Octopus charging huge random amounts

[HousesofHolbein]

I'm so stressed out and wondering if anyone has any advice/similar experiences?

We have Octopus as our electricity supplier and as we have a set of solar panels we have both in and outgoing smart meters. I keep quite a close eye on our app as I find it interesting to see what power were generating and try to make good use of sunny spells to use solar power not the grid.

We have a direct debit payment set up for what we use and Octopus credit our account for the power we generate and export to the grid. I let a positive balance build up over the summer months to see us through the winter where we inevitably generate less and use more power.

Yesterday when I checked the app, we were nearly £300 I'm credit. Then this morning I got an email from Octopus saying they were increasing our monthly payment hugely to cover a shortfall. I checked the app balance which has dropped into the negative, firstly to -£180 but then by afternoon was reading -£900.

I rang Octopus and they seemed to think this was all above board and was just a 'balancing exercise' whereby someone has manually gone back through our account and spotted 'gaps in payments' that need retrospectively covering. They've issued bills with meter readings going back over a year listing usage of several hundreds of pounds. Nowhere on these new bills is there any mention of the payments they've received regularly that entire time, nor of any credit for energy exported.

I cannot understand how we have been paying them over £150/month for a lot of that period, plus using power that is 'free' by generating it ourselves for most of the year, and been earning money on the excess production and they've now managed to find that we're in debt to them by nearly £1k?

There have been no missed payments, no missed meter readings, continuous smart meter monitoring and a variable direct debit set up that entire time. We lead boring lives with no cannabis production or pottery kiln at the bottom of the garden.....

I'm at a complete loss and Octopus have been considerably less than helpful/reassuring.

Just seen this and we're also having big problems with Octopus.They we had to repeatedly request someone to check as our smart meter wasn't 'talking 'to them.All the time billing us full day time tariff despite us telling them we charged our EV and put on all our appliances at night on the lower tariff.We knew we hadn't used anywhere near the amount they said.Eventually they told us they owed us several hundred £.This was in October. And still we've not been reimbursed.Then last week we phoned to chase the refund- and they then said due to gaps in billing we owe them something. Totally ridiculous. They just make it up as they go along .And they just don't care.It will be the Ombudsman next.But the Citizens Advice info is useful.