One of the UK’s largest energy companies OVO is to pay £2.37m in compensation for customer complaint failures.
Energy regulator Ofgem said OVO will pay £378,512 directly to affected customers.
Due to the “severity of consumer detriment” OVO also paid £2m to a fund supporting energy customers and developing energy projects, the energy industry voluntary redress scheme.
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It “failed to adequately protect and respond to their customers when it was needed most”, deputy director of retail compliance at Ofgem Jacqui Gehrmann said. “This is not acceptable.”
The company is Britain’s fourth-biggest household energy supplier and has about four million customers.
What happened?
As many as 1,395 people were affected by lengthy delays in having complaints addressed, Ofgem said, with some waiting 18 months. Affected customers will be contacted directly and do not need to take any action, it said.
When complaints were escalated to the Energy Ombudsman, there were delays in taking action on the decisions, the regulator added.
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A pensioner who faces a fuel payment cut says he worries about whether he will make it through the winter when energy prices go up.
Since Ofgem became involved in June OVO made improvements in its complaints process, Ofgem said.
Now, more resources have been allocated and the complaints system has been changed so senior OVO staff have oversight of complaints.
Concerns had been raised over the time it took OVO to address complaints referred by Citizens Advice Scotland and to take action on decisions from the Energy Ombudsman.
In response to the compensation decision, an OVO spokesperson said:
“We’re now third in the Citizen Advice energy supplier rankings for service.
“However, we recognise that a particular group of our customers in 2023 waited longer than we’d like for a resolution and were overdue a response from us, so we’ve sent them a letter of apology and compensation to help.”
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