05 April 2023 , 14:09
595
0
A family wrongly charged £18,000 for two months of gas is "elated" at having the debt cleared, after the Mirror stepped in to help end their 16-month battle with OVO Energy.
NHS nurse Fardusa Hassan had been going back and forth with OVO since January 2022, asking them to correct an error with her parents' smart gas meter, registered to her mother Halimo Mohamed's name.
At the beginning of April, close to a year and a half after Fardusa logged her first complaint, the family's account finally had the huge debt cleared and a substantial amount of credit added to it.
Fardusa received an email informing her of the change to the account balance just hours after the Mirror published a story about the family's battle with OVO.
Around £2,000 had been refunded to the account for instances they had been overcharged and the company had given them £200 in credit as a "good will" payment.
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade
Fardusa said her parents were “elated, so happy that it finally sorted”.
NHS nurse Fardusa with her parents, Ahmed and Halimo (Tim Merry / Daily Mirror)“This has caused a lot of stress for all of us and it’s been such a frustrating process throughout, dealing with this and with OVO, who’ve not actually addressed the issue or been particularly helpful," she said.
“They were quite happy they were getting some money back, as it’s clear they’ve been overcharged over the years."
She said it appeared OVO was able to fix the issue swiftly, despite having contacted her a week before, apologising and expressing their regret that they could not revise the bill until the smart meter was fixed.
“It’s a shame that it took me going to these lengths and actually going to the press for them to actually take action," she said.
"It’s not as though I hadn’t provided the information or that they didn’t have anything to work with - they had everything they needed.
“Even after I complained to the ombudsman they were still dragging their feet. It’s problematic."
The Smart Gas Meter which was fitted at Fardusa's family home in 2018 (Tim Merry / Daily Mirror)
Fardusa had been going back and forth with OVO since January 2022 (Tim Merry / Daily Mirror)Mrs Mohamed and Fardusa's dad, Ahmed Hassan, had received incorrect estimated gas readings that saw their account charged £18,066.19 for the two months from July 9 2022 to August 9 2022.
The erroneous readings began materialising from the smart gas meter after it were fitted at the family house in 2018. In essence it emerged the meter had reset itself to zero but then - in a short time frame - jumped back to the full tally for gas used.
This wrongly indicated an far greater rate of consumption by the family - massively skewing the estimates, wiping out the credit their account was actually in and placing it at a massive deficit.
Greggs, Costa & Pret coffees have 'huge differences in caffeine', says report
At one point the estimated readings showed the household had gone through 1,000 m3 volume of gas units in one month - around 10 times what the average UK household would use - resulting in the £18,066.19 bill for just two months.
At the beginning of last year, Fardusa took on this issue herself, to help her parents who spoke English as their second language. She explained both are in their late 60s and "not 100 per cent tech savvy".
Fardusa says the huge sums of money being billed to their account caused a great deal of stress (Tim Merry / Daily Mirror)Fardusa was in touch by phone and email with a number of different customer service representatives from the company over the course of the 16 months. She sent numerous readings from the smart meter and photographic evidence with time and date stamps, but still the billing situation remained unreconciled.
OVO told Fardusa they would fix the issue, she claimed, though she was never given a timeline as to when the metre would be fixed and the debt cleared.
Frustrated at the lack of movement, she contacted the Energy Ombudsman which responded to her in February to tell her that her complaint had been upheld.
An Ombudsman Services spokesperson told the Mirror: “We appreciate mistakes can sometimes happen but suppliers need to take care and ensure consumers are being billed as accurately as possible, otherwise, as in this case, it can result in distress for a consumer. The supplier has been instructed to implement the remedies put forward to them and the dispute has now been resolved.
"If consumers are unhappy with the service they’ve received, we always suggest that they raise it with their energy supplier in the first instance, who’ll aim to find a resolution. If consumers are unable to reach a satisfactory solution, and the complaint is open for longer than eight weeks, then they should contact us.”
In a statement sent to The Mirror prior to the debt being cleared, a spokesperson for OVO said: “We are sincerely sorry to Miss Hassan for the confusion caused by the incorrect meter readings and have issued a £200 goodwill amount to reflect this.
"Her account balance has been recalculated and her meter is being fixed.”
Fardusa claimed she was told by a customer service agent at OVO that "many OVO customers are currently dealing with issues like this".
“That’s quite worrying to hear, because nobody should be going through this," Fardusa said.
“I don’t think you can just sit there and take it. It’s not acceptable for them to treat their customers in this way. They have responsibility and obligation.”