Bastarding Ovo, advice please

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We moved home a month ago. I took meter readings and phoned them in to Ovo, and was advised that there would be 4-week wait to be credited back the amount they owed us (over £800).

The Ovo chap on the phone advised us to leave our direct debit open so we could receive the refund. Of course they have now taken the September direct debit as well, so they now owe us over £1200.

I called Ovo today. Apparently there is a billing hold on our account and we will “just have to wait for it to be sorted.” Can I speak to the relevant team? - no, not possible to speak to them. Can I speak to a supervisor or manager? - no, not possible.

Can I cancel the direct debit so we don’t pay in October as well? Yes, but then we won’t be able to refund you….

So I asked the chap on the phone to raise a complaint. Apparently someone will phone me within 24 hours.

What’s the betting that someone will actually phone me? And is there anything else I can do to get our money back? It’s TWELVE HUNDRED POUNDS.

We ended going to the ombudsman over a £400 overcharge and won - it still took weeks to resolve after that and when I tried to switch Ovo blocked it as they said we owe them money. We didn’t! Nightmare.

Just thought I'd add another little OVO story to this thread.

My parents are both in their 80s and have been with OVO for quite some years. My dad has dementia so mum now has to try and manage day to day financial matters, never having done before. She thought it might be a good idea to look into their OVO energy account just to make sure everything was OK. Not being too PC savvy she phoned them and got through to one of their world class CS agents who informed her that the account was £5000 in arrears. This frightened the life out of her and the CS agent changed their monthly direct debit to..... £1571.00 per month!

Unfortunately this happened over a month ago and I only found out this week. I created an online account for her and could see that since forever my parents have been paying £257 per month on a usage of around £150 per month. Prior to the £257 it was £445 per month. At the time of my mum's call to OVO the account was actually around £2000 in credit and now stands at just shy of £5000 in credit because they've taken over £3000 off them during a period of minimal energy usage. We've now started the switch to British Gas, not because I believe them to be a beacon of light but because they're not OVO.

OVO are incompetent bandits that should be avoided at all costs. And because I just know that getting the refund off them will be painful and drag on I would not be surprised if they take another £1571 off them July 1st.

Bloody hell, that's appalling @rich1068 . I'd be going to the consumer affairs team on one of the newspapers.

The Guardian love a story like this and they often get great results for people. The press office obviously carries more clout than the team dealing with complaints.

Another update.

You guessed it, they took another £1571 today. OVO haven't supplied gas or electric to my parent's address since 6th June. The bill covers the period 10/06 to 09/07 (?) and shows "No charges yet". Really? Hmm. Wonder why?

And I should add that I had an online chat with one of their agents last Friday who assured me the payment wouldn't be taken. Well, shouldn't be taken. He didn't really want to commit any more than that.

Useless.

I'm getting closer and closer to this. I thought once this is finally sorted a strongly worded email to the Chief Exec as mentioned earlier in this thread might be an idea but I really like the idea of showing them up for the thieving incompetents they are.