Anyone have Octopus Electricity?

[ExtremelyFedUpNow]

I won't go into the full complaint (believe it or not this is the SHORT version!!) basically I had a smart meter installed by Octopus when I bought my house over a year and a half ago and it's been an F*ing nightmare ever since. Even though they were direct debiting monthly, I wasn't getting bills from Octopus. I called them to query this and was told 'not to worry', problems with the smart meter, it's all normal.
Months went by and then a year went by and then after about 13 months I was suddenly getting a flurry of emails from Octopus several times per day every single day for weeks. They were bills going right back to the first day the meter was fitted but the bills were repeating and giving different amounts owed.
As an example I received a bill for say 1 November 2023 to 1 December 2024 saying a owed (can't remember exact figure) £1,000 , then I get another email 30 seconds later saying I owed £89 for dates 9 July 2024 to 10 July 2024, then seconds later I get another bill saying I owed £357 for dates 11 July 2024 to 27 November 2024, then seconds later another bill saying they owe me £247, then seconds later another bill saying I owe £11 for 24 November 2024, then another bill seconds later..... and on and on it went for months. None of it made any sense and none of the figures added up.
I called them twice and was told their system was trying to sort it and to be patient. Meanwhile the monthly direct debits were coming out of my account but they didn't seem to match the dates on the bills and it was hard to work out what I actually owed because some bills were days, some were weeks, some were several months and they all overlapped with repeated bills for some days, weeks and months.

I started to email Octopus, as I wasn't getting anywhere with them by phone, and I said I wanted the constant back billing, repeated emails to stop and going forward I wanted to be billed monthly. They initially said they couldn't do that and that I would be billed per day. I've never heard of such a thing and insisted I wanted to be billed monthly. I continued to received constant emails of bills dating back from over a year ago. After weeks of emails I insisted on escalating to a manager and was told that I couldn't speak to a manager. After weeks of pushing I finally managed to get a manager to contact me. He said he would look into it and that it might take some time, it took several weeks. After much going back and forth the manager finally agreed that I could be billed monthly and he chose that my billing period would be the date of my direct debit (so if my direct debit is 5th of the month then I would be billed from 4th of month X to 5th of month Y, that means the day I receive the bill is also the date the money is direct debited from my bank. This made no sense to me but at least I finally had a monthly billing period which seemed to stop the repeated bills being emailed to me from the past year and I could better view what I actually owed and was paying for. It took them months to actually get the monthly billing into place and then it only lasted two months before I was told that they were changing my tariff for some reason.

I was offered £30 to close my complaint but that has never materialised.

Even though I have storage heaters and an electric hot water heating (which work overnight and uses a significant amount of electricity) they have changed me to a flat rate tariff. When I questioned this they responded the same day and said they didn't know what my electrical use was and questioned why I wanted to be on a cheaper overnight rate. :O How can Octopus not know what my usage is?

When I explained that 90%+ of my electrical use is overnight and included pictures of my usage charts from my Octopus account they suddenly went quiet and haven't responded. After waiting a week, and worrying about how much this new tariff is costing me, I emailed their complaints team and also their ceo (it says on their website to email him if you're having problems that are not getting resolved). Again I've had no response. I also haven't been billed for the past 6 weeks so it looks like I'm no longer being billed monthly?

WTF is going on?? I'm getting so fed up with all this and the hassle of having to contact them all the time to figure out what is happening with my account.
Has anyone else had similar problems? I keep hearing how amazing Octopus is but all I've had are problems.
I've heard there is no point in complaining to the Obudsman but I don't know what else to do. I want a monthly bill, not a bill every couple of days or every 3-4 months or repeated overlapping bills that cover 14 months. I don't understand why they can't bill me monthly. I also don't understand why I am not on a cheaper overnight tariff. I've turned my heating down to 14 degrees because I can't afford the flat rate tariff. What else can I do??

I'm thinking about changing suppliers but who to chose if Octopus are suppose to be the best out there how much worse are the other providers??

AIBU to want a monthly electric bill and an explanation as to why they changed my tariff to a flat rate?

(Apologies for the long email I'm so frustrated that it's been like therapy to write this all out :) Thanks for reading.)

Looks like I shouldn’t have believed Octopus when they said they needed to be changed then! Having said that, the change was really easy and I haven’t had any problems.

@ExtremelyFedUpNow the email address [email protected] is the one Octopus actually advertises as being for their CEO. That’s the one I used and got a response, not from him (obvs 🙄) but from the customer service team.

X is a horrible place but I only use it for train delay information and to complain about customer service. It’s been worth it for the latter!

I am but have an old meter and it's great. I will never get a smart meter! The issues seem endless

@ExtremelyFedUpNow we should (and do) answer emails. If it feels safer, I can access emails to the [email protected] email address that someone mentioned above - if you wanted to email there instead of me giving you my personal email address over DM (and just flag that you're from Mumsnet)? I appreciate that this must be 'ffs email them again, I've already emailed a lot' but I will find out what's gone on.

