OVO Energy complaints team not contacting me back

Hopeprayer

Hello.

I have been contacting OVO energy from months on behalf of my father.
The energy bill was super high for a property  of my fathers which has been lying empty for months at the beginning of the year.  I took photographic evidence of the meters and they have advised that the high price was a result of the change of suppliers and that they will investigate and contact us.  For months I have been giving them the meter numbers and waiting calling for an update.
They said it has gone to the complaints team and they will contact me- Nothing!!!!!!!!!!!

I have now been chasing it up with the complaints team and they make excuses like the agent is on lunch, or not available or on the phone to a customer. Agent will contact me.  No agent available.  They will call me.   I have found that they have closed the complaint with no answer to why.  I said no one has contacted us so why close it.  I feel that they are wearing us down and on purpose not calling .  This has been ongoing since Jan!
I am not keeping well and dont know what to do.  I am so very upset about it.
Its stressing us out so much.  I cannot believe they are doing this.

MeteredOut

Contact the energy ombudsman, providing them with the evidence.

What outcome are you looking for? Is your father due a refund?

Hopeprayer

I just want them to investigate and overlook the bill as it should not have been that price to begin with as there was no one in the property at the beginning of the year.

Ildhund

It's a sad story, and I can imagine your distress. 

OVO are sticklers for privacy. For you to be able to act on your father's behalf, you must either have his consent (given orally) to be named on his account, or have a Power of Attorney. I take it you have one or other of these. 

There can also be problems with contacting their customer services. Two vital bits of information on the account profile can decide whether an approach to them is handled properly or not: the telephone number and the email account. If contact is made from a different source, the automated systems won't recognize who is trying to make contact, meaning that calls will be routed to a handler with no idea of what's gone before. It's worse with email: if the address an email comes from isn't recognized as being linked to an account, it will disappear into an 'unknown' bucket. You can imagine what happens to it.

You say that this situation arose following a change of supplier. While this usually works seamlessly, there are always a few that don't. The former and current suppliers have to agree on the meter readings used to close the old account and open the new one. If they can't, the process of disputing the readings can take 12 weeks. I don't know if this was the situation when this change of supplier happened. It's not likely to happen with smart meters - one of their great advantages - so I assume that no smart meters are involved here. 

Some changes of supplier happen without being initiated by the customer, for example if the old supplier loses its licence or is taken over by a different company. Again, this sort of change can go awry just like any other, but few do.

Even though the property was empty for a time, there are still charges to be paid: the daily standing charges, for a start, and then for any usage during that period. Was there some low-level heating on, for example, or workmen in the house?  

Why do you think the bill(s) your father received were too high? Were they perhaps based on estimated meter readings? Even if a bill is estimated, the balance should come right the next time meter readings are submitted. Have you or your father been submitting readings at least once a month? If you haven't, then there's no way for OVO to provide accurate bills.

Did you or your father submit a detailed complaint, or was the case escalated to the complaints department by, say, customer support? Do you have the case number and date it was opened? You can't refer it to the ombudsman until eight weeks have passed from that date without resolution. 

Last, if your father isn't able to deal with this himself, you should consider entering his details on the Priority Services Register. This should in theory ensure that any approach to the company is dealt with by staff specially trained to help the more vulnerable customer.