“Octopus varied my direct debit, according to them, resulting in a negative balance on my account. They adjusted my direct debit to clear the outstanding balance within few months. I cancelled the direct debit and set up a standing order to pay my energy usage and part of the outstanding balance. Without sending my account to debt collection team or external debt collectors, or giving me any warning of any sort even though I spoke to their customer service advisors few times who were okay with my payment method but only advised me to set up a direct debit as their preferred payment method. I only found out that Octopus has nicodemusly put on my credit file that I have an arrears on my account. I phoned to dispute this and they stated that, they put this information on my credit file because I was not paying my bills by direct debit, even though I did not default in any of my payments. I have realised that the so called outstanding balance is not energy I consumed but based on an estimated energy consumed which could be wrong. This is the kind of service Octopus are taking pride in. Switching from Octopus to a more transparent energy supplier with customer service advisors who knows what they are doing is what I will recommend.”
“Octopus Engergy insisted I install a new gas and electric smart meter. The engineer installed the electric meter as agreed some weeks ago but did not install gas meter which is outside because it WAS RAINING. I have contacted octopus for a new date on a few occasions and have been informed they could not give me a date and said it could be months. If and when the gas meter is installed I will be moving supplier. DO NOT USE THIS SHOWER OF USELESS PEOPLE.”
“Arguably, the most appalling company you will ever deal with.
We moved into our Bungalow in March 2025 and as part of the Surveyor’s recommendation that we get rid of the old fuse box and get a new RCD type, I had to contact Octopus energy to get what the electrician called isolator switches for the outside feed box. It is apparently illegal to do this work without these switches being fitted by the energy company and he assured me it would take about a week.
I contacted Octopus stating that I needed isolator switches fitted only to be told (after a 4 day wait) there was a ten to twelve week wait, due to a backlog of work. Both the electrician and I were pretty stunned at this news, but what could I do? I waited four months and still nothing, no contact no feedback, nothing.
I contacted them again, to be told, we don’t quite understand what you’re asking for!! This is after telling me months earlier that the job was pending and would be carried out. So again I had to tell them and again have been told its pending. It has now taken so long, that the electrician has upped the quoted price and I am again forced into a ridiculous waiting time. Just what is wrong with this company?
Every month they ask me to submit a meter reading online and when I do, I get the usual button appear “Would you like a smart meter?” I select yes, only to get the usual message, there are no appointments available in your area and would you like to be placed on the waiting list? I select yes and that’s it…….. until the following month, when I go through the same ridiculous nonsense again. This has been going on for a full year. I am now at a loss to understand what’s happening. It is, I suspect, a company existing on a handful of mainly clueless staff in order to maintain maximum profit. It takes them days to answer an email and then it’s usually a curt meaningless reply. I’ve kept all the emails, but I don’t see what good it will do me. There seems to be no one in authority you can complain to, save for the usual half dozen girls on laptops, dealing out nonsense until, I guess, the poor customer is forced to search out youswitch for a bit of salvation.
Octopus may have been good in the old days, but if you check more recent polls, there is lots of energy companies’ way ahead of them now. Never again. When this is finally over, I’m off, even if it costs more.”
“Incompetent. As if they've no idea what they're doing. Is the worst energy company I've had but reviews were good which I'm suspect about now. Can't wait to leave.”
“This company should be avoided at all costs.
One week after moving in they said I owed them over £700 (in a one bed flat, where I am out most of the day).
They said the previous supplier raised a meter reading dispute - I contacted them, it was not true. They only reversed this when I made a complaint via citizens advice.
Once they took off the fake charge I was £300 in credit, as I pay a lot more on my tariff than I actually use. I requested £200 refund. They emailed me saying I'd receive it in seven days. One week later and no refund + they said the credit never existed in the first place.
You cannot speak to a single person in the company who doesn't try to lie their way through the call.
I'm sure this company is fine if you don't have a problem. But if you do, you'll wish you'd never heard of them.”
“After two years of contacting Customer Services to say our Smart meter wasn’t working properly, and then jumping through their hoops, which included one of their engineers coming out. We find that Octopus installed our smart meter incorrectly and therefore we have been not only overpaying for our electricity (E.g. the meter showed we were using 15kw per day when we were actually on holiday) but we also weren’t getting the export for our solar panels.
