Octopus not billing me

Lorian

I've been with octopus nearly three months and they've not billed me at all. Deductions from the balance are being made for gas but not electricity. My smart meters are working fine and I see the monthly billing readings from both in my account.

Entering manual readings doesn't help.

When I joined my account showed two electric meters and I asked them to remove the old smets1 meter that had been replaced with a smets2 some 2 years ago. That seemed to happen. This may have been left over from when they created an account for me as a SOLR takeover 2+ years ago.

When I email support I've had various replies that are either clearly generative AI responses or  messages from someone with platitudes but never action.

I've emailed 'greg' only to get the same sort of reply by seemingly the same agent.

Has anyone come across this specific type of billing issue before? Be good if I could give them some clues.

What is support on the phones like nowadays? I don't want to ring them and find they stress me in real time.

Gerry1

I've found them very good with a simple request (switching to a fixed tariff but staying on Variable Direct).  However, there's only one way to find out - try it !

It's a free call and they answer quite quickly, so that's a good start.

vic_sf49

If you don't want to phone them (I hate calling), I find you get better and quicker responses via Twitter/X, if you use that.

masonic

When I first joined them I had this issue and it was around the change of supply reading not being accepted by the DCC (even though the losing supplier accepted it and raised a final bill with it). This required Octopus to raise a dispute to get formal agreement from the other supplier for the read. It would be worth confirming that your elec readings are validated.

Netexporter

There was also a more general problem with missing data from DCC about that time. I missed one bill, because of missing half-hourly readings, so got a double bill the following month. My balance adjusted in accordance with my DD payments in the meanwhile.

Ildhund

Just FYI: DCC don't store any customer data, and can't even see them. They just provide a secure gateway for data flows from meters to suppliers and other data collectors. The database storing readings and usage data for the entire industry is run by Elexon; some suppliers will use third-parties to handle all this sort of data handling.
 

    
Operating Britain's secure smart meter network | Smart DCC 

Lorian

masonic said:

When I first joined them I had this issue and it was around the change of supply reading not being accepted by the DCC (even though the losing supplier accepted it and raised a final bill with it). This required Octopus to raise a dispute to get formal agreement from the other supplier for the read. It would be worth confirming that your elec readings are validated.

Thanks that sounds like a possible lead.

Lorian

@masonic they finally stated this is the issue and have 'set off a flow' to get it fixed. I wonder if you recall how long it took once they realised the issue?

masonic

Lorian said:

@masonic they finally stated this is the issue and have 'set off a flow' to get it fixed. I wonder if you recall how long it took once they realised the issue?

It didn't take long after that, perhaps a couple of weeks. I just left them to it and the next thing I knew a bill materialised.

Lorian

Fixed 4 months after joining, a month after the opening meter dispute was raised, thanks to masonic's insight.