OCTOPUS are an absolute (bad) joke - beware of dealing with them

[Js1977]

Last July we suddenly got a bill from Octopus for over £8,000 (in addition to the monthly direct debit we were paying and despite never going more than £600 in debit over winter). When I called them I was told that they had been unable to get ratings from my smart meter for over 9 months

I get twitchy when I dont get the bill on time and give it a week before I get in touch with them. Sometimes it has been due to the lack of automatic readings which got sorted after they managed to read the meter but lately (past two months) all the data is there and it's still happening. It takes them long enough to sort 1-3 months readings as they have to do some manual work so I can only imagine what 9 months wroth would be like, hence I keep a tab on it.


Im not risking putting anymore manual readings in since last time I did, I ended up putting my export reading into the import readings and ended up with a 6k bill

 

[Tony Hoyle]

You will need to provide evidence that you have tried to resolve with the supplier before the ombudsman will accept your case. I’m just out the other side with my issue with OVO however if it wasn’t for the ombudsman I suspect I’d still be banging my head against a brick wall.

This is why email is a good idea.. you have times/dates and exactly what was said.

As a rule I always keep the entire history when complaining to anyone.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

I get twitchy when I dont get the bill on time and give it a week before I get in touch with them. Sometimes it has been due to the lack of automatic readings which got sorted after they managed to read the meter but lately (past two months) all the data is there and it's still happening. It takes them long enough to sort 1-3 months readings as they have to do some manual work so I can only imagine what 9 months wroth would be like, hence I keep a tab on it.


Im not risking putting anymore manual readings in since last time I did, I ended up putting my export reading into the import readings and ended up with a 6k bill

One of the things they said with my 12 month one was they wanted to produce 12 bills, but their internal system would only let them produce one bill a week.. so they were going to take 3 months to produce a final bill. It leads me to believe the people on front line support have little power to actually fix anything.. they're working with a fairly rigid system.

 

[Mark_T]

I get twitchy when I dont get the bill on time and give it a week before I get in touch with them. Sometimes it has been due to the lack of automatic readings which got sorted after they managed to read the meter but lately (past two months) all the data is there and it's still happening. It takes them long enough to sort 1-3 months readings as they have to do some manual work so I can only imagine what 9 months wroth would be like, hence I keep a tab on it.

Exactly, if you opt to use a beta tariff, then you do need to pay enough attention to notice when you do not get an accurate bill each month...

 

[NewbieT]

Just remember the back-billing rules too:

Back-billing explained

Back bills are sent to you by your gas or electricity supplier when you've not been accurately charged. A guide to your rights.

www.ofgem.gov.uk

No electricity bill for 12 months = free electricity.

Octopus had sent me bills over the years but there were gaps in smart meter data and unknown to me, in the bills. When I changed tariff they decide to catch-up. I quoted the rules. Credit note. Sorted.

 

[Mark_T]

Just remember the back-billing rules too:

Back-billing explained

Back bills are sent to you by your gas or electricity supplier when you've not been accurately charged. A guide to your rights.

www.ofgem.gov.uk

No electricity bill for 12 months = free electricity.

Octopus had sent me bills over the years but there were gaps in smart meter data and unknown to me, in the bills. When I changed tariff they decide to catch-up. I quoted the rules. Credit note. Sorted.

There are some important nuances to the rules though, if you pay by DD the supplier is still allowed to use those payments to pay for previously un-billed energy use, similarly if you've received any balance refunds they are allowed to reverse those, so it isn't quite as simple as it might seem...

 

[Dilly]

Just a small update on getting service from Octopus.


I hadn’t received a bill for February.
I messaged on X last Wednesday and within an hour was told it should take 48 hours as there was some data missing.
I still hadn’t had a bill this morning so messaged again. Got a reply within 30 mins to say data was now available and have since received the bill.

In addition, I was apparently overcharged on one day in November by £1.61. Rather than refund they credited me a ‘goodwill gesture’ of £20.

Messaging on X (Twitter) does work!

 

[yessuz]

yup.
Basically, for the previous dealing with them -
Bills usually are issued automatically. for electricity they take smart meter data and off you go. however, if for any reason, one of the 30 min segments is missing, billing is paused automatically by their system. hence no bills...

