I am now with Octopus, since last December. I ended up ditching British Gas after my gas smart meter stopped reporting to the DCC and BG didn’t bill me for 3 months. They claimed there was nothing wrong, but the CS rep who was based somewhere else in the world genuinely didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and so without further hesitation, I switched to Octopus. I took advantage of a referral from a long standing friend and former colleague, so we both got £50 off our bills.
Anyway, within a month of joining, Octopus sent out an engineer and he pulled the Comms hub and that restarted the gas meter reporting once again to the DCC. He admitted however it was likely that it would happen again and that when it did, they’d just replace the lot, electric and gas meters and the Comms hub because in the 3.5 years that have passed since they were installed, there have been various firmware upgrades which my smart meters won’t have.
On top of all that, I applied for and received a Octopus mini hub which now updates all of my smart meter information directly to Octopus. It’s faultless and my usage is all there to see in app 24/7 anywhere I am in the world.
I’m still paying my bills by monthly variable direct because I still find it far easier to budget by paying for what I use exactly month to month. I also know I could be paying slightly less by switching to another energy company but to be honest, I’m more than happy with Octopus customer service.
My own calculations this morning via bills for the last 24 months indicate that I’m paying about £400 a year more than I was pre-Ukraine invasion, so around £1100 a year as it stands. We’ve been lucky, we’ve not had the horrific monthly bills so many seem to have endured these last 2 years and of course the 6 months ‘free’ electricity the Government paid for, was an absolute bonus in my book.
Let’s see what happens with the next predicted fall in the price cap in July.