FiT complaint result!

[Oldgreybeard]

Our FiT provider, SSE, have been a shambles for years, often paying us months too late. Our last FiT payment (until a couple of weeks ago) was in July 2021, and despite me constantly chasing them they refused to respond, either on the phone (they just never answer), by email, or by letter. Eventually I got really fed up, so a few weeks ago I complained to OFGEM. Not the easiest process, but it did get SSE's attention, and they made up a pack of lies about it being me that wasn't responding to them, trying to make out that the delay was due to Covid (it wasn't, that had nothing to do with it). They did pay us nearly £1200 in overdue FiT payments a couple of weeks ago though, so OFGEM had clearly focussed their attention.

Just had the formal result of OFGEM's enquiry, they've upheld all aspects of my complaint and ordered SSE to write me a letter of apology and pay £75 compensation for their poor service. I call that a result, I just hope that it gets SSE to get their act together and stop delaying future payments.

[dan_b]

Nice one - a shame you had to go through that but as you say you got the right result.

[Fintray]

I got this email from SSE on Thursday so expect that you will be the same:

"SSE Energy Services became part of the OVO family in 2020. We want to make sure that you enjoy all the benefits this brings. So we're pleased to let you know that your Feed-in Tariff (FiT) is moving to OVO Energy. You don't need to do anything - we'll be in touch as soon as your move is complete."

"OVO Energy will ask for FiT readings every
3 months. Your read dates will change from your current dates to every March, June, September and December. Once you've moved over to OVO, they'll be in touch with the date your next read is due. You won't see a gap in payments."

"OVO Energy makes payments after Ofgem has finished its review. Once OVO receives all quarterly meter readings, they send the information to Ofgem through a process called levelisation. Ofgem calculates credits and sends them to OVO, who can then make payments. This takes a little while, so you'll get your payment about eight weeks after the end of the reading month."

[Oldgreybeard]

Best bit was that OFGEM made it clear in their adjudication that they didn't believe SSE, and that the "evidence" that SSE had submitted (from their own records and accounting system) had obviously been falsified. Whoever retrospectively tried to make their records look as if they had been trying to contact me, allegedly without getting a reply, was too dim to realise that the dates and times they had entered didn't tally at all with the dates and times of the few emails they had actually sent!

It clearly wasn't just a series of errors on their part, they deliberately set out to try and delay paying. The final bit of evidence that showed that this was what they were doing came from the meter reader, a contracted company, as they provided dates of the generation meter having been read, together with data that had been submitted and confirmed as having been received by SSE, which flew in the face of the defence that SSE put forward.

TBH, I think I've worked pretty hard to get that £75 compensation, and I doubt that it made sense in terms of the time I spent on it, but it was the principle that was important to me. Ever since we had the system installed in 2014 I've had problems with late and missed payments. At first SSE claimed this was due to problems with their IT system, but after several years of having to constantly chase them up I became convinced that they were just delaying payments deliberately, as they'd rather hang on to the money than pay it out. It didn't help that we were using SSE as our supplier until a couple of years ago, and our annual cost of consumed electricity has always been a lot lower than the FiT and export payments.

I got this email from SSE on Thursday so expect that you will be the same:

"SSE Energy Services became part of the OVO family in 2020. We want to make sure that you enjoy all the benefits this brings. So we're pleased to let you know that your Feed-in Tariff (FiT) is moving to OVO Energy. You don't need to do anything - we'll be in touch as soon as your move is complete."

"OVO Energy will ask for FiT readings every
3 months. Your read dates will change from your current dates to every March, June, September and December. Once you've moved over to OVO, they'll be in touch with the date your next read is due. You won't see a gap in payments."

"OVO Energy makes payments after Ofgem has finished its review. Once OVO receives all quarterly meter readings, they send the information to Ofgem through a process called levelisation. Ofgem calculates credits and sends them to OVO, who can then make payments. This takes a little while, so you'll get your payment about eight weeks after the end of the reading month."

I suspect that you're right, and that the compensation payment will be delayed as well. The long delayed FiT payment we received a couple of weeks ago did come from SSE, though, rather than OVO.

[nowty]

"OVO Energy makes payments after Ofgem has finished its review. Once OVO receives all quarterly meter readings, they send the information to Ofgem through a process called levelisation. Ofgem calculates credits and sends them to OVO, who can then make payments. This takes a little while, so you'll get your payment about eight weeks after the end of the reading month."

8 weeks !, I've always been paid about 7 days after sending my reading with British Gas.

[Oldgreybeard]

8 weeks !, I've always been paid about 7 days after sending my reading with British Gas.

The fastest we have ever been paid was about 10 weeks, the normal delay is about 12 weeks after submitting the meter reading, and waiting 6 months is far from unusual. If they start paying me 8 weeks after submitting a reading I will see that as a very big improvement, given that the last payment was made 53 weeks after submitting the reading . . .

FWIW, our FiT agreement from 2014 states that payment will normally be made 12 weeks after submitting a meter reading. That was SSE's standard terms, it seems.

[Joeboy]

8 weeks !, I've always been paid about 7 days after sending my reading with British Gas.

The fastest we have ever been paid was about 10 weeks, the normal delay is about 12 weeks after submitting the meter reading, and waiting 6 months is far from unusual. If they start paying me 8 weeks after submitting a reading I will see that as a very big improvement, given that the last payment was made 53 weeks after submitting the reading . . .

FWIW, our FiT agreement from 2014 states that payment will normally be made 12 weeks after submitting a meter reading. That was SSE's standard terms, it seems.

Around a week for us with BG. Coincidence abounds, submitted reading this morning. Will track timeframe. Can TRANSFER FIT provider I think? Good news on the result though!

[Oldgreybeard]

Been seriously thinking of changing FiT provider, TBH. I may well change as soon as I've had the compensation payment from SSE.

[Tinbum]

BG has been good with my payments, mainly within a week of reading.

[cojmh]

We are with Good Energy and they generally pay 2 months after the meter reading. So not as fast as others, but they have been reliable on the time scale as long as meter readings have been provided. We have been with them for 7 years and have always kept our FIT payments separate from our supplier