Octopus energy smart meter issues

Janster1

My elderly Mum is trying to obtain a refund of her £500+ credit on her account.  Unfortunately, Octopus have not had any correct readings since September 2023 so are refusing to refund until her billing is up to date.  They say that there is a nationwide issue with a certain type of smart meter producing readings the wrong way round, and that the 3rd party Company that they go through, were given a deadline to sort the issue by the end of February, this deadline now having been extended until the end of March. We have tried giving them the current readings and they are refusing to send anyone out to take any readings.  Surely, if this is a nationwide issue, many other people would be encountering the same problem but, having googled this, I fail to find any mention of it.

Spies

Take pictures of the meter reading showing the serial number of the meter and submit that to them? 

Janster1

Unfortunately, we have already done that.  As they are saying there is an issue with this type of smart meter, they will not accept any readings, they just say they are waiting for the other Company to sort the issue out.

brig001

This issue with Octopus has been going on for three years that I know of, so don’t hold your breath. Keep on at them, I eventually got through to someone who sorted it out for me - it really depends on who answers the phone 

Brian

EssexHebridean

Janster1 said:

My elderly Mum is trying to obtain a refund of her £500+ credit on her account.  Unfortunately, Octopus have not had any correct readings since September 2023 so are refusing to refund until her billing is up to date.  They say that there is a nationwide issue with a certain type of smart meter producing readings the wrong way round, and that the 3rd party Company that they go through, were given a deadline to sort the issue by the end of February, this deadline now having been extended until the end of March. We have tried giving them the current readings and they are refusing to send anyone out to take any readings.  Surely, if this is a nationwide issue, many other people would be encountering the same problem but, having googled this, I fail to find any mention of it.

Is this an Economy 7 installation? 

MeteredOut

Is she actually £500+ in credit or is that just what the Octopus account says? ie. does her account reflect all her usage? If so, then I think she should push for a refund. If not, she should give update to date meter readings and push for her account to be updated so her true debit/credit status can be understood.

MarzipanCrumble

umm totally niave question - but is such a meter under consumer law fit for purpose?

LeesArt

demand the money be paid by 28 days since it was first asked for, escalate to ombudsman it will cost them more to delay than to pay.

Kieron26

We had this issue, we got smart meter with utilita originally, we moved to Nabuh I think it was called, they went bust then we got moved to British gas then we moved to Octopus. 

We got a huge bill generated when BG were trying to bill us and were so bad at customer service we changed to Octopus, I said to bg if your unable to produce me an accurate bill then I'm not paying it, eventually they said 4k, then 3k, then 1.5k, then we ended up on £370. Octopus picked up a smart reading automatically and to get a more accurate bill I submitted a reading through the app and the next day we had a 13k bill, I said I've always been told to press 9 and use total kwh they said no your meant to supply them with r01 reading, turns out BG had been using the wrong reading and didn't have any previous readings from  Nabua as they went bust. 

TheElectricCow

LeesArt said:

demand the money be paid by 28 days since it was first asked for, escalate to ombudsman it will cost them more to delay than to pay.

The first step should be to resolve the issue of the readings, via the ombudsman if necessary. Demanding the money is all well and good, but if the account is missing the past 6 months of correct readings that balance being requested is not going to be correct. If the refund somehow gets approved without the correct readings there’s a possibility that there could then be a large debt to pay when the catch up bill arrives, potentially putting this person in an even worse position.

EssexHebridean

We’ve had several posts over the past few days all alluding to issues around a “known issue” with meters transposing readings. It sounds as though this could be another smart metering/SMETS1/E7 issue.