didn't, they just had day & night boxes to fill in, not R1 (my offpeak on E7) & R2 (my peak) which Octopus use & have assigned wrongly. If Shell were "the same", why did Shell only charge me less than half what Octopus say they intend to, despite Octopus actually having lower prices for both day & night usage??!

They persistently refuse to send a meter reader round; and their 'system' apparently won't accept a 46Mb file incorporating an 18 secs uninterrupted video clip of me reading the meters + time and date.

Appalling company.  My stress levels have been on the ceiling for days now as a result of this. The Energy Ombudsman won't deal with cases until the complaint's been ongoing for at least 8 weeks! (why? when customers like me don't have enough money to pay Octopus what they intend to illicitly take from my account at the end of month for consumotion I haven't used?!).

I've contacted Which? & have booked a phone appt. with one of their legal team. The magazine have said they'll do a report on my experience too.

I had exactly the same problem with Octopus. This is a known issue with them
The problem is something to do with how they get the meeter readings, and sometimes they will just swap over and the whole debacle starts again as their systems aren't smart enough to detect this and correct it
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to get through to someone who understands this

Keep copies of everything you send to them, I had to resort to time machine to recover photos and videos as Octopus conveniently 'loose' them, and deny they ever had them

Sorry to say that in the end I left - I just couldn't stand it anymore
That wasn't the end of it either, it took four months and seven final bills before it was finally settled

Brian

machine_head

I emailed them (4 times back and forth) regarding an issue and they were great, solved it, got £30 credit, happy days.

wrf12345

First email no response after a week but sorted over the phone, second email about missing £50 joining reward, three days to respond and credit the money to my account (about six weeks from the start date) so happy enough at the moment. Even managed to get £13 back from BT, so no money going out of my bank for more than a month, though BT did charge me an estimated 32p in gas usage despite smart meter and supply being turned off but I let them off that.

northernstar007

the £50 reward applies to your account when the person joins makes a payment, and email takes a while to answer, best off sending a message on twitter

Acer321

Ry88 said:

I'm appalled by Octopus...

Octopus persistently refuse to accept that they have my peak & off readings the wrong way round...

I'm having a very similar problem!

I'm a new customer and I gave them my opening readings on the 27th of March '24. They sent me an email confirming my readings - which were in the correct order - but when I login to my account it shows the night figure next to "Day" and the day figure next to "Night". I also sent them a second reading on the 1st April, ready for the new price tariff, but that still hasn't appeared in my account.

Not a great start to a new relationship!

brig001

The lady I spoke to at Octopus said that they had thousands of customers to sort out and it will take time - she didn’t say how long though. Keep records - I had deleted photos, and had to go through backups to find mine as Octopus had lost them

Brian