Fixed Direct debit - Its awful

malik999

I moved to British Gas because the comparison sites said this was the cheapest for me. This was using a direct debit payment system which i thought would be ok until they started using it.

Our usage goes up and down quite a bit. It became a complete nightmare to control/keep track of we ended up paying far too much each month. I have spent hours (cost of my time!) trying to get money back from British Gas. I can't understand why anyone uses this system of taking whatever they like per month.

I have had to come off this system and now on British Gas quarterly bill so i'm paying for exactly what we use. Cost:

6.151 pence per kilowatt for the first 7.342 kilowatts used a day, and 2.580 pence per kilowatt for the rest.

This however seems high. Does anyone know who the cheapest provider is per kilowatts. The comparison sites take into account too many daft billing options to make sense and allow a direct comparison. All i can think to go off is the kilowatt charges. Anyone know who the cheapest is per kilowatt?.

TIA

IKWeb

Looking at the price per unit is not the way forward, you need to look into other discounts, i.e dual fuel discount etc. you would have been getting 10% of your gas and 5% of your elec, but if your not happy with DD's then your going to lose this and your price will go up.

Have you ever thought about paying DD every quarter to make sure, 1) you keep your DD discounts and 2) you ONLY pay for what you use.

If your consumption is like you say all over the place then this is something you need to deal with, you can’t put this blame on an energy company for your DD amounts changing!!! and your account going into credit or debit

BG like other companies only do DD refunds once or twice a year & maybe a 3rd time if there is a valid reason, and your lucky.

malik999

IKWeb wrote: »

Looking at the price per unit is not the way forward, you need to look into other discounts, i.e dual fuel discount etc. you would have been getting 10% of your gas and 5% of your elec, but if your not happy with DD's then your going to lose this and your price will go up.

Have you ever thought about paying DD every quarter to make sure, 1) you keep your DD discounts and 2) you ONLY pay for what you use.

If your consumption is like you say all over the place then this is something you need to deal with, you can’t put this blame on an energy company for your DD amounts changing!!! and your account going into credit or debit

BG like other companies only do DD refunds once or twice a year & maybe a 3rd time if there is a valid reason, and your lucky.

I have no problem with direct debits but cannot understand why anyone would do fixed monthly DD and overpay. British Gas were charging me £65 per month and taking this every month from my account. I was using about £35. Trying to get bills with all the units from the last 7 months to balance is now practically impossible.
British Gas agreed to reduce my direct debit to £40 per month and said they would review it again in 3 months time based on my usage. Its a crazy system imo unless I am totally missing something . I wish i could overcharge all my customers each month and pay it them back at a later date after ive had the interest.

pebble65

I have to sympathise with the o/p . I have had similar problems with British Gas. Of course their consumption will vary , no oneuses the same amount of gas/electricity in the spring/summer as they do in the autumn/winter. The problem is tho that energy companies work out the direct debits using weird formulae and recalculate it every six months , which means that you end up paying far less some bits of the year and far too much over the rest (its not just British gas! but they DO seem to get it out of kilter more than others).

I know my average monthly fuel consumption based on a 12 month figure. They undercharge me on one lot of bills and then overcharge me on another. its crazy but when you complain they just shrug their shoulders and blame the formulae (It does pay to complain though-I got a very nice bouquet of flowers and got my bills reset to what I think they should be based on my consumption- at least till they mess it up again)

Why they cant just simply work it out over 12 months annual consumption heaven only knows-anyone know of a good fuel company who does this?

And I thought the goverment was going to make the fuel companies sort out this discrepancy between charges for those who can pay by DD and those who cannot.?

SwanJon

malik999 wrote: »

I wish i could overcharge all my customers each month and pay it them back at a later date after ive had the interest.

Yes, but you'd have to give them a discount of between 5% & 10%, so you'd not make anything from the interest.
Oh, and some customers wouldn't pay enough but you'd still have to give them the discount, and pay interest on what they owed you.

Best thing to do is make sure they are using accurate readings.
They have an automated freephone number (0800 1070225) or you can put reaings in on their website as often as you like. The more (accurate) readings they have the more accurate the DD will be.

If it is chanegd from what the system has estimated, it will probably estimate the same in 6 months time and try to catch up for the following 6 months, so the next year begins as close to zero as possible.

BexTech

I have no problem with fixed monthly DD.

However I do have my payments set about right.

Yes, in the warmer months you use less, so you are in credit, but by the winter months where you use more it balances itself out.

If you set the payments right, then it's great and you know there's a set amount to come out each month. great for budgeting and money management.

Plushchris

Presumably it was the BG Click 5 tariff you went onto? (I doubt any other BG tariffs would show up as saving you the most money)

Have you been giving them regular meter readings? One of the things with the internet based tariffs is that they rely on you to supply them with regular (at least quarterly) meter readings.

benchyboo

The main issue that causes problems on monthly direct debit schemes is utility companies overreliance on automated computer systems. Speaking from the experience of working in the customer service dept of a major energy provider for years, it is a problem seen time and time again. Random, automatic computer reassesments are applied periodically to accounts, these are often devoid of context, backed up by assumption rather than fact and done wholly without the input of the customer. As the systems are often badly designed, antiquated, or built by the lowest bidder, they inevitably fail to asses correctly and this sets the customer on the frustrating cycle of paying huge amounts then being bounced down to tiny amounts, the problem is that unless a customer actually rings up and has an intelligent human being assess the account taking usage facors into account contextually and applying common sense, the orginal paramaters that casued the computerised calc to go badly wrong will perpetually affect any automatic reassesment.

It sounds simple to say that energy companies should have computing systems that should easily be able to calculate exact figures and work out the right monthly figures for a direct debit. It sounds so simple, in fact, that we as consumers have conditioned ourselves to believe that it should happen, is going to happen, is just around the corner when the truth is that it blatantly will not happen using current methods. Although amazing things can be done using computers, calculating usage is not something that should be trusted to automated systems. The sheer amount and scale of variety and nuances between two identically sized families and there usage of energy renders any generalisation utterly redundant and computers are simply not capable of factoring equations based on previous use with common sense or changing circustance (as neither of these can be expressed by mathematical formula)

This is my, admittedly long winded, way of saying that energy companies would be far better served investing in low tech depts populated by larger teams of better trained people than throwing money at hi tech systems ill suited to a very subjective task.