“OVO.. still waiting for OUR money, £756!
Complaint handling 0 out of 10.
Fits team 0 out of 10.
Whole experience 0 out of 10.
We are now at the stage where we are going to take this to court.
As it’s been months, lots of chasing from OUR end. And still……….. nothing of nothing. And continuous mixed information and slopey shoulders.”
“Ovo demands for payments
I was assured by my previous supplier there would absolutely be no changes to my service, so why are they threatening recovery if I don't pay monthly when I have always paid quarterly? And 1 can wait 3-5 months for payment from Ovo for solar power!”
“Ex customer who was lied to about the cost of the gas and electricity and being on a fixed tariff, dd set up for £94.00 but actual dd needed more like £120.00 per month, threated with having smart meter forcibly installed and transferred over to their payg company called boost, followed by debt collectors being set on me after I dared to ask for a worksheet showing how their figures were arrived at but this seems to be standard policy.
Ovo Energy made a donation of £200,000.00 to the Tory party before taking over SSE, their boss used to be in banking and Ovo set up in 2009 just after the banking crisis, dd must be notified to customers one month before being changed and must be justified in terms of the energy being supplied and used.
Twice I had to report these parasites to the Energy Ombudsman and twice they would be charged £320.00 for the investigation, they even came after me four months after I had left Ovo for an unspecified bill of £75.00 and this resulted in the second complaint to the Ombudsman so to get back £75.00 they forked out £320.00 which indicates their stupidity, incompetence and gross over charging.
If the ombudsman is investigating a complaint any so called debt is alleged and the debt collectors cannot proceed till the investigation is completed, either way Ovo Energy get a bill for £320.00, if they start ripping off money via a dd cancel the dd straight away and register a complaint with the Ombudsman, if you have access to social media spread the word about this load of garbage far and wide.”
“Chased for a bill for 6 months that, by their own admission in writing, I did not owe.
Daily texts, calls, messages. Pure harassment. They promised to stop, also in writing, and its still going on. Have opened a dispute with the Ombudsman. Appalling!”
“Appalling app - and now seemingly no means of logging in to your online account without using the app.
Up to date meter reading submitted and as we head in to summer , I wanted to request a refund of less than half of my significant credit but the app still doesn’t work. I notice on the forum a bug was identified 3 months ago but still not fit for purpose.
The help / chat pages on the app do not load properly on tablets/ iPads and I suspect that testing of the app was non existent. Shocking!”
“Shocking. Passed pillat to post. Left hand doesn't know what right hand is doing. Blatant lies and misdirection by tele persons.
None of your previous calls are noted with details in updates.
Redirect, stall, blag.
Absolutely shocking.”
“I send my energy readings through monthly and wait until it updates online and then pay in full. For a month my outstanding bill has read £1.42. Thinking I must have overpaid or possibly an error online I think I will just wait and add this onto my next bill. I check again in a months time and this same amount is still displaying. I contact Ovo thinking there must be a problem with their system to be told this is the amount I need to pay to call off debit collectors. I’m shocked. As I said before I pay monthly in full every month. But the mentality of a company who want to call in debt collectors for £1.42 when in the past they have had over a thousand pounds of my money sitting in their account is a complete disgrace. There was also zero communication from Ovo. I will be clearing any outstanding money and closing my account today. This company is not worth the one star rating I have given.”
“There are not enough words to describe how bad of a company you are,you basically blackmail people,threaten with legal action,unjustified,then you pretty much just steal people's money through your smart meters,which are anything but "smart"
I don't have/want to spend my days on the phone to your "agents" I already have a full time job of my own thanks!
So for anyone thinking of signing up with these,do yourself a favour,look elsewhere the stress isn't worth it!”
“I've had nothing but trouble trying to close my account with OVO and settle the final bill, and my situation is still ongoing.
Despite calling in on the day I left the property in question with final meter readings when the final bill arrived 6 weeks later they had failed to use the reading supplied and massively overcharged me.
When calling in to resolve I was told it was going to take a further 6 weeks to generate a new bill. At that point I asked for my call to be escalated, but the manager at the "Apollo" team was unhelpful could do nothing other than start a complaint for me.
Of course I've heard nothing from the complaints department, no emails, no phone calls so I have no clue what has happened there. A further phone call the next week where I finally speak to someone who is able to comprehend my frustration ends up with me being redirected to the "Apollo" team again. They promise to follow up with the complaints department, re-record my meter readings yet again, and promise the billing department is going to be able to resolve in 3 working days. In the mean time none of my emails have been responded to other than by an automated response.
