Ovo Energy to pay more than £10m over prepayment meter monitoring failings

Ovo Energy has agreed to pay more than £10m after the energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem , found a lack of monitoring of vulnerable customers with prepayment meters (PPMs) could have exposed them to a “clear risk of harm”. Ofgem found that Ovo did not adequately monitor its PPM customers, including those on the priority services register, leading to breaches of the watchdog’s rules designed to protect customers in vulnerable situations. ​​ In response to the findings, Ovo agreed to a settlement package including a £7m payment to Ofgem’s voluntary redress fund as well as a £3.4m package of credit and debt relief for some of its most vulnerable customers, which the regulator said was in lieu of compensation. Any Ovo customers who are due to receive credit or debt write-off payments will be contacted by Ovo and do not need to take any action, Ofgem added. In addition, Ovo – set up by the former Tory donor Stephen Fitzpatrick – is in the process of paying £1.1m to customers in the Scottish Highlands and islands, after compliance work by the regulator found that some rural customers did not have appropriate access to engineer support for more than two years, from 1 January 2022 to 1 April 2024. During Ofgem’s investigation into Ovo, the company took some action to support vulnerable customers, including making welfare visits to people who had been disconnected from their energy supply for more than 72 hours and who had not responded to any communications during that time. …