Victoria Coren Mitchell in ‘despair’ after Ovo Energy takes thousands from account

Victoria Coren Mitchell has accused Ovo Energy of “driving her to despair” after “wrongly” taking thousands from her bank account.

The television presenter has suggested she would take legal action after claiming the energy firm took an erroneously large payment.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, she said: “Nothing but legal action will do for them now.”

She said that she had “reached the end of the road” and argued that the supplier was “the most terrible service provider” she had encountered.

“No company could possibly be worse than Ovo Energy who, quite apart from the money they’ve wrongly taken, have driven me personally to despair,” she added.

In a straw poll of more than 30,000 users on the social media site, she then asked whether rival Octopus Energy offered a better service, with respondents backing Octopus by 87pc.

Ovo replied and said: “We’re sorry about your recent experience with us. One of our senior complaint handlers has reached out via email to address this situation for you as a matter of urgency. We hope we can fully resolve this for you quickly.”

The supplier’s customers have previously complained about poor customer service and the energy company was found to have handed customers bills of up to £116,000 in a single month, according to the BBC.

It was forced to apologise amid the energy crisis in 2022 when a division of Ovo issued energy-saving advice to households, telling them to have “a cuddle with your pets and loved ones to help stay cosy”.

The Bristol-headquartered firm is considered one of the “big six” energy companies in Britain, along with British Gas, EDF Energy, E.ON, RWE npower, Scottish Power and SSE, but has been dogged by a poor reputation for customer service.

In August Ofgem, the energy regulator, ordered Ovo to improve its customer service, amid concerns over the gas and electricity supplier’s handling of complaints.

Consumer group Which? currently gives Ovo a three-star rating on overall customer service, while Octopus scores five stars. Ovo is given only two stars for its “quality of communications about energy costs”. The research is partly based on surveys of each company’s customers.

Ms Coren Mitchell’s post attracted hundreds of replies, many of which shared dissatisfaction with Ovo and praise for Octopus. In one, author Caitlin Moran said: “Totally recommend Octopus, albeit fractionally pained by their slightly over-chatty emails about how to read your meter. But that’s more a peevish style-gripe than ‘Why are my lights empty of fuel?’”

In another, Greg Jackson, the chief executive of Octopus, said: “We’re not perfect, but consistently at or near top of service tables.”

Consumers have increasingly questioned vast shock bills from energy providers. Sir Grayson Perry said he was “freaked out” in December by a bill from EDF that took £2,500 from his bank account after the firm raised his monthly bill from £300 to £39,000.

EDF said at the time that “in almost all such cases, system errors are rectified and prevented, without customers being impacted”.

Ovo Energy was approached for comment.

Recommended

The energy-wasting teatime habits adding £205 to your bill

Read more