RedMod3
Member
Because your direct debit payments cover the bills; they have your cash. The bill is a paper transaction and does not affect Octopus cashflow.
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Octopus Go (SCAM) ??
- Thread starter PITA
- Start date
I had to go to the ombudsman to get a complaint raised high enough to get a bill, after over a year.
To be fair they were great when the right person got onto it.. fixing the software glitch that meant they couldn't bill me, and writing off debt incurred because I had no idea how much electricity I was using. But really they need to have a system that spots these things internally.. instead they rely on complaints and in my case even that wasn't working.
What debt? They can't bill you anything that happened over 12 months ago.. that's the rules all energy companies are bound by. That's a shockingly long time for a company not to bill a customer.. but it's there to protect people from getting sudden enormous bills from years ago that used to happen sometimes.
It was to be fair to Octopus I chased so hard when I did, because after 12 months they were effectively giving me electricity for free.
But that's not true in our case.
I owed them about £450 and I only had £150 in the account, with my £10 per month direct debit.
So every month they were losing money...
phil4
Member
That's odd.
This time last year, I stopped getting bills. When I chased them it was because they were missing data. They'd retrieve it, and bill me. This happened 4 or 5 times until about May, when after the same process they didn't get it, and couldn't bill me. After weeks of chasing they admitted that the meter they'd fitted wasn't working properly.
They back billed me on a normal variable tariff, with the promise to sort it once the meter was sorted. To their credit 2 months later the firmware on the meter was updated, and the readings retrieved and they redid the billing correctly. Rather than billing me missing periods at a higher rate.
Unfortunately since then, I've also stopped getting Electricity bills. I can see the usage on their site, they just haven't issued bills. I chased just before Christmas and they've managed to catch up two weeks at the end of Sept... but nothing since.
I think they're a bit busy at the moment.
This time last year, I stopped getting bills. When I chased them it was because they were missing data. They'd retrieve it, and bill me. This happened 4 or 5 times until about May, when after the same process they didn't get it, and couldn't bill me. After weeks of chasing they admitted that the meter they'd fitted wasn't working properly.
They back billed me on a normal variable tariff, with the promise to sort it once the meter was sorted. To their credit 2 months later the firmware on the meter was updated, and the readings retrieved and they redid the billing correctly. Rather than billing me missing periods at a higher rate.
Unfortunately since then, I've also stopped getting Electricity bills. I can see the usage on their site, they just haven't issued bills. I chased just before Christmas and they've managed to catch up two weeks at the end of Sept... but nothing since.
I think they're a bit busy at the moment.
RedMod3
Member
They will get their money back off you that you owe them. They won't be out of pocket, but their cash flow will have taken a temporary hit. I had £700 on my statement that I'd pre-paid during monthly standing orders. The bill came in for £550, so my prepayment went down by £550 to £150 = the billing did not affect what I owed or what was owed to me.
kelvin 660
White SR+ with LFP battery
Once again Octopus GO hasn't billed me for electricity. This is the third time and apparently they have all been caused by missing meter readings! Checking using the the app Energy Sandpit I can see there is one missing reading on 2022-04-11 08:30 that is probably causing this billing problem.
Surely their software is smart enough to see that 08:30 is in the peak tariff period and therefore they could use the next meter reading at 09:00 to calculate the usage and therefore billing for that day!
I am very worried about how Octopus operates as a business seeing they can't fix small billing problems like this and also seeing Octopus GO Faster customers have been given another year fixed at last years rates, etc.
Does Octopus really have a firm grip on it's business?
Surely their software is smart enough to see that 08:30 is in the peak tariff period and therefore they could use the next meter reading at 09:00 to calculate the usage and therefore billing for that day!
I am very worried about how Octopus operates as a business seeing they can't fix small billing problems like this and also seeing Octopus GO Faster customers have been given another year fixed at last years rates, etc.
Does Octopus really have a firm grip on it's business?
All this makes me very nervous if switching to Go in the future. Our meter is lucky if it manages to connect once a week. In the Octopus app I see many many days with missing data. I can’t see this working!
It’s not like I live in the middle of no where either. Clearly the connectivity technology is pretty poor. Why don’t they allow the meters to use customer WiFi to connect?
It’s not like I live in the middle of no where either. Clearly the connectivity technology is pretty poor. Why don’t they allow the meters to use customer WiFi to connect?
I’ve had a couple a period when I didn’t get a bill for Octopus, one for about 6 months, but I’d rolled over to another year on Go so decided not to rock the boat. I eventually contacted them and it was sorted quickly and they said just to shout it it happened again... A bit casual, but no harm done.
