“over the weekend I've had problems with my electric meter. 23 emails trying to get to the bottom of it.without success. phoned up Monday 21st 10 2024.spoke to a man called Jonathan department c2 from Leicester very informative.most helpfull.said things clearly that I understood. gave me two options of payment. the prices. brilliant. the company should be proud of this man.credit to octopus.”
“Absolute nightmare of a company when you want a refund. I noticed a large credit in my account so requested a refund of £250, which they immediately agreed to. However, this is where the nightmare began. Today, 17 days later, I have still not received the money. To make matters worse, they are insisting that I have received it and are demanding bank statements from me to prove otherwise. They have even stopped responding to my emails about it now. I have switched away from them now and if you are considering switching to them, I have one very good piece of advice - DON'T! They will be great while they are taking your money, but you will see the nasty side of them if you ever want a refund. AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!”
“Switched to them to get cheap car charging .
Their equipment is faulty so they charged me the highest tariff. They say they only charge the cheaper tariffs if the equipment is working and because it's their equipment there's nothing you can do about it.
They refuse to fix or replace the equipment they supply. They say they will to get you off the phone but it doesn't matter how many weeks go past and how many times you call they will never actually turn up to fix their equipment.
I think it's because they know they can charge you the maximum price while the equipment is faulty.
They're basically a big scam company.”
“Had an issue with my address, emailed them about it and was told it would be easily resolved. A month later after multiple emails I rang and was told no one had taken any action to resolve my issue despite being told in multiple emails that they had. Then asked if there was any debt on my property and was told no despite getting two letters telling me there was. After emailing 3 times asking for confirmation that there was no debt and being told there wasn’t, I was then told there was. Awful customer service would never go with octopus again.”
“Terrible service, paid for a charger and emailed over 30 times. Responses from different people with no communication and resolution to my complaint.
Asking for my money back and moving back to my previous supplier.”
“They were good, but have been absolutely useless with my gas. My gas meter was broken and I couldn't get a reading, they decided it was reasonable to charge me double what OFGEM recommends for a house my size, this obviously put in into the negative, charging nearly £300 for gas and electric each month and they still were saying I was using more than that. Finally got the meter fixed in July, showed them a breakdown of how much I actually use, as well as submitting meter readings. I was told they would manually review my account and should be sorted by the 10th of October. I emailed on the 10th and I've still to hear back, nor has anything been updated (or a rightful refund been given). I've just changed my tariff so I'm not hit with more insane price increases and they've made it that I have to pay an extra "catch up payment" until March next year, making me pay even more now than I was! I'm absolutely furious and would seriously advise against going with octopus if you think you'll ever have anything to wrong with your gas or electrics (although we all hope it doesn't). I thought they were meant to be good with customer service but it's been lackluster and I've been left waiting for weeks at a time with no correspondence.”
“When I first joined Octopus 3 years ago the service was good and I received monthly bills. Over recent months I have been receiving up to 3 bills a month based on estimated readings. Customer services ere patronising and advised me that I have a responsibility to provide regulars meter readings. I advised the reminders had stopped
and was told the tech team would be notified. So far between mid sept and now I have had 4 different bills. 2 based on estimated and 2 based on actual readings. I recently paid a bill following submission of a meter reading. Customer service confirmed I had received an adjusted bill which factored in my updated reading. I duly paid this and less than a week later received another bill for an additional amount ? with no explanation as to where this additional amount has come from. My queries to customer service appear to fall on deaf ears and I have been now advised that I must provide regular meter readings and this will slow down the estimated readings and subsequent bills - please help this make sense. I have stopped my D/D as in no way am i allowing Octopus to take 3 or 4 payments a month out of my account. Sadly I am now reviewing other suppliers.”
“Octopus Energy Customers Beware
The following are statements of facts and not opinions. Please share this and make people aware of the risks they might be taking if you overpay your energy bills.
My wife and I live with our daughter and son-in-law who works for a company I will call XYZ Ltd, who provided him with a Tesla electric car. Each month as the account holder I make, on behalf of the family, a payment of £350 to Octopus from our Nationwide account in my name. In addition to this, a summary of electricity used for charging his company car is generated by his smart charging point and my son in law pays for this with his company credit card.
