[xdebsx]

I only recently started going through and entering older vend codes from my Utilita App receipts into my smart meter, and I was shocked to find that many hadn’t actually gone to my smart meter and my actual gas and electric meters. Some would come up as duplicate(already used) which I know have definitely gone over successfully, but many were successful after typing in the codes yesterday, the money was finally added to my smart meter. I got so far back the last couple months and it’s started denying my vend codes, but continued to show me the successful vend codes flashing up (duplicate-already used). The rest keep being denied. I am positive that these codes are top ups that have not gone to my account and this company have not at any point alerted me to any issue and potentially owe me a fortune in failed top ups. They are giving me excuse after excuse, contradicting themselves with the narratives given to me, blaming me for not manually entering each code directly to my meter. I trusted that their app would do the job it is set up to do and it has clearly failed, but for how long I don’t know. One advisor told me she couldn’t see any issue until I told her about the many top ups I can prove have only just gone to my meter yesterday which was the 26th Nov after I manually typed them in, so she then started looking through my account while I was on the phone to her, and she started picking out vend codes here and there and admitting some hadn’t been successful. I cannot believe that I’m being lied to and told different answers each time I question them. I have demanded they give me proof of every single receipt dating back to 2017 and proof that my receipts(money) have actually been used for gas and electric to my home.

Never ever top up and trust that your money has gone to your meters. Always manually enter vend codes. I have had two different advisors tell me two different things. One telling me it’s my fault I should always enter vend codes manually and another telling me that I should NOT have to enter vend codes manually.

So I sit here waiting on a response of some kind with full proof that MY MONEY has gone to fuelling my home and not into their pocket. I was never ever alerted to any issue with a “bad signal” in my area that prevented some payments from going to the meters, then in the next breathe told that my account looks fine and everything had successfully been topped up, to then being told she can see some payments didn’t go over.

I won’t be letting this go until this is sorted and I can see where every penny of my money has gone.

[Rebecca]

@xdebsx Hi there,

If a vend code says 'duplicate, already used' - this means that is has in fact already gone onto your meter.

At the time of any top-up, if a top-up was not successful, you would know, as your balance would not increase, therefore showing you something has not gone right, and therefore this is when you would attempt to input it manually and it would then show 'successful top-up' message. It would never say 'duplicate' if it had not already gone on, as this means it's already been used.

If you have concerns and are unsure of any top-ups that are outstanding, instead of this causing you time and stress - if you call the Contact Centre - they will have your top-up history for both gas and electric. This will say against each top-up the status of whether it is successful or failed. Any failed they identify they can help get onto you meter. But as I say - at the point of any top-up in real time, you will know if it is failed as you will not see you balance increase.

I hope this all helps and makes sense.

Thanks,
Rebecca

[xdebsx]

I know what a “duplicate” vend code means as I explained. I have been blindly using the Utilita app to top for years and have never actually checked my meters or smart meter to ensure the balance has increased each top up. When I happened to notice something last week I started to compare my app receipts with the smart box and there were several payments from the last couple months that did not go through. I started punching them in manually and my balance increased to £100 for both gas and electric FROM OLDER VEND CODES. Some of those being “duplicate” and the others being failed top ups. But it will not allow me to go back any further to punch in the historical vend codes. It continues to alert me to the ones that are duplicates but there MANY which it is just denying me and I am sure these are older vend codes that did not add to my balance. I have spoken to your advisors repeatedly and been given different stories about my account. In one breath that all older vend codes had successfully gone over (until I told them I had just added SEVERAL manually in one day to which they had absolutely no idea about. They said there was a long standing signal problem in my area and I should’ve been ensuring ever try single code was added manually. I have never done this. She then said she could see some that hadn’t been added and I asked why no one alerted me and she said “well I’m telling you some of them now”. This two minutes after telling me that ALL of my vend codes were successfully added. So it was lies and contradictions. I believe there are many many more vend codes outstanding that the system is not allowing me to manually update, it keeps saying “denied” or “duplicate” which I fully understand is a successful top up. It’s the ones being denied I am questioning. I must’ve been able to manually add a half dozen historical vend codes in one day and my balance kept going up until it’s started denying them. I am taking this to the energy ombudsman because something isn’t right and I believe I’m owed hundreds of pounds or more.

Below are images of just some of the older vend codes it allowed me to enter manually to my smart meter from my Utilita app receipts before it started denying me the older codes.