 

[ajmorr.is]

This is why email is a good idea.. you have times/dates and exactly what was said.

As a rule I always keep the entire history when complaining to anyone.

I have very successfully used Resolver - Free online tool for complaints and claims | Resolver UK for complaints and issues with providers of various things. It has a massive benefit in that it does all the tracking and hard work for you, as well as sending reminders to follow up if there has been no response.

 

[Zilla91]

Octopus CS does leave a lot to be desired.

I’ve not had an export meter reading since December, I emailed them last month and they’ve still not resolved it. Every time I ask for an update, I get fobbed off that it’s been sent to their meter team to look at.

They also forgot to renew my electricity tariff when it ran out and I had to get in touch after I noticed I had no tariff on my account.

 

[yessuz]

Octopus CS does leave a lot to be desired.

I’ve not had an export meter reading since December, I emailed them last month and they’ve still not resolved it. Every time I ask for an update, I get fobbed off that it’s been sent to their meter team to look at.

They also forgot to renew my electricity tariff when it ran out and I had to get in touch after I noticed I had no tariff on my account.

can't you read it yourself?

 

[Js1977]

Octopus CS does leave a lot to be desired.

I’ve not had an export meter reading since December, I emailed them last month and they’ve still not resolved it. Every time I ask for an update, I get fobbed off that it’s been sent to their meter team to look at.

They also forgot to renew my electricity tariff when it ran out and I had to get in touch after I noticed I had no tariff on my account.

Ive not had any automatic credits either since June last year and ive left it just over a couple of months at a time just to see. It's odd that this happens since I can see on my account what the exports are. I just do them manually online and get an immediate credit. They are coming next month to change our very early smart meter (not even on the DCC network) so Ill see what happens after that.

 

[Pink Duck]

Can be useful to check what smart metering data Octopus actually have versus third-party aggregator such as n3rgy

Smart Meter Reports

If there are gaps in the half-hourlies that simply halts their automatic billing. Octopus support have the ability to send a request to smart meter to fill in missing data sets for either import, export or gas. Best contacted through Twitter.

My own SMETS2 needed a full-on 5 minute power cut to sort its own unsynchronised data sets with Smart DCC after local multi-day cell mast outage. Something that Octopus Energy Services can help with.

 

[Zilla91]

can't you read it yourself?

I can, but what’s the point of having a smart meter if they’re not going to read it and credit me monthly as they should be?

 

[yessuz]

I can, but what’s the point of having a smart meter if they’re not going to read it and credit me monthly as they should be?

well, I sort of agree and disagree with you.

If there is comms glitch, it might be the thing which prevents them to issue the bill.
As usual, Octopus operates in 30 min slots, and if the slot is missing, the bill cannot be issued.

the best way is to submit meter readings - this restarts their gears again :/

 

[Drew57]

I've always paid by Variable DD. In all the years with Octopus, electricity bills have been fine but over the last year my (Tracker) gas readings have frequent gaps so I have to ask via an X tweet for Octopus to 'push' the data, which they always do.

On two occasions when we have been in the USA for long periods these gaps resulted in an averaged Tracker gas bill which had allocated a proportion of the total to the missing days at an average kWh which happened to contain the highest daily rates for the billing period where in fact those days should have been zero.

Not only did Octopus correct this once they downloaded the missing data (with a reduction in the bill on both occasions) but I received £20 goodwill gestures.

(The person who always seems to respond via X is called Kaylee and she has been exceptionally responsive right through to resolution, every time ).

 

[Zilla91]

As usual, Octopus operates in 30 min slots, and if the slot is missing, the bill cannot be issued.

Except for the fact that unless it's a smart tariff like IO, they don't actually use the 30 minute readings for billing.

If you look at your app, you'll see they also take monthly readings around the same time you receive your bill, which is what is used for billing.

 

[yessuz]

Except for the fact that unless it's a smart tariff like IO, they don't actually use the 30 minute readings for billing.

If you look at your app, you'll see they also take monthly readings around the same time you receive your bill, which is what is used for billing.

Yes. But if you look at your actual bill in details, you will see that every day is split into 48 segments, each of 30 mins

As mentioned earlier if there is any missing data from any of 30 min slots, they pause auto billing.