Summary: _______ This is related to GAS ONLY. Electricity is with another supplier. I live alone in a one bedroom flat. Due to meter errors, I have been in contact with SSE, and subsequently OVO for over 4 years, due to their inability to resolve the problem. The issue is still not resolved, and now they say I owe them almost £21,000 and have attempted to set my direct debit from £14 to £1,768 a month! They have even sent a debt collector to my property (I wasn't in) They still haven't checked the validity of the meter. I have been unable to change suppliers during this time too. Detail: ------ I moved into my new flat in April 2015. Despite being a new build, and therefore a new supply, the gas account was already assigned to SSE when I moved in. I registered with my details, set up a direct debit, and all appeared fine. I never really use heating (I probably spend more on the air conditioner over a year) but this was the first place I'd been where the plumbed in shower was powered by gas, so I expected to see a rise in my typical gas bill. I was getting charged around £15 a month - I thought it would be a little bit more, but I had this "state of the art" new efficient gas boiler, (arranged by the builders, not me) so I assumed it was doing a good job. After all, my meter was being read regularly (frequent bills were not marked with 'estimate'), and there seemed to be no issues. (All the meters are in the buildings general "boiler room" downstairs, so the meters were being read by someone getting access via the landlord etc.) This wasn't a problem for the first 5 or so years (or so I thought) Anyway, fast forward to covid lockdowns. I get a call from SSE asking me to send in a meter reading, as their meter readers can't get out due to lockdown. I go downstairs, liaise with the landlord, and locate the meter for my flat, and the reading is about 38,000 units! The last value they had was around 480! I did some back and fore with Scottish Power (at the time) and they said that obviously my meter is buggered, and when the covid restrictions are lifted, they'll be replacing the meter with a smart meter anyway, so it will all be sorted by then, so for now, just continue as I am. About a year later, getting concerned, we called them again. They had no record of the prior conversation! so we had to go through the whole rigmarole again. Sent photos of the meter etc. and it became apparent that there was a meter mix-up: Whilst the flat numbers on the meters were correct, they were billing based on the serial numbers, and they'd mixed up my meter with the meter of the tenant next door! They said they'd need to send someone out to check the meters in person... More waiting, the without warning, in February 2022, Scottish Power sold the account to OVO energy. No information about my meter or issues were passed on - the account was passed on with the original low usage reading on the meter. At this time, the landlord for the building got involved, because not only was this affecting my neighbour, it turned out it was affecting 2 other tenants too! Similar issue! Her dealings with OVO had to start again from scratch.. They were just as slow as Scottish Power were, faffing around for photos, and saying we need an engineer to visit. etc. Fast forward to last December. It seems the "correct" meter reading has now been put on the account (and it's not even certain that the "correct" meter reading is accurate!). Since they inherited the account with the low number about a year ago, in their eyes, I've used pretty much 8 years of gas in the last year, and they have thus billed me for it all, based on gas prices THIS YEAR, and have also averaged out the monthly usage based on this figure, hence why my monthly usage the last year is averaging so highly! We had to call OVO again, explaining the situation, etc. all over again. The landlord finally sent the whole thing to the ombudsman. She had to have a name on the ticket of one of the customers involved, so she chose the tenant downstairs from me, but the ticket was dealing with the 4 flats. Now this was sitting with the ombudsman, who was also dragging their feet. Before they had completed their investigation, unfortunately, the tenant downstairs died. The ombudsman, and OVO, on hearing this, CLOSED THE WHOLE TICKET. The ombudsman did add "I couldn't really do much anyway, they said it was with their technical team" BLOODY HELL, that's what they've been telling us for 2 years, that's why we called the ombudsman... Anyone have the number for the ombudsman ombudsman? The landlord mentioned that it affected 4 of us, and will still affect the new tenant, but they said nothing they can do, account is closed, so we have to start from scratch for the third time. I know this, because when this happened, all the accounts got unfrozen, and again, all the previous phone calls and correspondence had been forgotten, and I got a bill again. They expect me to pay £6,134 a month (according to their website as of 24 October 2023 - see https://www.jamie.wales/misc/gas_bill-20231024.png) - I live alone in a one bedroom flat! OK, I have a living room, bathroom, and kitchen, too, but they aren't THAT extravagant! :-) We went to the ombudsman again. Their response "Naughty OVO. Pay the bill, we'll make them knock off £200 for your trouble." When we rejected that, the bills carried on coming again, as if nothing had happened. The have even sent someone to the flat to collect money (I wasn't in), but they charged £35 for the privilege! As of now, this is my billing history. Do they really think this is normal? 3 monthly: -------- 8 Aug 2019 – 9 Nov 2020 : £ -0.07 10 Nov 2020 – 17 Feb 2021 : £ 35.82 18 Feb 2021 – 13 May 2021 : £ 33.36 14 May 2021 – 16 Aug 2021 : £ 26.91 17 Aug 2021 – 9 Nov 2021 : £ 27.76 monthly: ------- 28 Feb 2022 – 27 Mar 2022 : £2,339.85 28 Mar 2022 – 27 Apr 2022 : £3,146.63 28 Apr 2022 – 27 May 2022 : £1,834.16 28 May 2022 – 27 Jun 2022 : £1,186.62 28 Jun 2022 – 27 Jul 2022 : £ 792.40 28 Jul 2022 – 27 Aug 2022 : £ 674.26 28 Aug 2022 – 27 Sep 2022 : £1,083.14 28 Sep 2022 – 27 Oct 2022 : £2,717.31 28 Oct 2022 – 27 Nov 2022 : £ 222.56 28 Nov 2022 – 27 Dec 2022 : £ 374.76 28 Dec 2022 – 27 Jan 2023 : £ 358.79 28 Jan 2023 – 27 Feb 2023 : £ 339.49 28 Feb 2023 – 27 Mar 2023 : £ 278.81 28 Mar 2023 – 27 Apr 2023 : £ 262.42 28 Apr 2023 – 27 May 2023 : £ 188.01 28 May 2023 – 27 Jun 2023 : £ 96.64 28 Jun 2023 – 27 Jul 2023 : £ 79.72 28 Jul 2023 – 27 Aug 2023 : £ 75.27 28 Aug 2023 – 27 Sep 2023 : £ 83.41 28 Sep 2023 – 27 Oct 2023 : £ 154.04 28 Oct 2023 – 27 Nov 2023 : £ 195.41 28 Nov 2023 – 27 Dec 2023 : £ 263.25 28 Dec 2023 – 27 Jan 2024 : £ 342.74 28 Jan 2024 – 27 Feb 2024 : £ 293.80 28 Feb 2024 – 27 Mar 2024 : £ 243.37 28 Mar 2024 – 27 Apr 2024 : £ 157.23 28 Apr 2024 – 27 May 2024 : £ 85.84 28 May 2024 – 27 Jun 2024 : £ 75.31 28 Jun 2024 – 27 Jul 2024 : £ 49.85 28 Jul 2024 – 27 Aug 2024 : £ 76.38 I have copies of all bills, emails, and photographic evidence, if required. These show the constant repetitive back and forth; them repeatedly asking for photos of the meter (even though they'd repeatedly been sent), and their ability to seemingly forget all prior correspondence every time. Some simple meter cock-up (on their behalf) that they've known about for 4 years, and yet, we are no closer to getting it sorted than we were when I first discovered the issue. This is not good for my health or sanity.