Octopus Smart Meter Experiences

[Simavon]

"Award winning customer service". I've yet to deal with someone who has two brain cells to rub together.

Interesting, I didn't know the 12 month rule, maybe I shouldn't keep chasing them.

I was offered a gesture of goodwill last time, which I accepted.

After much chasing they do somehow manually trigger a bill for me. But likewise, no automatic bill has ever been generated this year and it's time now yet again for me to chase.

It is rather crazy, the ability to bill would seem quite critical to their business model.

Billing seems to be something that electricity suppliers seem to be spectacularly bad at. I used to be with npower and their incompetence was legendary.

We’re still getting fobbed off about the meter having the wrong time. I pointed them at an example where I said “I set the car to charge at 22:15 but it shows at 00;30 on the smart meter data”. They came back with “but it shows the charging started at 00;30, everything is fine”.

It’s drifting by several minutes per month. I look forwards to cooking dinner at 5p.

 

[G4WFT]

I'm getting a bit jaded with this smart meter business. I've just switched to Octopus, with the intention of going on to the "Go" tariff. My electricity meter is a Secure SMETS1, a model which Octopus say that they can read. However, on my account page it tells me that they need to book my meter exchange. I notice that the meter now shows the details of the intermediate tariff I'm on, so Octopus must have communicated with it mustn't they? I'll speak to them but I have this sinking feeling that this will be a long process....

 

[Rooster6655]

"Award winning customer service". I've yet to deal with someone who has two brain cells to rub together.

Billing seems to be something that electricity suppliers seem to be spectacularly bad at. I used to be with npower and their incompetence was legendary.

We’re still getting fobbed off about the meter having the wrong time. I pointed them at an example where I said “I set the car to charge at 22:15 but it shows at 00;30 on the smart meter data”. They came back with “but it shows the charging started at 00;30, everything is fine”.

It’s drifting by several minutes per month. I look forwards to cooking dinner at 5p.

If its been more than 8 weeks put an ombudsman complaint in, at least you should get some compensation for their lack of support then

 

[Simavon]

They've finally accepted our evidence that the time on the recorded data from the meter is incorrect and have agreed to look into fixing it. That took 8 weeks, pretty much.

 

[JaseW]

We’re on Octopus Go and I charged for the first time last night.

Everything went fine except my wallbox app was showing me a much lower price to my smart meter. Turns out my smart meter is calculating off the day rate rather than the 5p rate, some on here say what you pay is still correct just the IHD is wrong.

I called Octopus anyway and they said “that’s weird” and it shouldn’t be doing that, they said they’re going to look into it.

Not sure if anyone else resolved this?

 

[browellm]

We’re on Octopus Go and I charged for the first time last night.

Everything went fine except my wallbox app was showing me a much lower price to my smart meter. Turns out my smart meter is calculating off the day rate rather than the 5p rate, some on here say what you pay is still correct just the IHD is wrong.

I called Octopus anyway and they said “that’s weird” and it shouldn’t be doing that, they said they’re going to look into it.

Not sure if anyone else resolved this?

Most, if not all, IHDs are too dumb deal with ToU tariffs. Mine is opposite to yours, it constantly shows me electricity pricing at 5p, 24 hours a day. Billing is correct, however.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

I'd take the IHD price with a huge pinch of salt. When I charged at 5p it told me I'd exceeded my monthly budget!

 

[RedMod3]

I'm in the GO 15.59p/5p tariff. My Smart Meter correctly shows the 5p rate between 00:30 and 04:30 and the 5th terminal switches on (for the immersion heater and granny charger) during the GO cheap rate time, but, the smart meter shows my rate during the day as 13.5p/kWh.

I've not had a bill yet, as apparently the national database (whatever that is) has the wrong details, and it could take a month to get fixed.

