- One of the UK’s largest energy companies, OVO, is to pay £2.37m in compensation for customer complaint failures.
- Ofgem said 1,395 people were affected by lengthy delays in having complaints addressed, with some waiting 18 months.
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, such as the energy industry voluntary redress scheme.
Deputy director of retail compliance at Ofgem Jacqui Gehrmann said it “failed to adequately protect and respond to their customers when it was needed most. “This is not acceptable. The company is Britain’s fourth-biggest household energy supplier and has about four million customers.
Ofgem stated that as many as 1,395 people were affected by lengthy delays in having complaints addressed, with some waiting 18 months. It said affected customers will be contacted directly and do not need to take any action.
The regulator added that when complaints were escalated to the Energy Ombudsman, there were delays in taking action on the decisions.
Since Ofgem became involved in June, OVO has 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 can oversee complaints.
Furthermore, concerns had been raised over when 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.”