Octopus have offered to pay us back a made up amount (as they said they couldn’t calculate it properly) for the export energy of £800 but won’t address the fact we have paid out £100s for electricity we didn’t actually use!!
We are having to go to the Energy Ombudsman. Absolutely appalling”
“£4,000 debt after 5 years in a 1-bed flat — shocking and unfair
After leaving my 1-bedroom flat, Octopus Energy suddenly demanded £4,000 covering 5 years, even though I paid gas and electricity every single month.
What makes this worse is that they initially told me I was £700 in credit, then later changed this to £4,000 in debt.
How can a company go from saying a customer is in credit to demanding thousands of pounds with no clear or transparent explanation?
I was never warned that my payments only covered a “minimum” or that I was building up debt. This feels misleading, stressful, and completely unfair, especially for a small 1-bed flat.
Customers should NOT be hit with massive surprise bills years later.
I would strongly warn others before choosing Octopus Energy.”
“Shocking and extremely disappointing decision by the billing dept and subsequent communications from their customer service team ouzed arrogance.
They mocked me trying to make out my calculations were wrong when trying to prove they'd overcharged me due to a persistent billing fault and faulty meter. There was no urgency and after chasing repeatedly over three months, the agent wrote and asked me to explain what the issue was. Glad to have left this behaviour behind and join a competitor.”
“Octopus energy recently billed us for an astronomical increase. We were away for one month and ironically - that is when the rate spiked. How is this even possible? Don’t trust the reviews on TrustPilot - they are all uploaded within one or two days. They all say the same thing - it’s easy for a company to write their own reviews.”
“It's good while things go as planned, but brace yourselves if you have any issues with your account or service!!!
Back in 2024, the meter-uploading area of their website experienced some glitches or problems where it would only show 2x night rates rather than day AND night, long story short we went from being around £575 in credit in July 2024 to -£1500 or so in September 2024! xD
That was a year and a half ago already and it trigered a ridiculus amount of back and forth emails and incorrect satements, etc, etc (ah, and of course, the joy of having to explain the same issue over and over again to any new person that picks it up on their end...).
Come January 2026 and we're still at it. I see no light at the end of the tunnel, honestly.
Another example: our heaters weren't working when we try to turn them on in November last year, so we called an engenieer and he suggested that the issue sounded like it was realted to something called "RTS" which had been phased out across the UK in July 2024, but that surely our energy supplier would have contacted us about that in advance to sort it out and ensure we could keep up using our heating... They didn't, obviously.
When we contacted Octopus they gave us a date to get someone to come to our place and sort out the issue, I took the day off from work to be there as it was getting cold and we really needed to use heating. 3pm, 4pm, 5pm... no messages, no calls, nothing. So we decide to call them and appartently the engenieer had some issues and wouldn't be able to make it (good thing we called!).
After inisiting and complaining we manged to get them to book us an engenieer to come out later that evening.
So like I said, if all goes smothly it's probably a good company, we didn't have any issues and were fairly happy before all of this. But it seems like any problem you'll come across with them just gets handled the most horrble, slow, and inneficient way possible.”
“The planned changes to the Octopus Intelligent Go tariff feel like a complete step backwards from what made the tariff worthwhile in the first place. Customers signed up because it offered a predictable, affordable off‑peak window that supported EV charging and home energy management. Instead of improving the product, Octopus is now stripping away the very benefits that justified choosing it over competitors.
What makes this even more frustrating is the blanket approach. If a minority of people are abusing the system, then identify and address those cases directly — don’t punish every loyal customer. This kind of broad‑brush response feels lazy and unfair, and it echoes the same tired excuses we hear from governments when they mismanage public money and then make everyone else pay for it.
Adding insult to injury, Octopus has recently been handed £25 million of taxpayers’ money. That’s outrageous when you consider that this funding ultimately comes from the very people now being short‑changed by these tariff changes. Octopus built its reputation on being different — transparent, innovative, customer‑focused. But decisions like this make it look less like a challenger brand and more like just another energy provider shifting costs onto households.
The communication around these changes has been vague, the justification unconvincing, and the impact on customers significant. Many of us invested in EVs, smart chargers, and home energy setups based on Octopus’s promises. Moving the goalposts after people have committed isn’t just disappointing — it undermines trust.
If this is the direction Octopus plans to take, it’s hard to see why customers should stay loyal.”
“Awful... truly awful... How you guys have got all these apparent accolades is absolutely beyond me.
