I read that story, and it's exactly what happens here whenever there's a thunderstorm. Each flash of lightning knocks out the broadband for ten minutes or so, even when there's no power interruption. I guess it must be something similar to the pulse from that TV being turned on. Our broadband issue is just the length of the copper loop from the cabinet. We're only a few hundred metres from the cabinet, but it's on the other side of the valley, so the copper wire takes a detour up the valley and back down the our side. What we would like is to get a fibre strung over the valley, on the poles that carry power over, so we can have FTTP, rather than the pretty sluggish FTTC we have at the moment.
Having just logged into my octopus go account after it notified by I was £400 in credit, I do not appear to have been billed anything for electricity since switching to Go in April. Has anyone else had this?
Have you checked your account to see if your smart meters are reporting back to Octopus? That might explain the absence of bills.
It shows me the reading data but not sure how I check they are feeding back? When I click on submit meter reading it does say that they are already obtaining them
I had months of what can only be described as billing hell with Octopus. If you're unlucky enough to suffer from a glitch on their billing system, as we were, then my experience was that they were appallingly incompetent at sorting it out. We left Octopus over it, but it still took a long time before we got all our money back. The feeling I had was that they were perhaps OK when their systems worked as designed, but that they just didn't seem to be able to resolve even simple billing problems.
It took a couple of months for my bills to get sorted out but they've been absolutely fine since. I also recommend changing to a variable Direct Debit and pay your bill in full (whichever supplier you are with) if that isn't going to challenge your finances. Every energy supplier I have ever used seems to use monthly averaged billing to ensure that you are providing them with a longterm free loan! There's always money in the account that you can't readily access.
I left a supplier once and they did not automatically refund the balance. When I complained they said "well you didn't ask us to"!!!
Yes. My smart meter appeared to be working fine. I got notified to send gas readings. I looked at my credit and as it was going up I thought "How wonderful". Then my credit was debited for 9 months of electricity. Not so good.
I've just had exactly the same issue. I have been providing both gas and electricity readings since joining them in March, but only being billed for gas. I saw the nice big credit turn to a debit. I have no idea why this it's operated this way. More than slightly miffed.
Worse here - until last week mine was not smart meters, which was why I was giving them the actual readings.
Update on Octopus Go. A while back when I got notification that my tarrif with Octopus was ending and my new rates would be in the 16 pence/unit range I was involved with multiple emails. Finally I was reassured that my Go rates would not be affected. Tarrif changed on 13th and my M3LR has just consumed electricity at 16 pence/unit. I am not a happy consumer and there is no way to phone. The message is "Watch Octopus like a hawk and don't believe anything".
I know the rate varies a bit from area to area but that's surprising. These are my rates for Scottish Borders area:
You can see all of the multipliers here: Guy Lipman - Energy Northern Scotland probably reflects the higher cost of distribution and the smaller population. Fair enough in my book.
Same as Oxfordshire here in Wiltshire. Just had my first 40 page bill including a breakdown of every day. The night rate is actually slightly lower than 5p on the bill itself.
Sweat off. Menen at Octopus has finally sorted it out. 5p and 14.19. BTW why should Northern Scotland be more expensive when it produces much more than its share of green electricity from wind and hydro? I don't live in Northern Scotland but fair is fair especially when they are enduring new massive masts and underground excavation disruption to take their power to England.