I am £1700 in credit with Octopus. I use about £330 a month of gas and electric according to my last few bills.
I would like them to refund me about £1000, leaving me 2 months in credit. They take £380pm by DD.
They won't refund me until I give them a meter reading - which I can easily do but I'm on a smart meter - they can see my meter readings more easily than I can. I have called them and told them I'm on a smart meter but they still require the reading and won't elaborate as to why - just "we do".
Are they being difficult, not wanting to refund the money or just stupid?
(Miss Z vows never to use them as they threatened her with legal action when she was significantly in credit with them.)
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I do enjoy a nice coincidence. Changed to Octopus this morning after years of EDF. Pretty sure the Intelligent tariff is going to be a fair bit cheaper for me.
I plan on changing their "pay a fixed amount they decide monthly" madness to "just pay for what I've used" instead, as soon as the dust settles. The small print tells me that's an option, so we'll see.
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I suspect so far as Zippy's OP is concerned it's a case of computer says no and nobody having the appetite/authority to frig it so that it takes the Smart read.
Is the meter chez Zippy difficult to access?
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>> Is the meter chez Zippy difficult to access?
>>
It's slightly difficult, not very difficult.
The main obstacle is b***** mindedness (mine).
Why invest in this technology if it's not going to be used properly?
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>>Intelligent tariff...
I am tempted to get an EV (perhaps a pre-registered Leaf) to get on the tariff and dump several KW of power in to a Tesla Powerwall or similar. The very rough man-maths says it should work.
Mrs Z won't run appliances at night after a major fire at my aunt's several years ago when running a tumble drier on Economy 7.
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I know what you mean about load shifting to the night. I guess I'm thinking of Nest Protect alarms in the utility room and the one upstairs will give us warning.
My in laws have the perfect solution to this though. Since 1946, they have never left anything electrical plugged in at night, except the fridge, very reluctantly.
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My very rough man math suggests spending £13,000 plus on a powerwall to save perhaps £500 max per year on electricity is not a particularly attractive idea.
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I have read of this meter reading requirement before, maybe it's their only form of checking your authority to make a withdrawal. They can check what you tell then against what they can see. I suppose you could have moved out of the property a month ago and just not told them or something.
I'm sure my bank has "just taken me through security" even though they'd rung me on the number stated in my account, and the call was planned and expected. Taking a meter reading is not as tricky as remembering your second cat's date of birth :-)
You could always just leave your own wealth with them and close your account just to spite them, I doubt they'd mind.
Re the battery thing, you could, of course, get on an export tariff with your supplier, charge your batteries at the cheap rate and sell it back at the more expensive. I know people with batteries and EVs and they do have very small or zero electricity bills. However I absolutely agree with CGN, more so with falling fuel prices. And I'm sure I read that home batteries only have a reasonably limited number of cycles in their lifetime. This article is of relevance too, electriccarhome.co.uk/battery-storage/whats-the-lifetime-of-a-home-battery/
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If anyone with Octopus has a referral link, it's not too late for me to use it, apparently.
He who replies first!
Last edited by: Crankcase on Sun 9 Jul 23 at 12:10
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Smokie will be along shortly...
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I save roughly £1500/year on Intelligent Octopus. Average unit rate over 5000 units is 9p/kWh. Obviously it helps if you have an EV to suck up the electricity. The solar/ battery install is returning £200/month in export payments.
To be honest I'd just give them the meter reading. Smart meters do occasionally transmit dodgy data (some meters double the values in error) so at £380/month usage you'll want to double check it anyway, I'd have thought.
Edit: my referral link:
share.octopus.energy/cute-dingo-92
Thanks!
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Sun 9 Jul 23 at 14:57
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..."Fursty Ferret", forever henceforth to be known as "Cute Dingo"...
;-)
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I've applied your link, Fursty, since you were lucky enough to be first. Sorry to others.
I'm assuming it will work for both of us. It says:
Your referral was applied. You will receive £50 credit when you come on supply
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I hope you have more luck with their Wheel of Fortune than me. I've been eagerly spinning it twice a month for over 2 years, and not a penny piece has come my way.
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I didn't know what that was.
Found it, spun it, lost.
Reminds me that in the early eighties there was a petrol station in Plymouth that had somehow rigged up a similar giant physical wheel thingy to the pump. It spun as you filled, stopped when you did, and if you were lucky ....
