Film director’s despair at epic saga of ‘duplicitous’ Ovo Energy bills

Bruce Robinson is at his wit’s end. The award-winning film director and screenwriter, best known for Withnail and I and The Killing Fields, is clutching a sheaf of documents. These are the letters and bills he’s received; and if he printed off the emails, there would be many more.

They relate to what Robinson describes as his “nightmare”, his seemingly never-ending dispute with Ovo Energy.

These days Robison lives in the Herefordshire countryside. He is writing scripts, currently working on one for Columbia Pictures. The row relates to £1,058.53, which Ovo claimed in April 2022 that Robinson owed them from 25 months previously, starting March 2020 and ending April 2021.

It’s a relatively small amount, and Robinson could clearly afford to pay it, but he won’t. On a point of principle, he refuses.

Ofgem rules are explicit: the consumer cannot be charged for gas or electricity used more than 12 months ago if they have not been correctly billed for it or informed about it, via a statement of account, before; this includes situations where a supplier increases their direct debit because it was set too low; ‘suppliers cannot use this to recover any shortfall for a period longer than 12 months ago’.

Robinson says he has always paid his bills promptly, he was paying Ovo by direct debit and was about £1,000 in credit with them. It’s this money he believes they want to recover, by moving the goalposts and saying they did not charge him enough and that instead, he owes them.

As he has pointed out repeatedly and vociferously, their claim falls outside the Ofgem 12-month limit. Then, last month, Ovo wrote changing the dates, saying the charge covered, not March 2020 to April 2021, but December 2020 to October 2021, which falls within the 12-month cut-off.

Ovo should be careful. Under Section 27 of the Theft Act ‘‘False Accounting’,’ a person could be liable for prison for up to seven years if they provide false information on a record or document for their own gain. ‘This may well include backdating a document if it meant they would gain something from it.’

Earlier this year, Ovo was one of two energy companies fined £4m by Ofgem for overcharging. It’s Britain’s third-largest energy provider, serving 4 million households.

The firm recently disclosed it had experienced a “challenging” year that saw profits fall 90 per cent, from £159m to £20m. Its investors, Mayfair Equity Partners and Morgan Stanley, put in a further £200m.

Like all suppliers, Ovo was hit with enormous volatility in the gas market in the summer of 2021 caused by Russia’s squeezing of supplies ahead of its invasion of Ukraine. As a result, 30 smaller suppliers went to the wall in late 2021, early 2022, forcing the government to intervene and subsidise all household energy bills.

Prior to the government’s move, there were fears that Ovo would breach its covenants and go under. Since then, the company has said it can meet its obligations but its bad-debts provision has increased.

Last month, Ofgem wrote to suppliers warning them not to pay dividends unless they were “financially stable”. Ovo also owes £33m to Imagination Industries for branding rights.

It's against this backdrop of intense financial pressure that Ovo has been trying to extract cash from the likes of Robinson.

What riles him, apart from what he says is the barefaced cheek in trying it on in this fashion, is the fact that his complaints have gone unanswered.

In November 2022, Robinson’s lawyer wrote to Ovo by recorded delivery, pointing out the company was seeking the outstanding balance from allegedly “a change in your charges from over a year ago” when they were “surely aware, as is clear on the Ofgem website, that you are not entitled to charge for gas and electricity used more than 12 months previously, if the customer has not been correctly billed for it or informed about it in a previous statement”.

Robinson says: “My solicitor received no response whatsoever. In February 2023, after more demands from them, including a ‘final notice’ and ‘Dear Bruce’ emails offering to ‘assist’ me with my payment, we wrote again, from my lawyer to their legal department, by special delivery. Again, there was no response.”

In March 2023, his lawyer sent another letter to the Ovo legal director. Yet again there was no reply. In total, Ovo was sent nine recorded delivery letters from Robinson and his solicitor. All were unanswered.

His own exchanges with Ovo via email are worthy of one of his film scripts. In one, they write “This is the bill you feel includes back-dated charges for energy.”

Robinson’s rejoinder: “I don’t ‘feel’ it, I read it in words written by Ovo Energy, that ‘we’ve realised that we didn’t charge you in full for your electricity between 23/03/20 and 05/04/2021.’”

Ovo, he says, is persisting with a “duplicitous outrage of trying to back-bill me for money [they] are not entitled to.”

He questions whether “is it not in reality, an attempt to recoup the refunds [they] were obliged to forfeit for overcharging me in the first place?”

He is despairing. Robinson says: “I’ve repeatedly offered to pay my legitimate electricity bill, pay it, fully and finally, to disassociate myself from Ovo Energy. After a year of phoney invoices, threats of bailiffs, and contemptuous disregard for my correspondence, I’ve had enough of it… This endless, baseless harassment, from Ovo Energy, has begun to seriously interfere with my creative process – the way I have always earned my living – and it must stop.”

On it goes. After 15 months and counting, there seems to be no end in sight. Robinson is fortunate, in that he can tackle Ovo’s demands head-on and he has the resources to push back.

Others, presumably, are not so lucky, which begs the question: how much has Ovo collected in this fashion, how much have they extracted from telling folk wrongly they owe Ovo for unpaid energy bills? It needs answering, by Ofgem or a select committee of MPs.

In a statement, Ovo said: “We have reviewed the necessary backbilling to Mr Robinson’s account. The outstanding balance is due to the direct debit previously being set too low and we haven’t received any payments since April 2022. We’re here to support with a manageable repayment plan and help is available.”

Withnail and I spawned a cult following, its lines receiving a constant airing. One that seems appropriate for the situation he finds himself in is this: “Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.” Not if it belongs to Ovo.