I have contacted you on previous occasions and then spoke to Salim on two separate occasions (15th & 16th) to raise concerns about concerns over our bill and the reasons for the increases (not our fault) followed by another call indicating that out export tariff has frozen since Sept'25 - so complained due to the nature of the responses, how it was being handled, and to raise an argument for reinbursement due to several factors.
It was confimed on the 16th that someone would be in touch usually within two working days, but nothing, then received an email from Salim on the 23rd Jan saying AGAIN, that someone would be in touch (obviously the 16th request had been forgotten) it's now the 29th .... still no call :)))
Also worth noting I was left on hold for almost 20/25 mins and nobody ever returned (15th Jan) so I hung up.
Contacted again myself (yesterday 28th Jan) and spoke to Peter, said i needed to speak to someone about my complaint/current issues. Again was told someone would ring me back that day - Guess what no call!
I've emailed a lengthy explanation about the complaint to your customer service team on the 24th January - again no acknowledgement or reply. Peter said to send an email to "greg@............." as they take more notice of those... so I've done that too and still nothing. I mean what on earth is going on!
The complaint was raised on the 16th Jan and it's been nearly two weeks without contact, and I'm still the one chasing. Meanwhile your happy to put my direct debits up by almost double (electricity) and we still have unsolved issues that are not ben addressed - all of which are stated in my email (both times)
The customer service side here is absolutely atrocious and if you were once "good" - then the wheels are well and truly falling off that bus it would seem - in our case anyway.
Salim mentioned there are things that a colleague has said should have been looked into much earlier on our account (his email) and yet because of the current problems we are having to foot the bill of higher charges and hiked up direct debits. It is completely unacceptable.
This is only a snapshot of all the greivances here as I could go on. I just still can't believe how this has been handled. I'm almost laughing in disbelief to be honest.
The big question is? Is anyone actually gonna call?
Note - Please spare us any acknowledgement verbatim on here, it will infuriate me further if for any reason you say to reach out to this number to discuss etc etc - I've tried that multiple times - just do what you say you're going to do and get a manager/senior individual with somoe authority to call me/us back.
You'll be aware of our issues if you dig deep enough...
I've left the account number in the disclosed reference that only you (Octopus) should be able to see.”
“My advice is not to buy a heat pump from Octopus. We find Octopus great to deal with until you have a problem. We had ours installed in the summer and it fine until it came time to put the heating on. All winter and temperature around the house ranges from 21* to 17*. We have underfloor heating and the kitchen and hall never get hot enough. Only had 4 visits in that time and only stay an hour as that is all the engineer has been booked in for. Cannot have my elderly mum to stay as it’s too cold for her. The highest temperature this heat pump produces is 21* if working properly. Go to a company that has vast knowledge of heat pumps insulation”
“I booked an appointment to have my smart meter replacement because my old one keeps beeping which drives me insane! The first time I missed the engineers visit cause of work. Then today I had a second appointment and I asked octopus a few days before my appointment to send an engineer at 2:00pm. They made a note if it afterwards. Then today I didn't see an engineer at my property. So I called octopus asking if they sent an engineer to my property, and shockingly they said the engineer already left which made me furious!!!! 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡 I asked them for a simple time to send an engineer, and they couldn't do that!!! 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡 and to add insult to Injury they increased my energy prices!!!! 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡useless energy company!! 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡”
“We have phoned octopus about changing the tariff to low tariff still haven’t done it. When we was told on the phone that it had been done when we spoke to them today and was told that it was on the high rate . Also keep asking for information that they already been given it’s costing us a lot of money.”
“Overcharged me every month for 3 months. I try to contact them to sort it out and they just ignore me. Messed around fitting a new meter which only caused more problems. They seem unwilling to fix it.
They claim they have excellent customer service. Which is not true in the slightest. Avoid”
“Unclear Billing & Overpriced – Not Worth It
Be careful if you’re considering switching to this energy supplier.
My bills are rarely under £100. For example, I paid £144 for the period from 15th to 30th of November (paid on 1st of December), and then £200 for just 1st to 16th of December.
As of 17th December 2025, I’ve paid a total of £344 in bills for a small 2-bedroom flat where I live alone. I’m out most of the day and can’t afford to keep the radiators on.
The way they bill you doesn’t make any sense, and communication with them is very poor.
Not recommended.”
