OVO claiming closed prepayment meter account is in Debit

milnerrr

For the last 18 months or so I lived in a rented flat while in college as part of an apprenticeship, I recently moved home after finishing my course and closed my OVO energy account for the flat.

The flat had an oldschool pre-payment meter that I had to top up at in-store paypoints, the meter was in credit when I moved in and was also in credit the on the date I moved out and closed the account.

The meter remained in credit for the entire time I held the lease for the flat aside from June this year when I was away for a few weeks and it went £3.50 into debt due to the standing charge, this debt was cleared immediately upon my return.

Today I received a statement from OVO claiming my account is £942.52 in debit.

This is preposterous as the meter only went into a debt one time which was repaid before I left as described above.

Included with the final statement were monthly energy statements that contain several "balance adjustments" of stupid amounts such as July-August 2023 where £1060.99 was added to the balance and September-October 2023 where £576.40 was deducted.

OVO never sent me monthly statements during my time at the flat so I never caught these before now, the only metric I had was the balance displayed on the meter.

I'm going to phone OVO to challenge this ridiculous bill but I'm looking for advice on how to proceed if they don't play ball.

Has anyone else had experience dealing with this?

BarelySentientAI

milnerrr said:

I'm going to phone OVO to challenge this ridiculous bill but I'm looking for advice on how to proceed if they don't play ball.

Has anyone else had experience dealing with this?

Similar to the other threads asking billing questions - "challenge this ridiculous bill" is not an approach that gets anywhere fast.

Supplier systems are dumb.  Call centre staff work off scripts and prompts.  Complaints are dealt with by flowcharts.  Even at the level of the Ombudsman, all they do it look at what each side says and pick which they believe.  There's no such thing as "playing ball".  It's all really rote and generic, most of the people you deal with have little actual power or discretion.

What you need is evidence, not just a generic assertion that something is "ridiculous".  You've got it, clearly, so that's what you need to use.  You had a prepayment meter which you probably have proof (from bank statements perhaps?) that you were topping up, and you know that you didn't go into emergency credit or get cut off.  It would be worth you asking what the adjustments represent and how they were calculated - often these are because a tariff change didn't get implemented properly and the wrong unit price was being charged.  Once you know what they are, then we can work out if they are right or wrong.  That's probably the best place to start.

As for how to proceed after that - 8 weeks after a formal complaint you can go to the Energy Ombudsman if you're not happy with the supplier's response.  But as I said, all they do is review each side's evidence, not really doing any investigation themselves.

milnerrr

BarelySentientAI said:

milnerrr said:

I'm going to phone OVO to challenge this ridiculous bill but I'm looking for advice on how to proceed if they don't play ball.

Has anyone else had experience dealing with this?

Similar to the other threads asking billing questions - "challenge this ridiculous bill" is not an approach that gets anywhere fast.

Supplier systems are dumb.  Call centre staff work off scripts and prompts.  Complaints are dealt with by flowcharts.  Even at the level of the Ombudsman, all they do it look at what each side says and pick which they believe.  There's no such thing as "playing ball".  It's all really rote and generic, most of the people you deal with have little actual power or discretion.

What you need is evidence, not just a generic assertion that something is "ridiculous".  You've got it, clearly, so that's what you need to use.  You had a prepayment meter which you probably have proof (from bank statements perhaps?) that you were topping up, and you know that you didn't go into emergency credit or get cut off.  It would be worth you asking what the adjustments represent and how they were calculated - often these are because a tariff change didn't get implemented properly and the wrong unit price was being charged.  Once you know what they are, then we can work out if they are right or wrong.  That's probably the best place to start.

As for how to proceed after that - 8 weeks after a formal complaint you can go to the Energy Ombudsman if you're not happy with the supplier's response.  But as I said, all they do is review each side's evidence, not really doing any investigation themselves.

Thanks, sorry if my initial query seems naïve. I wasn't in the best frame of mind when writing it.

In the time since writing it I've got the ball rolling on a complaint in which I've laid out my case disputing the final statement. I've been told to expect a call back in the next 5-7 days.
Guess I'll see where it goes from there.

Jyana

Did you register your own key for top ups when you moved in, or use the one the previous renter left behind? If the latter, it could be a case of they don't have the top ups under your account. An issue we've seen many a time here. 

milnerrr

Jyana said:

Did you register your own key for top ups when you moved in, or use the one the previous renter left behind? If the latter, it could be a case of they don't have the top ups under your account. An issue we've seen many a time here. 

I phoned them up when I first moved in to ask if I needed to get a new key, they told me just to use the one that was there

Jyana

milnerrr said:

Jyana said:

Did you register your own key for top ups when you moved in, or use the one the previous renter left behind? If the latter, it could be a case of they don't have the top ups under your account. An issue we've seen many a time here. 

I phoned them up when I first moved in to ask if I needed to get a new key, they told me just to use the one that was there

Sounds like someone gave you some very bad advice. You always need to have your own key, otherwise you are paying an account that isn't yours. When you said in your opening post that there was credit on the meter when you took it over I had a feeling this was the case. This was the previous account's credit, and you therefore took over their account rather paying towards your own. If they had any debt repayment which they were paying off weekly, you were also paying that with your top-ups.

You need to inform them that you were using the previous account key rather than being given one of your own. Hopefully they will be able to sort it out from there. If you have any receipts from the top-ups you made, that would help I imagine. 

EssexHebridean

If you might still have a note of the call you made when you moved in (when it was/who you spoke to etc), where you were advised to use the existing key, then I would dig that out too. 

wild666

If the account was closed when you moved out any credit would have being used up when it took the SC's off and then built up a debt that the landlord was responsible for. 
How long after you moved out is the claimed debt covering? it should be no debt as the credit should have run down with any credit depleting over time. I can only assume, that you actually contacted the supplier to close the account, then someone moved in and had the meters changed to credit meters and has done a bunk without paying for the energy used and the supplier is chasing you because that's the last name they had on the account. 

EssexHebridean

But if someone else had moved in and requested a change of meter, the supplier would have their details.... 

milnerrr

wild666 said:

If the account was closed when you moved out any credit would have being used up when it took the SC's off and then built up a debt that the landlord was responsible for. 
How long after you moved out is the claimed debt covering? it should be no debt as the credit should have run down with any credit depleting over time. I can only assume, that you actually contacted the supplier to close the account, then someone moved in and had the meters changed to credit meters and has done a bunk without paying for the energy used and the supplier is chasing you because that's the last name they had on the account. 

Going by the statements they've sent me the debt is for the period up until the 3rd of July, the day I requested that the account be closed

They're saying I used more electricity than I paid for every single month, which is not possible as the prepayment meter shuts off the power if it goes into debt

BarelySentientAI

milnerrr said:

wild666 said:

If the account was closed when you moved out any credit would have being used up when it took the SC's off and then built up a debt that the landlord was responsible for. 
How long after you moved out is the claimed debt covering? it should be no debt as the credit should have run down with any credit depleting over time. I can only assume, that you actually contacted the supplier to close the account, then someone moved in and had the meters changed to credit meters and has done a bunk without paying for the energy used and the supplier is chasing you because that's the last name they had on the account. 

Going by the statements they've sent me the debt is for the period up until the 3rd of July, the day I requested that the account be closed

They're saying I used more electricity than I paid for every single month, which is not possible as the prepayment meter shuts off the power if it goes into debt

Used more?  Or used the right amount but paid the wrong price?  Can you tell?