My smart meter was put in my EDF while I was on they EV tariff. They were then unable to properly account for the meter switch in my billing and after month of encouragement to sort it out I raise a complaint as I left for Octopus as they couldn’t sort a final bill. In the end they wrote off my electricity usage for about 10 months, which seemed crazy as we all agreed on the different meter readings and could easily calculate the bill.
The question is are you prepared to put up with this type of issue to get access to market leading EV tariffs? If not I’d suggest you will pay a lot more and are still likely to get billing problems.
My smart meter was put in my EDF while I was on they EV tariff. They were then unable to properly account for the meter switch in my billing and after month of encouragement to sort it out I raise a complaint as I left for Octopus as they couldn’t sort a final bill. In the end they wrote off my electricity usage for about 10 months, which seemed crazy as we all agreed on the different meter readings and could easily calculate the bill.
The question is are you prepared to put up with this type of issue to get access to market leading EV tariffs? If not I’d suggest you will pay a lot more and are still likely to get billing problems.
Not octopus related but amusing Smart Meter stuff none the less.. When EON fitted our smart meter, I took a picture of the old one and the new one before and after they did the work.. 3 months later I got a letter from EON asking me to call them as my bill was going to be almost 6 figures.. I asked them for the meter readings and it seems that the engineer who fitted my smart meter wrote down the serial number of the old meter instead of the meter reading.. How lucky was it that I took photos!?
sparkymark75
Member
I contacted Octopus today about missing bills. I joined Octopus on 28th Dec 2021 and switched to Go on the 25th Jan 2022. They are obviously updating my account since contacting them via Twitter (emails got me nowhere!) as I now have transactions which bring my balance into a debit of £769!!
There's no way I've used that much gas and electric since the start of the year. I charge my car only during the Go 5p rate window and I have solar so that will cover a lot of the daytime usage. Using the Guy Lipman site, I calculate my electricity bill for 25 Jan to today should be around £278. They have my electric costs as £662!
No bills have yet shown up on my account, these are simply transactions which I can only assume are before any reconciliation with tariffs, etc.
There's no way I've used that much gas and electric since the start of the year. I charge my car only during the Go 5p rate window and I have solar so that will cover a lot of the daytime usage. Using the Guy Lipman site, I calculate my electricity bill for 25 Jan to today should be around £278. They have my electric costs as £662!
No bills have yet shown up on my account, these are simply transactions which I can only assume are before any reconciliation with tariffs, etc.
You should get a monthly bill from Octopus.
If you don't you can check your account online and download your data. If there is a data missing even for just one day the automatic billing won't take place. If you email them to take a look they can usually obtain the missing data and your billing will return to normal.
If you haven't received a bill for months on end then you know something is not quite right and it is common sense to get it sorted earlier rather than later. Scam it is not.
If you don't you can check your account online and download your data. If there is a data missing even for just one day the automatic billing won't take place. If you email them to take a look they can usually obtain the missing data and your billing will return to normal.
If you haven't received a bill for months on end then you know something is not quite right and it is common sense to get it sorted earlier rather than later. Scam it is not.
sparkymark75
Member
In my case, turns out my previous supplier sent a final electric meter reading of 0 to Octopus. Even though they then used the correct final meter reading when generating my final bill for them!
Octopus have raised a dispute with them on this so in the meantime I’ve just to pay a fixed monthly amount until it’s sorted.
I knew mine wasn’t a “scam”, just some quirky billing issue and I knew I’d be on the hook for a few hundred £s but to see them claim I’d used 1800kWh in just under a month was a shock!
Octopus have raised a dispute with them on this so in the meantime I’ve just to pay a fixed monthly amount until it’s sorted.
I knew mine wasn’t a “scam”, just some quirky billing issue and I knew I’d be on the hook for a few hundred £s but to see them claim I’d used 1800kWh in just under a month was a shock!
Ricecooker
Member
I'm noticing something strange on my meter timings. I have set my wallbox to start charge at 00:30, but pulling data from my smart meter through n3rgy I was charged at 00:00 (I see the massive amount of kWh used at this time). I then set charge start at 01:00 and n3rgy showing 00:30. I've emailed Octopus and still waiting for a response.
Do anyone else have this strange half an hour lag? Just quite the headache if I didn't check the data myself...
Do anyone else have this strange half an hour lag? Just quite the headache if I didn't check the data myself...
Ricecooker
Member
Ah! It seems it is the data downloaded using n3rgy that is wrong. Readings from Octopus account seems to be correct.
Still strange why one is displaying differently than the other, supposedly pulled from the same smart meter data. See the uploaded pics, 1 is from n3rgy showing 0:00 3.944, 2 is from Octopus showing 0:30 3.944.
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