@ExtremelyFedUpNow they asked me what resolution I wanted but didn’t offer anything. I said I would like £300, they came back the next day with £150 so I counter offered £200. Could probably have got more but I’m no good at this sort of thing so was pleased with myself that I didn’t just accept their counter 😊😊

Ah sorry, just realised that there aren't any DMs at the moment after the nastiness a few weeks ago. My direct email is [email protected] or you can use [email protected] (I can get access to those emails as well). Really sorry again to those we've let down, I know it's not massively helpful to say 'email again' but I do hope we can turn this around.

We already had a smart meter and everything worked smoothly for the first few months after switching to Octopus. Then suddenly started getting bills where the day and night readings had been switched. It was really obvious that they were wrong - one came to hundreds of pounds over one month (far more than ever before) and the other resulted in a minus figure - so I phoned them, got it amended, eventually.

Very very glad that I'd deliberately refrained from setting up a direct debit with them. If I had, they'd have helped themselves to loads more than usual from my bank account.

Emailed asking for an explanation for the mistake - surely their automated billing system should have flagged this kind of obvious discrepancy? - and an assurance that it wouldn't happen again - also for a new bill with the correct figures recalculated. No response.

The same problem then happened again. And again. For about 3 months in a row. And to add insult to injury, I started getting emails telling me my account was in arrears. Have just been sent an 'estimated' bill this week, despite having a smart meter, so no idea what they're thinking.

They’re really not. Like anything else, you only hear about them when something goes wrong. The vast majority cause no issues.

@Longtimelurkerfinallyposts snap!

It happens every time there is a price change to be on economy 7.

There will be sone issue and when I raise it they swap around the meter readings (even though I am clear these are correct) abs then demand photos (space tests) to fix. Then it's okay for a few months. Prices change and it goes wrong again.

They told me it was a problem with their system, which they know about.
They've never been able to explain why they therefore haven't done anything about it - there are loads of possible solutions - like updating their automated billing software to alert them to problem figures.
They then suggested that getting rid of my smart meter and having a new one installed by them might help. I don't believe it will, and in any case would need my landlord's permission to do this.

Th smart meter they fitted me failed to connect to my night circuit so i had no power running to hot water or heating at night for 3 months before they agreed to restore the older one. Luckily it was summer. If you have complicated circuits I'd be wary!

Unless your landlord pays the bill, you don’t need their permission to change the meters.

I just phone them and they switch it. I managed to do it before the 99p rate hit that day. Very easy you just have to tell them what tariff you want to be on.

When I first moved over they didn't put me on E7. I called and the person rebilled it immediately as they could see that's what I'd requested (bringing it down £100 plus).

I'm on fixed rate now but there's no exit fee so can come off it if I want to buy was slightly cheaper over winter when I use the most.

I did have to phone them to get a bill on Agile as if it drops even one half hour reading it can't do it automatically. As soon as I did that they did something behind the scenes and the bill was generated.

Since I moved to E7 it's been automatic.

I'm with Octopus - electricity only as no gas here. Have had no problems at all, and customer service when needed (rarely) have been fab.

However, we are a simple case as no need for Economy 7 or anything. We also do not have a smart meter as I have read far, far, far too many stories of problems with/due to them. Like a pp, I will be refusing a smart meter until either it is illegal not to have one, or our current one dies and a smart meter is the only option for a replacement.

As far as I can tell, the smart meter roll out has been nothing short of a disaster

Very easy you just have to tell them what tariff you want to be on.

Unfortunately I haven't found it to be that simple.

I emailed Greg a few weeks ago after their main contact email and their complaints email stopped responding.

Octopus has finally contacted me this week, weeks after I emailed Greg. They've pretty much said the same thing they've previously said. The economy7 plan has a 28p daytime rate and a 12p night time rate which is 12:30am- 7:30am. My storage heaters currently start charging at midnight, in fact the peak charging time on mine seems to be 12:00- 12:30am. So that would mean my highest charging time would be 30mins before the economy7 plan lower tariff rate applies. I cannot change my charging time myself, apparently storage heaters are either somehow pre-set to charge during 'off peak hours' (though these times seem to differ per company and even within Octopus' tariff plans) or it can be down to Octopus to control the timings. I don't know how my storage heaters are set up, I don't know if Octopus know how my system is set up.

Octopus have said I can change to the economy7 plan but they cannot guarantee that they can change my storage heaters to start charging from 12:30 instead of 12:00. I was told if I change to the economy7 plan then I'll have to wait to see if I'm being charged 28p from midnight to 12:30 and then contact them again to ask them to look at it to change the time (again). Meanwhile I keep paying 28p for peak charging during the 30 mins each night.
Given how slow and extremely poor the communication with Octopus has been so far, I could be stuck paying 28p for those peak 30 mins for months, years, decades? Obviously that would only apply for the months I have the heaters turned on but still, heating is by far my most expensive charge and the whole point of switching to a plan like economy7 is to have the lower overnight charging rate for all of the heat charging time.