Otherwise, Octopus customer service are good, they pick up the phone quickly and respond to emails promptly. I'm very happy with the service.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

I've not had a bill for over a year now (and yes I've reminded them of the 12 month back billing rules) so I wouldn't be so sure on that 'takes a month'

 

[browellm]

Most, if not all, IHDs are too dumb deal with ToU tariffs. Mine is opposite to yours, it constantly shows me electricity pricing at 5p, 24 hours a day. Billing is correct, however.

Just to add Octopus Energy

 

[Simavon]

So since switching on 26th august we’ve had it taking two months to persuade them the meter really had the wrong time, now over a month since they said they’d look into a fix. No updates.

Meanwhile I emailed about 6 weeks ago because we’d had no bills yet. So they generated a gas bill but no electricity and they emailed back to say there were a couple of half hourly readings missing from the data which they would try to collect and they would produce an interim bill in the meantime.

We’ve just in the last few days received another bill - again gas only. We’re over £1000 in credit now due to the lack of billing.

Award winning customer service?

 

[Tenatious]

I'm with Octopus Go and have been since about April... They haven't billed me properly once for electricity yet as there's so much missing half hourly info their system can't generate bills. Given up chasing them.

 

[Marvin03]

I'm with Octopus Go and have been since about April... They haven't billed me properly once for electricity yet as there's so much missing half hourly info their system can't generate bills. Given up chasing them.

Careful - I’ve been back billed 8 months as I reminded them. If they miss a single half hour reading in any given day then they will switch you automatically to the standard tariff for the whole day (regardless of any other readings). I complained and they responded “it’s a beta product” and “no one is responsible for half hour meter readings”.

 

[Tenatious]

Careful - I’ve been back billed 8 months as I reminded them. If they miss a single half hour reading in any given day then they will switch you automatically to the standard tariff for the whole day (regardless of any other readings). I complained and they responded “it’s a beta product” and “no one is responsible for half hour meter readings”.

Not sure why they'd do that or how they can justify it. Your meter retains the half hourly readings for 13 months. They just need to be able to get hold of them.

 

[David T]

I moved into a new build on 30 June. I brought Octopus Go with me. Pod Point arranged a charging point within a week and they fitted it on 1 July. House was fitted with SMETS2 meters next to each other. Octopus can “see” the electricity meter, but not the gas meter.... First they said they needed to work internally to “see” it, then they said an engineer visit was needed. Nothing has been arranged yet and I have to submit monthly gas meter readings. They bill me regularly for gas use. The electricity meter is working fine with the Go tariff and I can see half hourly use on my account - but they never bill me..... I have to ask them to do this.

Really poor service. If the rate wasn’t so good, I’d have ditched them long ago

 

[Marvin03]

Not sure why they'd do that or how they can justify it. Your meter retains the half hourly readings for 13 months. They just need to be able to get hold of them.

Ok useful thanks. They’ve missed one reading for me

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Not sure why they'd do that or how they can justify it. Your meter retains the half hourly readings for 13 months. They just need to be able to get hold of them.

I'd love to see them justify that to the ombudsman. You sign up for one tariff and they randomly bill you on a higher one because reasons..

 

[Simavon]

I'd love to see them justify that to the ombudsman. You sign up for one tariff and they randomly bill you on a higher one because reasons..

After reading these posts I clicked through all the daily graphs. I can’t see any evidence of missing data. I need to email them back and ask them to get their act together. Our DD is based on a rate much higher than go and high usage and they’re using us as a free overdraft facility by not producing any bills.

 

[ACarneiro]

Alternatively you can just reduce your DD amount (this can be done from the website), keep your head down and hope you go over the 12 month mark. At that point you’ll be getting free electricity… somehow I suspect it’ll all be fixed before then.

 

[Adopado]

After reading these posts I clicked through all the daily graphs. I can’t see any evidence of missing data. I need to email them back and ask them to get their act together. Our DD is based on a rate much higher than go and high usage and they’re using us as a free overdraft facility by not producing any bills.

I always recommend that people only pay bills for actual amount used. Averaged Direct Debits always end up with you building up a surplus in the energy company’s bank account! You can just set up a variable DD for monthly bills.