On 25th June 2024 our Octopus statement showed we were £1,610.26 in credit. On the 5th August, having made a further payment of £350 on 15 July 2024, I requested a refund of £1000 from the credit on our Octopus account. After speaking to Octopus they decided to refund £700 to my Nationwide account and £513.44 to the XYZ Ltd credit card. When I spoke to the Octopus Energy customer services I pointed out
• I am the account holder and only payments from my Nationwide account have created the credit balance. XYZ Ltd credit card has only paid for electricity used.
• I requested £1000 refund and Octopus paid me £700 and refunded the XYZ Ltd credit card with £513.44 making a total refund of £1213.44.
• The energy account is in my name and not XYZ Ltd. I requested the repayment of some of our cred but Octopus have refunded XYZ Ltd who have not requested a refund.
I asked to speak to a supervisor of manager but nobody called. I wrote to Greg Jackson, CEO Octopus Energy asking him to look into this issue but my email was ignored. I then asked Dr Luke Evans who is my MP to intercede on our behalf. He was brilliant but was only able to pass on the non-sensible answers provided by Octopus. They replied to each of my points by saying:
Q. Why have you refunded XYZ Ltd all of their payments?
A. Octopus policy says we have to
Q. I only requested £1000 but you have refunded a total of £1213.44. Why?
A. After the last payment of £96.88 was made the balance of the account was £1,952.63 in credit £513.44 of this was paid back to M.A. Ford, leaving the account with £1,439.19 in credit we then refunded Mr Reid with £700 leaving the account £739.19 in credit, then we received the normal direct debit, the account was left £1,089.19 in credit the account was billed £198.37 for electric and for the gas £22.25, leaving the account as £868.57. This is just a statement of actions not an explanation.
Q How do I recover the £513.44 paid to XYZ Ltd?
A. You need to speak to XYZ Ltd
Thankfully with the help of the Finance Director at XYZ Ltd we now have our money back, sadly with Octopus.”
“all the utilitiy companies have become a scam in uk. all trying to extortionate people. by durect debit they can empty your account for energy that you have not used yet. they say its to keep you account in credit. its all about profiteering. uk government is in on it as well. uk has become a hot spot of these utility scammers. move abroad. life is much better.”
“I am peed off with octopus they send me 2 bills for the same month both priced different i pay the firdt bill then 7 days later i get the next price higher i send it bzck with response told thrm to stop sending me 2 bills hopless sill do it they just dont listen to customers”
“Their responses to emails taken between 6-10 working days and the phones just ring out.
I'm a new customer to Octopus and unfortunately believed the hype.
We've been with them since 16 Sept 24 and it's just been a catalogue of disasters including fitting an EV charger (still waiting even though purchased in advance of the switch), wrong tariff which we've evidenced from the contract (still wrong), charging for one rate when we've sent day AND night readings, Tell Ng us they can't help because we've not provided details of the account number which has been on ALL emails sent and no one will just pick up the phone and ring.
AVOID AVOID AVOID!!”
“Avoid taking any financial risks. They adamantly call for increased investment, citing market trends. They shut off contact when I refused and wanted a refund for my initial deposit. I never received my money back. I can provide evidence that my funds and communications were restricted, yet COVSECLTD*COM was able to quickly help me recover all my dollar I invested and earned. You might try them out.”
“Its a shame i can not give zero star.Octopus are the worst energy providers I have ever had. I was transferred by default when Bulb went under. I have never had any issues with my payments. I now have gas supply issues and have had a gas engineer to come investigate. They told me I had a faulty meter. I rang Octopus and explained but they told me I needed to take photos of the meter. Which I did and sent them. They refused these as evidence and asked for a second opinion from another engineer. I had another engineer come to inspect and verify both these call outs I was paying for. The engineer rang them and explained but they still refused to come change the faulty meter. I have explained I have very young sick kids and the house if freezing with no heating or hot water, but the staff were very rude. I asked to speak to a manager, and they put me on hold for more than 30 mins until hung up. I advise anyone to stay away from Octopus. They are quick to take your money, but if you have any issue , there offer no support. This is why I am changing suppliers and would never ever ever recommend them to anyone”
“Octopus energy are a disater. a total lack of customer service and professionalism. it takes days to get any kind of response and speaking to anyone on the phone is impossible.”