I've previously asked for clarification of whether Octopus can or cannot change my charging time to 12:30. They still don't seem willing or able to answer the question, and I want a guarantee that it can be changed by Octopus before I get stuck paying a higher fee. At the moment we probably only have a few (hopefully) weeks left of using heating this year and then the tariff won't matter quite as much until the autumn when heating is turned back on.

For anyone who has Octopus, is on economy7 and has storage heaters, when do your heaters start charging? Did you have to ask Octopus to change your charging time or did it happen automatically when you switched to the economy7 plan? If Octopus changed it, how long did it take Octopus to do it? How can I know if Octopus can change my charging time or if mine is pre-set within my system somehow?

@burnoutbabe @Longtimelurkerfinallyposts So they still mess up the billing even on the economy7 plan? Scary to think they can switch the day and night rates, on a regular basis! 😮 Their billing really needs sorting it is disgraceful.

My electricity only runs to the night circuit at whatever time the elec company sets. So 12.30-7.30 gmt then 1.30-8.30 in summer.

hot water and heating are on this special circuit. (And also on the normal circuit so I can put on in day if I want). So in theory it only heats up when rates are cheap. It can’t be out of alignment.

Are your storage heaters on a circuit that is automatically energised by the meter during the off-peak period? If so, all of the electricity consumed by them should be charged at the off-peak rate.

Oh jeez. Fucking Octopus. They decided mum was a customer (she’s not) were billing her, threatening bailiffs. I took over and it took 18 months of pushing and escalating complaints for them to eventually go ‘oh…she’s not our customer, never has been’. Bloody shit show. They are awful.

The replies from Octopus have gone from frustrating to bizarre.
The response I received a few days ago said they were following up the £30 payment to me to settle the complaint. I said that £30 was no where near enough to compensate for the huge amount of time, hassle and money this nightmare has cost me and continues to cost me and nothing has been resolved.

I received a response today to thank me again for 'working together on the problem'. (Is that a wind up??? When have we worked together????)

I was told that I had now been billed from 26th Jan to 25th Feb, I've actually been billed from 26th Jan to 14 March. So much for following what they previously told me (that I would be billed on the 25th of each month). Why do they keep saying things they will not stick to?????

The email ended with a statement that I have no open complaint but they can re-open the old one if I want. When was the complaint resolved or closed? Can they do that without telling me?

As far as I'm concerned I have in writing that they have closed my complaint. I'm not satisfied with the outcome (whatever or whenever that was???) so I am now free to escalate to the Ombudsman.

Wish me luck!

I am a really happy Octopus customer OP, but the way they've treated you, I hope you take them to the cleaners with the help of the Ombudsman! I can never understand why, when a company get's it wrong, they get it majorly WRONG, and I think you've been more than patient. Wishing you LOTS OF LUCK!

Sorry but … why did you not just complain to the ombudsman’s office.

Stop trying to engage with octopus, they are dicks, I thought I explained all this. Just send all your evidence to the ombudsmen who are terrific.

Just checked and I said on 3rd March to go to ombudsman

if you have not done that and are still battling with octopus well … more fool you.

the ombudsman process is there for a reason, it works well, just use it.

I'm with Octopus Energy but don't have a smart meter installed. I give them monthly meter readings and within a few hours my bill is there to view.

I have no idea how my storage heaters have been set up and I'm not sure how to check it. I can control what time my hot water heater charges but I can't see a way to control the storage heater's charge.
After telling me the charging would change to the lower rate period and me asking them to prove this before I agreed to switch to economy7, Octopus came back to say they don't actually know if they can control my times or not so they suggested I hire an electrician.

Another confusing thing is despite me turning two storage heaters completely off and turning the other two down a few degrees, my charging initially dropped for 2-3 days before significantly increasing back to near where it was before I turned two off and lowered the temp. Now charging two radiators for 14 degrees is a similar kWh per night to when I had four radiators turned up to 16 degrees.
Can anyone please explain that one to me because I'm completely confused how that's possible.
I turned the two off and the other two down to save money but it's not actually saving me that much money.
The charging always starts at midnight and lasts for 4-5 hours. I would have thought the charging would have dropped significantly when I halved the number of radiators and lowered their output. I understand that sometimes the radiators 'pre-empt future output' which can affect charging, so I've left it a few weeks to monitor but I'm confused that the kWh is continuing to go up, not down. Where's the extra charge going?

For FYI, my radiators are set to come on at set time periods throughout the day, every day, and produce heat for a set amount of time (rather than maintain a certain temperature, so I would have thought the charging would be more consistent the way I'm doing it?). The ones that are off are always cold to touch and are not producing any heat at all that I'm aware of. I'm not aware that the two radiators turned on are producing heat outside of the times that I have set them to come on.

Same. I was on economy 10 before octopus which has totally different charging times (unfortunately you can't export on it) but times changed automatically because essentially those sockets only work on rate 2, regardless of when rate 2 is.

What time is your meter showing? It is out by half an hour? Ours was at one point but it was in our favour so I didn't tell anyone! Meant I could have a shower at better time on cheap rate.