I was switched to pay-as-you-go by an agent when he was changing my gas meter
Ovo Energy fitted smart meters to our flat for both gas and electricity last September. I requested that the meters report my usage to Ovo on a monthly basis, but in November, after some issues with the readings, I asked for the gas meter to report daily so that I could keep an eye on it. Three days later I got home to discover I had no electricity.
As my account was more than £300 in credit I assumed something was wrong in our flat so changed the fuses, checked cabling and, in the end, called Ovo. Its call centre is not 24 hours, so I was put through to UK Power Networks, which sent two friendly engineers at 2am to have a look. Power was going to the meter so, from their end, things looked fine. After a bitterly cold night without heating or light, I discovered that, in the process of making the changes to my gas meter, Ovo’s agent had switched my electricity meter to pay-as-you-go. Since it had no money stored on it, and couldn’t access the £300 in my online account, it quickly ran through the emergency “credit” and I was disconnected.
Read more: theguardian.com
