Ovo billing error

canyouhelp

Ildhund said:

canyouhelp said:

They said that they have been underestimating my energy use since 2022. 

...
We’ve also recalculated your energy use for the last 12 months. 

If you have a smart meter successfully transmitting meter readings to OVO, there can be no 'estimating your energy use'. Are those the words actually used in the email you had?

This may go back all the way to when you first became an OVO customer, if there was a mistake in the account's opening reading which didn't come to light until later. 
  
Another possibility is that they had been using a tariff to which you weren't entitled, e.g. a fixed-rate one which had expired.  

The only way to see what happened is to compare bills you received in 2022 with the new ones they're now presenting and see what readings they're based on.

Yes this was the original email. It's definitely a smart meter for both gas and electricity. When I've asked them why they're using estimates they say they're not, and that the meters are working, so I don't understand what this email means:

We’re sorry, we underestimated your energy use   Meter readings help us keep your energy account up to date and send you accurate bills. Unfortunately, when we used your most recent meter reading to update your energy account, it’s shown that we’ve been underestimating how much energy you use.   This means your bills have been incorrect since 17/10/2022, and we’ve been billing you for less energy than you’ve actually used.   We’re really sorry about this.   We won’t charge you for energy used more than 12 months ago   You don’t have to pay any extra for the energy you used before 23/10/2023 – that’s because it’s taken more than 12 months for us to sort this billing error.   We've already applied the payments you made before 23/10/2023 to help pay for the extra energy you used – but we won't ask you to make any more payments for energy you used over 12 months ago. This follows guidance set by Ofgem, the energy regulator.

t0rt0ise

Make a formal complaint saying that they are not communicating with you properly to explain what they mean.

Ildhund

What happened on 17 October 2022? Was that when you first became an OVO customer? Or did you get a new meter?

Again, I'll suggest that you compare the bills you had in 2022/23 with the new ones to see where the difference lies. It sounds as if an opening reading then was too high, so you were charged for less energy than you actually used. Correcting this would affect all subsequent bills, because the opening and closing balances would change. However, this is just speculation. The bills as they were and as they are now should tell the story. 

PS another possibility I just thought of: you have a multi-rate meter, but you were only charged for what was recorded on one of the registers. That has been known to happen, but it hasn't usually taken them two years to realize it ...

canyouhelp

thanks, I'm glad it's not just me it doesn't make sense to! No I've been a customer since 2014. I had another email below to say it was an issue on their system. Anyway thanks for your replies, I will keep persevering in trying to get some clarity.

'I've looked back over your account and have seen that the reason that the readings were 'underestimated' was due to a fault in our system itself, not the smart meters. So although the smart meter was in communication at the time, our system failed to pick up the communication and was briefly using estimates.'

Ildhund

OK, that sounds not unlikely.

I wonder how long that 'briefly' went on. I still don't quite see how they managed to undercharge you if at some stage their system fault was corrected so that smart readings were again used for billing. The first of those should have made up for any prior estimates, high or low. Check the new bills carefully!

PS You may be able to download a 'portmanteau' bill or two. If your billing period isn't the calendar month, each month's bill runs from (date month) to (date-1 month +1), e.g. from 13 October 2024 to 12 November 2024.  The latest version of the PDF bill for that period will have this URL (where nnnnnnn is your OVO account no.):

• https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/bal/bill/nnnnnnn?from=2024-10-13&to=2024-11-12

If it's the calendar month, then it will be from the 1st to the last of the month:

• https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/bal/bill/nnnnnnn?from=2024-10-01&to=2024-10-31

You can combine several months together just by tweaking the dates in the URL:

• https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/bal/bill/nnnnnnn?from=2023-12-13&to=2024-11-12

will with any luck bring up a composite bill for the whole of this year (plus a few days). 

Or, if your bills are per calendar month,

• https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/bal/bill/nnnnnnn?from=2024-01-01&to=2024-10-31

If you get an error, first make sure that the start and end dates are correct. Last February's calendar-month bill, for example, would be from=2024-02-01&to=2024-02-29. Otherwise, throw in the towel.

You can only go back to the date when your account was transferred to the latest billing platform (called Orion). Billing periods since then are sequentially numbered, and you'll see how many months ago your account was migrated from the URL of the 'full details' page for the last complete billing period on the Billing history page. Mine is https://account.ovoenergy.com/billing-details/58, so I can see that my account was migrated in January 2020, 58 months ago. Perhaps 17 October 2022 was your migration date - in which case the latest might be no. 24.

You may prefer just to wait and see what they send you