To think OVO energy are taking the piss?

[HollyMollyPolly]

... or can anyone explain what is going on if not?

I am asked to submit meter readings monthly. I then pay what I owe once the balance has adjusted to the readings. So my balance starts the month at £0. It says £0 on my online account.

However, once the month is over I receive a bill for it that says eg:

"1st Jan - starting balance - £50
Total charges - £10 [ie. What I've used in Jan minus government support scheme]
1st Jan - Card payment £20
31st Jan - closing balance £40"

What I can't understand is why the starting balance isn't £0, if I've made a payment and cleared the balance on Jan 1st. I always pay everything they say I owe and my balance shows as £0 just after I've paid! So where is this extra charge coming from? If it's left from the previous month, why don't they tell me the full bill at the time so I can pay it all?

They seem to make the bills purposely confusing.
My last supplier I just submitted a meter reading then paid what I owed so the new bill started at 0. Doing the same thing with OVO and this mysterious confusing billing happens.

AIBU to think they are taking the piss and trying to take money I don't owe, and/or making the bills purposely confusing so it's easy to overpay?

If not, can anyone make sense of it?

I've been with Ovo for years and find them very straightforward. I'm never in £0 balance though. There's always enough money in the balance to ensure I meet the costs. The direct debit is recalculated every month. It works for me anyway. I'm pretty sure most energy companies work in the same way.

Not all energy companies work the same. My mum is with Octopus Energy and what a difference. She gets a bill 12 hours after paying it. I can’t change to octopus because I pay as I go and won’t change

I agree with @Kimboly . Just moved to Octopus - what a refreshing change! Ovo were good 8 years ago but they grew too quickly for their customer service to keep up. After they lied and lied to me (see upthread) I moved to Yorkshire Energy, a lovely little company that sadly went to the wall. We were then moved over to Scottish Power, another company I really don't like, but I managed to get a fix with them through until August this year which in hindsight was brilliant. I moved when that finished to Octopus.

You send Octopus a reading and your account updates in the time it takes for the screen to refresh, unlike the 24+ hours it took SP. Their website is easy to navigate and their online explanations are simple and work.

I actually spoke to OVO customer service today. Apparently, I get asked to send meter readings on 2nd each month. I then pay day after. But lady said, because the bill doesn’t end until until 6th of each month. They bill me for those extra days. Which is ridiculous. I’m not paying it, they can get stuffed

Not unreasonable, I've never got a bloody clue what my bills mean. When it was SSE, I paid quarterly and it went to zero which was very satisfying and no need to worry for another three months. I've tried talking to customer service, but they are awful and patronising.

Me too! i pay monthly after ringing with a reading, always the same day each month and bill generated following day.. but why the amount owing is always different to the actual bill, by different amounts is a mystery!
If i ring them, the handler (usually abroad) cant explain it either.. they're a real pain, SSE was always great, but i just dont trust OVO.

Why not give your readings on the 6th and see if that helps

Posted before about OVO-they're shockingly awful. I've now moved all my accounts from them. FIL died with £900 credit in OVO account yet they were sending endless letters asking him to up his DD amounts, took the cheque refund and moved his property supplier

I’m not sure of who I can turn to for advice

Ovo are hands down the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to have to deal with.
Hours of wasted time.
Just abysmal.

Yes I’m going to. But somehow I don’t think it will be that straight forward

Unsurprisingly Victoria Coren-Mitchell wants to take legal action against the awful OVO, u go girl

I've been with OVO for years and always found them very helpful and easy to navigate. Maybe ring their help number instead of automatically reaching for Mumsnet. I always find it quite perplexing that people don't do that then complain!

Think youve been lucky (or had an easy explainable problem).. I've rung them so many times to get to the bottom of these completely different figures i keep getting, and get absolutely nowhere!
TBH i seem to end up talking to someone (probs not in the UK) who doesnt seem to understand English that well, so have given up wasting my time now!!

You are very lucky because I called OVO a number of times and ended up getting the ombudsman involved because the responses were so lacking

OVO taking the piss,
we moved into our new property but before we moved we did a moving over with our electric, which we with UW and they took it over for a month then OVO took back the gas only and UW kept the electric so for the past 10 months we have been sorting it out. But what we don’t get is that it was in my name from may 2023 till September 2023 and paid the balance so we can do the switch over and a week later it got declined and my husband had a letter saying welcome to OVO so we put a complaint in September which our bill is over £500 since September but they saying it’s from may 2024 which I don’t understand that. Had a email offering a £50 credit to my account and now I have no clue what to do now this has been going on and it’s a getting ridiculous.
OVO IS TAKING THE PISS ALL ROUND