Nightmare experience with Octopus/potential ombudsman action

QrizB

The_Boss said:

Rewinding for a second. I need to pay the final Octopus bill, but I dont agree with the calculations per my original post. If I pay this bill (due in two days) then if the ombudsman agrees can Octopus be made to retrospectively refund excessive costs?

Yes. Make it clear in your complaint to the Ombudsman that you've paid the bill under protest and ask them to recalculate it as part of their adjudication.

Spoonie_Turtle

Have you checked to see if the rates on your bill tally with standard credit SVT rather than Direct Debit rates?

Current tables here, under 'what energy prices will I pay?' https://octopus.energy/blog/energy-price-cap-oct-2025/
and previous https://octopus.energy/blog/energy-price-cap-jul-2025/

born_again

The_Boss said:

Yes, followed that process. I had been using the main Octopus email originally then changed to the complaints one. Farcically the person I complained about (having been told on the phone it was their fault that a new account had not been set up at our new address) replied to that and obviously ignored all the points related to the fact that it was down to them. I asked for a senior manager to review and this was ignored. I then forwarded the whole trail to the greg@octopusenergy email stating as a last resort I needed someone to review the email trail and to resolve the issue or we would switch and someone replied a week later asking if I could share details of what the problem was.

It's been nigh on possible getting a sensible and senior person to look at this, so I think I'm going to need to write to the UK postal address when I'm back from holiday.

In regulated companies. Managers know less about the processes, than their staff. As they are there to manage their team, their manager is there to mange them & a department. You can keep going up to CEO.
This is why they have dedicated complaints teams. Normal staff can try & resolve complaints, but often make it worse (as this case) as they miss parts of the problem.
The complaints person will have the power to resolve the problem, Going via CEO will often see the complaint handed to one of the senior complaints people. But they have no more power than then rest.

orrery

Octopus have excellent customer service for entirely standard issues. Once you step outside that normal, they seem incapable of dealing with anything.

My advice with Octopus is to ignore email and always phone, confirming by email. Always ask them to consult their expert, as the CS staff are unlikely to have the required knowledge of anything out of the ordinary.

I had a 3 month run in with them in trying to move my solar PV export payments to them. Over those 3 months they sent me the same email 4 times, asking me to chose my preferred option and then saying that they were suspending the process as I hadn't replied (I had, each time). I sent them my supporting documentation, which they acknowledged as having received, then asked again and again for the same supporting documentation. The problem was traced to my MCS certificate having the solar power quoted differently to how they wanted it.

It only got resolved when I asked to raise a formal customer complaint, as a precursor to complaining to the regulator. Suddenly, someone knowledgeable was assigned to sort it out.