Octopus Intelligent - A Warning!

SimonBirtwistle

I have just had a terrible experience with Octopus Intelligent, and while unfortunately I'm running out of road to challenge it, I wanted to make others aware.  It has cost over £1000.

I am on Octopus Intelligent - for those that don't know, this tariff gives you a very cheap off peak rate of 7p to charge your car, and a much higher peak rate of ~28p the rest of the time.  The off peak time slots are variable,depends on your smart meter to know what to charge you.

My smart meter broke in November.  There was no way to know - the Octopus App continued to show me the off peak slots, and they just stop sending you a bill because they can't get readings.  They don't even let you know there's a problem.  I happened to notice quickly, called them, and got an engineer out in January.  They said the smart meter was broken but he didn't carry spares, and I had to rebook.  The next slot was in March.  Meanwhile, the Octopus App continued to tell me I was charging my car using cheap electric.

In March the meter was replaced, but the old meter readings were lost.  After a lot of discussion, where Octopus initially agreed to charge me based on the historical split of peak to off peak electric (thanks to batteries in my house my consumption is 99% off peak), they instead said they would charge me price cap rates per unit of electric, because the terms of the tariff say they can use standard rates when smart meter data isn't availble (as opposed to calculating a fair charge based on previous usage).

That makes my bill £2200 for 3 months, the same amount as my bill is normally for a whole year.  I'm a very high user, since I have a heat pump, electric car and batteries,  I calculated a normal bill would have been £650.  After months of discussion they changed their offer to a £450 good-will payment which still leaves me over £1000 out of pocket.

I'm submitting an Energy Ombudsman complaint this weekend, but Octopus say I have little chance of success as they are acting in line with the tariff Ts&Cs.  Regardless of whether I'm successful with the Ombudsman I think these tariff terms are fundamentally unfair to the consumer, since you can be hugely out of pocket for things that are out of your control.  Sadly it seems unlikely that enough people will be affected by problems like this for the Ombudsman to take action.

Anyway, I wanted to warn as many people as possible - bill surprises like this are no fun...

QrizB

Yes, Octopus's T&C are quite clear on this.

It's unfortunate that you found yourself in an all-electric house paying the SVT (although discounted by £450) for a whole winter. Hopefully you have less trouble with your new meter.

£2200 would be 7500 kWh or so, plus standing charge? Even for someone with a heat pump and EV that seems quite a lot.

FreeBear

Noticed my electricity meter had stopped communicating with Octopus after they sent me the monthly bill and it was for gas only. Looking at the my-energy page on their web site, no usage was recorded after 01:00 on July 11th. The IHD has also stopped showing electricity consumption, yet I'm still getting data from the Home Mini. So the meter is still working.

But as I'm on a fixed tariff, I only need to submit readings once a month (if I can be bothered). Really need to get Octopus to fix this should I switch back to Tracker (or go on to Agile). Have raised the issue via email, but have yet to have a (worthwhile) response. Might bend someones ear on Monday when the phone lines are manned.

brianposter

The fact that Octopus T & Cs are clear does not make them fair. The problem appears to be well worth pursuing.

Reed_Richards

I'm not as trusting as the OP, so I download my smart meter data every couple of weeks and add this data to a spreadsheet.  Anyone with a smart meter should be able to do this and anyone who does will know if their smart meter stops working, or continues working but stops sending data.  

MWT

SimonBirtwistle said:

I have just had a terrible experience with Octopus Intelligent, and while unfortunately I'm running out of road to challenge it, I wanted to make others aware.  It has cost over £1000.

You are not the first, and you will not be the last, it has been mentioned on here quite a few times now.

It is however clearly set out in the T&Cs so should not be a surprise.

 

Netexporter

brianposter said:

The fact that Octopus T & Cs are clear does not make them fair. The problem appears to be well worth pursuing.

You could go to law and challenge them under the Unfair Contract Terms legislation but I'm pretty certain that Octopus would have taken legal advice, to make sure they do comply, before publishing the terms.

Peter999_2

You do have to be so careful these days with utility providers.

I too have Octopus Intelligent Go and though it is great, I make sure I check often that the meter readings are getting through.      I got a Octopus Mini off them and link it with Home Assistant which tells me how much I am using etc. 

I'm sorry you've had an awful experience but as others have said, Octopus do make it clear that it is a "beta" product and you did agree with the terms and conditions (I can't see them being ruled against as it doesn't look to me that the T&Cs are unfair).   However, good look with your complaint, hope they at least offer you more money off.

I had a bad experience with Yorkshire Water over christmas with a leak - I've learnt to read my water meter every two weeks now.

I do completely agree that they should have at least warned you that the meter had stopped sending them readings - I don't see why they couldn't have emailed you to let you know there was a problem.

SimonBirtwistle

I noticed the missing readings within a couple of weeks, it still took them 3 months to replace the meter.  Plus they originally said it was a communication issue, so it wasn't obvious I was suddenly paying almost 4x the price for my electric...

My consumption is certainly high, but on the coldest days the heat pump can use 70kWh or more, electric car is around 30 kWh a day, house around 15kWh.  The difference really adds up.  It would have been fine if the meter was replaced promptly but they didn't have engineers available to do it.

Magnitio

SimonBirtwistle said:

I noticed the missing readings within a couple of weeks, it still took them 3 months to replace the meter.  Plus they originally said it was a communication issue, so it wasn't obvious I was suddenly paying almost 4x the price for my electric...

My consumption is certainly high, but on the coldest days the heat pump can use 70kWh or more, electric car is around 30 kWh a day, house around 15kWh.  The difference really adds up.  It would have been fine if the meter was replaced promptly but they didn't have engineers available to do it.

Do you have all the evidence from the apps controlling the battery, car charger and heat pump to show what your actual on/off peak usage was?

MWT

SimonBirtwistle said:

thanks to batteries in my house my consumption is 99% off peak

I can empathise as my bills are similarly 99%+ at the IOG low-rate, but I'd say if I did suffer a period when the meter wasn't working, I would be offsetting that cost against the years I had been paying a faction of the cost that most people face for their energy.

Ideally not as long as 3 months though, agreed.