Three workings days later and I have a letter through the door, half of the final bill, which while it does finally mention one of my actual meter readings continues to estimate beyond when I left the property!
I call in to OVO again and the most helpful part of the experience is being recognised that I have a complaint by the robot and discussing my complaint is moved to key 1. The representative I speak to now tells me it's going to be 3 to 4 weeks before my final bill is sorted, and they still have no idea why my complaint hasn't been addressed and no-one has contacted.
Now it's 24-48 hours before a manager might get in contact when I ask for it to be escalated - but going on OVO's current track record I imagine I will be calling again later this week for another round of ineffective attempts as resolving the situation.
I just want to pay my final bill and draw a line under the situation without being overcharged hundreds of pounds. To add insult to injury, they are holding the account at the property hostage and not allowing the owner to take control of an energy account, or allow another company to set one up until I pay my final bill, leaving two customers in the lurch for the price of one.
If I could have sorted this all out online I would, but I also happen to be one of the OVO accounts stuck in limbo and unable to access any online services.
Absolutely abysmal customer service and I will be recommending all to avoid OVO.”
“I've complained to them many times about my bill and about how I can't talk on phone due to health difficulties, each time I email them I say please don't ring me, email me and low and behold they always send a message saying they tried to call, I have complained and they always send an email saying they've closed my complaint without ever resolving it, it's like talking to a wall, infact a wall would probably understand more than they do”
“Have spent hours trying to get into my electric account Lost count how many times I have put my ID & password The app I have says doesn’t support complex meters !!!? What is that ??? Also To get a better app your telling me to get a smart meter”
“You send my yet more threatening letters with no option to pay unless it's Monday to Friday when you can be bothered to man telephones.
This is yet another example of your penny pinching leadership and greed.”
“Wouldn’t accept meter readings even with photographic evidence backed up by rental company. Would only used their estimates based on previous tenants and actually went as far as instructing debt collectors. Staff were unhelpful and rude. Matter only resolved by ombudsman at which point my reading was accepted I received a written apology and £100 compensation. Avoid this company at all costs”
“Absolutely dreadful company. Have given me 3 separate bills for 1 month for 1 set of utilities. No one has a clue what's going on yet threateningly legal action if I don't clear all 3 bills. Ha! I've paid the one on my app but neither 1, nor the call handlers have a clue what the other 2 bills are about.
Managers are apparently customer facing. Utterly useless company.”
“I paid £158.25 to have isolator switch installed. On booking, I was told I would have to pay a £30 penalty if I was not available when the engineer turned up. I was given a date.
On a couple of occasions no one arrived, so I put in a complaint. I was told I would be paid compensation at £30 per missed visit, and my £158.25 would be returned to me.
OVO apparently credited my account. I explained I wanted the money in my bank account, and was assured it would be. We are going into the third month now, and several emails have been ignored, several promises of call backs have not been fulfilled.
I am living on a pension, the stress is incredible, and I am suffering mentally, unable to sleep because of frustration and worry.”
“Avoid like the plague. Incompetent customer service. Overcharged. Ombudsman intervention required ... twice!
I had a leak after my meter, as SGN confirmed. This resulted in my being charged four figures worth of gas which was not in fact used. Ovo flatly denied this, despite my and SGN's evidence to the contrary. Around 8 months of incompetent customer service followed, culminating in my having to make a formal complaint and going to the Ombudsman. Predictably, the Ombudsman was appauled and found in my favour on all points, required Ovo to apologise, compensate and refund. Of course, I've now spend 16 days trying to get that refund and Ovo's customer service is get again wholly incompetent (e.g. offering to refund the credit in my account, which is my money, rather than actually giving me the money they agreed with the Ombudsman they'd pay me). Ever email which comes back from customer service appears to willfully misunderstand the situation and fails to move anything forward. So I'm back off to the Ombudsman again ...
I don't know what's going on - whether the staff are overworked, incompetent, or there's a deliberate policy of ignoring the substance of customers complaints and/or gaslighting them, in the hope that they'll give up. I'm not such a customer, but I've wasted days and days of my life on this, which has not been adequately compensated for.
I will of course be leaving them.
As at 7/5/2024:
- despite multiple chasing emails from me (including most recently emails to the CEO and Board's complaints team) and chasing via Whatsapp, Ovo still has not refunded me (c. £3k due) nor engaged in any substantive correspondence to move the matter forward.
- the main remedy, agreed by the Ombudsman in 2023, being the compensation for overbilling, remains outstanding; and
- no further goodwill payment has been made since to remedy the ongoing inconvenience.
- they've failed to address the outstanding issues, or substantively engage.”