Never won or saw anyone win on that either.
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>> I hope you have more luck with their Wheel of Fortune than me. I've been
>> eagerly spinning it twice a month for over 2 years, and not a penny piece
>> has come my way.
>>
A couple of years ago I won a pound.
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>> I hope you have more luck with their Wheel of Fortune than me. I've been
>> eagerly spinning it twice a month for over 2 years, and not a penny piece
>> has come my way.
You and I also. Has anyone ever come up with a win?
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Funny as around where I am there are regular adverts for them saying that they are the only Which recommended supplier and are number one for customer service!
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Fursty, if you are about:
The referral to Octopus you gave me in July didn't apply in my first bill, just issued, so I'm assuming you didn't get your £50 either.
Octopus say it's fine, they will apply it - as long as I give them either your name and address(!) or the email you use for Octopus.
So if you see this and want to pursue it, let me know. Mods - it's ok to give Fursty my email if he asks.
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I've sent him a note to take a look at this. If all fails you can of course have my referral code :-)
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>> The referral to Octopus you gave me in July didn't apply in my first bill,
>> just issued, so I'm assuming you didn't get your £50 either.
>>
>> Octopus say it's fine, they will apply it - as long as I give them
>> either your name and address(!) or the email you use for Octopus.
>>
Just appeared on my account, cheers! :-)
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Yeah, had to nudge. Mine appeared as a "Customer goodwill gesture", but it appeared.
Ta for that.
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I’m with Octopus. Forced there when Bulb blew. I only pay monthly. No DD. No complaints.
2 bed cottage. No gas only oil. Pay roughly £120.00 pcm up from £80.00 after Putin ruggered things up.
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Is there anyone on Octopus tracker, region H, who uses Google calendar and would be interested in receiving the daily electric/gas tariff updates in their calendar pretty much as soon as it's published?
Just for fun I've written a little routine to do this and written it into a calendar which you can overlay on yours. I could look at adding other regions but I've no need to just for myself... :-)
I also have the capability to send a reminder mail at midnight with the upcoming day's gas and electricity tariff.
(I also worked out how to send an alert with the new price to my mobile but it would be too intrusive to add other as I'd require your phone details in my Home Assistant, which gives me way more info than you'd want, plus you'd need to install Home Assistant on your phone and thereby have access to my Home Assistant.)
This was how I wasted a few hours some weeks ago :-)
EDIT: It can also be used with Microsoft Outlook or, I believe, any iCal format calendar.
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 30 Aug 23 at 09:40
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Powerwalls aren't that cheap.
I paid around 10K for a 25KWh battery (10 x 2.5) with 2 x 3.6 KW charge/inverters, meaning, unlike Tesla that can only pull around 2KW, I can do up to 7.2KW.
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Does that make economic sense? I assume you must be a fairly heavy consumeer of electricity.
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C4P, don’t say anything without your lawyer present…..
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>> C4P, don’t say anything without your lawyer present…..
>>
- correction - the latest Powerwall can pull 5KW both ways, not the 2KW I mentioned
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yes - about 35KWh per day. More in winter
Last edited by: car4play on Fri 1 Sep 23 at 17:35
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I'm with Octopus and have smart meters.
However, because our batteries mean we don't use any daytime electricity it makes our usage look suspicious. Even though they can read the smart meters remotely within the half hour, they still send some poor guy around every few weeks to check our meters and take a reading - presumably because it looks like we have tampered with the meter.
Chatting to the guy confirmed this. Apparently meter tampering is quite common, so not only does he read the meter, he looks for wires etc bypassing the meter from the incoming terminal.
They probably will want a photo to confirm all is good, or will send someone around to check.
In light of this you can't blame them really.
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Shell has announced it will sell its UK and Germany home energy businesses, to Octopus Energy Group
www.energylivenews.com/2023/09/01/octopus-acquires-shell-energy/
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>> Shell has announced it will sell its UK and Germany home energy businesses, to Octopus
>> Energy Group
I hope they don't take on Shell energy staff. I was with Shell energy for a while and their customer service was abysmal. When I moved houe, they told me I couldn't keep my landline number, but would have to take out a new (higher price) contract. I moved a mile down the road, in the same exchange area. I worked in that exchange up until I retired!
I don't like being lied to.
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Octopus Customer Service - Crankcase
