Until 14th November this year, SSE was my electricity and gas supplier. From 15th November, OVO Energy took over. OVO had absorbed SSE during the previous months, and by 15th November were ready to open a new account for me, with SSE's electricity and gas balances duly transferred. I had emails from SSE explaining what would happen and promising a smooth transition, with great service to come from OVO. I was going to be in good hands.
As soon as OVO said they were ready, I visited their website and registered myself, then downloaded their phone app. It seemed that all was well. I'd had a big credit balance with SSE, which I'd built up with the coming winter in mind, and there it was on the OVO website, and also on their app. Indeed, I was rather impressed with the wealth of detail OVO made available about my daily electricity and gas consumption in kWh, and what it cost. I had a smart meter, and they could monitor my energy consumption with half-hourly readings.
At the same time, I kept up my long-standing practice of personally taking manual meter readings every Friday morning, and putting those on a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet was set up to convert the units I read off into kWh, and then work out what the theoretical monthly cost would be for the last week, VAT included, matching this against my current direct debit payments to SSE - and now OVO - so that I could see to whether my likely monthly bill would be less, or more, than my current monthly payment. My electricity consumption didn't vary much with passing months; it was only a bit more in the winter. But my gas consumption fluctuated from very little in the summer - or when I was away caravanning - to quite a lot when home in the winter. I knew the pattern. My spreadsheet revealed it very clearly.
I didn't only make this weekly review. SSE's phone app made it easy to see what my current balance was, and I checked that several times a week, to see what my credit balance was. Lately I'd done the same with the OVO app.
As expected, my big credit balance ex-SSE had dwindled somewhat with rising gas consumption - the central heating is on most of the day just now - but until yesterday it was all going to plan. I'd pitched my current monthly payments to OVO so as to gradually reduce my credit balance from over £1,100 on 15th November to around £500 by next April. I'd then maintain it at that level.
I hope you can see that I've had my finger on my energy consumption and costs. Yesterday my credit balance - despite very chilly weather outside - was still £902, with a monthly payment coming soon, which would bump it back up to over £1,000.
But earlier tonight I had a shock.
Glancing at my OVO app on my phone, I saw that the credit balance was suddenly down to only £318.
What? This was almost heart-stopping. And a blow to my planning, monitoring, and the general care I've been taking not to over-heat my home. In fact, I felt a bit wobbly and my heart beat fast. How could I have mismanaged things so? This was extremely worrying!
I delved into the app. Aha - there seemed to be a massive overcharge for the very first 'OVO' day, 15th November. I took screenshots of what my phone showed me.
I then fired up the website to see the position more clearly, taking screenprints off my laptop. Yes, it was all to do with the opening meter reading transferred from SSE. They'd got the right one, but had then substituted an incorrect lower reading from somewhere. It must have happened overnight. The solution was to reinstate the correct meter reading.
But how? More fast heartbeats. I was trying to navigate the OVO website, not a thing to do when you need fast answers. I didn't realise at first that I had to keep scrolling down their 'Help and Support' page to find ways of contacting them to explain what had happened and to get a rapid remedy. Eventually I got there.
Really, a gross error had been made, and I needed to go straight in with a written complaint, So I composed an email that went as follows:
Account XXXX0149 - GROSSLY INCORRECT OPENING GAS METER READING - Miss Lucy Melford
Dear OVO Energy
Looking at your phone app, and then at your website, I have discovered a big error in the Gas meter reading brought forward from the SSE Final Bill. The Gas meter reading should be 11930, which is the figure appearing in SSE's Final Bill.
At the moment you are using an opening meter reading of 11428, and this somehow converts into an extraordinary Gas consumption on 15th November of 5,847.59 kWh, whereas your own records show it was actually only 66.64 kWh. The attached screenprints from your website reveal the error. I also attach a screenprint of SSE's final bill.
Would you please correct the position and restore the large credit balance on my account, which I think ought to be - as of today - in the region of £885. Please ensure that this correction is made before the upcoming December bill is sent to me.
I have to say that seeing my current balance shrink to only £318.46 was a shock that sent my 70 year old heart racing. I would like you to make a goodwill gesture in compensation for the upset. You 'robbed' me of £885 less £318 = £567. I think a goodwill payment of 10% of that - £56 - would be in order. I don't mind if you simply credit it on my account.
Lucy Melford
Effectively, OVO were depriving me of £567. Not a good start to our acquaintance. The 'Miss' in the heading will tell them I've no husband to assist me, and as you can see I'm shamelessly playing the Age Card. But then I really am on my own, and I really am getting elderly, and therefore can claim to be a vulnerable customer.
Hopefully this email will quickly do the trick, and get SSE's closing gas meter reading reinstated, restoring my large credit balance, and making me breathe a big sigh of relief. OVO have messed up. The harm done is small so far, but even so I feel well justified in asking for a small amount by way of compensation for the consternation and worry they caused me. If they delay their response, or compound their error in any way, then I will be further annoyed and will ask for correspondingly more compensation.
I don't want things to escalate, but if they do then I might well try getting a spot on LBC's Consumer Hour at 9.00pm on Friday nights, where consumer lawyer Dean Dunham advises on how to proceed with cases like this. I don't think it's a big enough mistake for BBC Radio 4's You and Yours, but I could bear it in mind.
I used to be the kind of person who would never stand up for my rights in private life. Not nowadays! Experience has made me assertive beyond my nature.
Next morning (Wednesday 7th December)
This is interesting. OVO's phone app does show historic gas meter readings for the SSE era, back to the start of 2022. Here they are, in a screenshot:
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I wondered where they got 11428 from. It would have been an SSE-era meter reading way back in March. My own meter readings spreadsheet showed that I'd noted down that very figure, 11428, on 18th March. But this was for a private record, never discussed or shown to SSE or OVO. So how did OVO come to use 11428 later on? It's a remarkable coincidence and most mysterious. I suspect human error somewhere, either in some belated manual review of opening data, or in setting up an algorithm to do that job.
It all just goes to show that despite sticking with a big provider, and despite promises of great customer service, errors will occur, and you have to be alert to them. And it's also wise to keep independent records of one's own.
One day on (Thursday 8th December)
Hmm. It's breakfast-time. No response yet from OVO, and my current credit balance has reduced to £306. My complaint hasn't even been acknowledged, although that might mean it's in a queue, yet to be seen and addressed by a human being. Maybe - even as I write - a fix is already in hand, pending a decision on my claim for a little compensation for the fright they gave me. Still, some kind of acknowledgement in the interim would be nice, so that I definitely know that something will happen.
I can't believe that a big company like OVO would behave badly over this. SSE, pretty big themselves, never gave me any trouble. But maybe I've been lucky hitherto, and that luck has now run out. Glancing at SSE-to-OVO issues reported on the Internet isn't reassuring. A number of people have been hit by clearly-wrong OVO bills, and have found it hard to get them corrected. Oh dear.
