Octopus- 630Kw discrepancy ,"not a problem" now it is.

MattMattMattUK

SRRAE said:

MattMattMattUK said:

SRRAE said:

I moved into my house August 2022.  Within an hour of moving in I took a photo of all the metre readings. The previous owner was with Scottish Power and I wanted to stay with Octopus.

My first bill in September i checked everything.  The meter reading was wrong. My actual meter was about 630Kw more than what was on the bill.

To be clear, I hadn't used 630Kw more,  their base meter reading was wrong. For example the bill said on the 26th August my meter read 10,000Kw, but my actual reading was 10,630Kw. 

I contacted octopus with the meter reading saying they are 630Kw out.  I was told when a house changes provider the old and new provider agree what the metre reading is.  They agreed 10,000. I told them this is wrong and they said they will dispute it.

A few months later, bills still showing an approximately  630Kw discrepancy, I emailed again with my concern stating that should octopus suddenly read the actual meter I'll be charged for this 630Kw aprox £160.

I was told, not to worry because I have a smart meter, my bill is based upon an accumulation of my daily usage. For the next 3 years my bills are 

UNTIL!!!!

I use approximately 400Kw a month. May 2025, I used 410Kw. This is stated by the Octopus app and website,my smart meter and by another energy app on my phone. All report my usage for May was 410Kw.

My bill for May was about £160 more than expected  and I was billed 1040Kw. The difference?  630Kw. And all of a sudden my bill meter reading and my actual metre reading now match.

I contacted Octopus,  pointing out on several occasions I brought this 630Kw discrepancy to their attention. After investigating octopus said it must have used 1045Kw in May.  This is 2.5x my normal amount.  To use that much I would to have my oven on full for 31 days straight.

Now that octopus have denied there is an issue, what's my next course of action?

Did you sign up with Scottish Power then when you moved in, then switched to Octopus, or did you do something else, somehow transfer the previous occupants account rather than your own?

No. I was with Octopus at my old house,  I told them i was moving and what date.  I only know it was Scottish Power before because octopus said when I dispute it. 

Ok, I suspect that is where the problem has occurred. You should have signed up with Scottish Power then switched to Octopus, I am not totally sure how Octopus took over the account but I suspect that there is a middle "deemed" account with Scottish Power and that has caused the issues. 

WiserMiser

Before disputing bills you need to understand that you're billed for kWh usage (kiloWatt hours) usage, not "Kw".

bristolleedsfan

MattMattMattUK said:

SRRAE said:

MattMattMattUK said:

SRRAE said:

I moved into my house August 2022.  Within an hour of moving in I took a photo of all the metre readings. The previous owner was with Scottish Power and I wanted to stay with Octopus.

My first bill in September i checked everything.  The meter reading was wrong. My actual meter was about 630Kw more than what was on the bill.

To be clear, I hadn't used 630Kw more,  their base meter reading was wrong. For example the bill said on the 26th August my meter read 10,000Kw, but my actual reading was 10,630Kw. 

I contacted octopus with the meter reading saying they are 630Kw out.  I was told when a house changes provider the old and new provider agree what the metre reading is.  They agreed 10,000. I told them this is wrong and they said they will dispute it.

A few months later, bills still showing an approximately  630Kw discrepancy, I emailed again with my concern stating that should octopus suddenly read the actual meter I'll be charged for this 630Kw aprox £160.

I was told, not to worry because I have a smart meter, my bill is based upon an accumulation of my daily usage. For the next 3 years my bills are 

UNTIL!!!!

I use approximately 400Kw a month. May 2025, I used 410Kw. This is stated by the Octopus app and website,my smart meter and by another energy app on my phone. All report my usage for May was 410Kw.

My bill for May was about £160 more than expected  and I was billed 1040Kw. The difference?  630Kw. And all of a sudden my bill meter reading and my actual metre reading now match.

I contacted Octopus,  pointing out on several occasions I brought this 630Kw discrepancy to their attention. After investigating octopus said it must have used 1045Kw in May.  This is 2.5x my normal amount.  To use that much I would to have my oven on full for 31 days straight.

Now that octopus have denied there is an issue, what's my next course of action?

Did you sign up with Scottish Power then when you moved in, then switched to Octopus, or did you do something else, somehow transfer the previous occupants account rather than your own?

No. I was with Octopus at my old house,  I told them i was moving and what date.  I only know it was Scottish Power before because octopus said when I dispute it. 

Ok, I suspect that is where the problem has occurred. You should have signed up with Scottish Power then switched to Octopus, I am not totally sure how Octopus took over the account but I suspect that there is a middle "deemed" account with Scottish Power and that has caused the issues. 

Octopus as well as others offer a moving house tariff service, possible for customer to be supplied at new property from Day 1.

https://octopus.energy/blog/moving-house-heres-what-you-need-know/

MWT

QrizB said:

I'm wondering if this is a "hidden second register" problem?

OP do you have a smart meter? Are the.meter readings on your bills (ever since you moved on) marked as "smart" or as something else?

What make and motis your meter?

Agreed, this is where I'd start as it is the common cause of this sort of problem, and it is going to be a lot easier to get this problem resolved if there is a missing register at the root of the issue...

For the OP, are you looking at the total accumulated import reading on your meter or something called Reg01 or similar?.

EssexHebridean

We've encountered this before on the "deemed supplier" issue with Octopus as the incoming supplier. In fact Octopus's process for moving home and "taking the account with you" is extremely robust - or at least it certainly was by September 2023 when we were able to inform them a couple of days out of the impending move, call with outgoing meter readings for our old home on the day, and by the time we arrived at the  new house the IHD was already showing "welcome to Octopus" - I did as "belt and braces" call Eon who were the old provider a week or so in, but they assured me that they had ceased to have the supply since our completion day and it had all been managed by Octopus. 

I think the main problem here was that the discrepancy wasn't raised as a formal complaint at the time, along with pictures of the actual reading. The big mystery though is that if the OP has a smart meter as they have said they do, why this was apparently giving a reading that was 630kWh out for the past 3 years, and has suddenly corrected that now - that doesn't make any sense to me! 

tripled

Your next step is to take it to the Ombudsman. It sounds like it is less than 8 weeks since you first complained, so you will need to ask Octopus for a deadlock letter. Then, once you have it, or the 8 weeks is up, you can escalate it.

It is straightfoward to raise an Ombudsman complaint, attach your photos and copies of correspondence as evidence. You may also be able to download smart meter data from the Octopus portal, have a look at that and attach it as well, as that should confirm how much you have used.

MWT

EssexHebridean said:

The big mystery though is that if the OP has a smart meter as they have said they do, why this was apparently giving a reading that was 630kWh out for the past 3 years, and has suddenly corrected that now - that doesn't make any sense to me! 

It makes perfect sense if they were originally using the R01 register for example and ignoring an R02 register that was no longer in use but had 630kWh recorded on it...

If you subsequently change to using Total Import after 3 years you'd get an increase of 630kWh straight away...

EssexHebridean

Obviously the OP will confirm, but their post didn’t give the impression of multiple registers. 

MWT

EssexHebridean said:

Obviously the OP will confirm, but their post didn’t give the impression of multiple registers. 

It may be a red herring, but we do see this problem quite often with smart meters as the existence of the other registers often requires a good few button presses to expose...

Also there is the old BG 'free time' tariff a few years ago that worked by dumping the 'free' use into a second register, so people didn't even realise they had a 2nd register in use as they were never on a two-rate tariff to their knowledge...