Are Gas/electric And Water Rate Dd Payments A Con??

daveabbottuk

A good friend of ours spoke to a more than helpful customer service advisor from a well known Gas/Elec supplier (who not so long back changed its name) and advised her )with discretion of course) that DD payments are what you have used per month AND WHAT THE COMPANY ESTIMATES YOU MAY USE IN THAT QTR ON TOP!!!

Can anyone back this up? Or have anyways in how we can pay THE CORRECT AMOUNT on our bills?

God bless this website!

Davey Boy :money:

adaze

That's right as far as I am aware, they look at your previous usage and estimate useage for the next x months, and use this to calculate your DD payments. It would be really unlikely to pay exactly what you use via DD, unless you always used exactly the same amount of energy. At the moment I am slightly overpaying, i.e. money goes out every month, credit balance builds up, bill comes in and I am still in credit. If you want to pay exactly what you use then you would need to read you meters every month (or at least every quarter) and pay on receipt of the bill, but then you wouldn't benefit from any DD discounts.

I would imagine water is the same, for meters anyway, other wise the water rate is governed by the size of your house (and swimming pools!)

ormus

it aint rocket science.
they should work out your useage based on the previous 12 months and then divide by 12 to get your DD payment rate. (any price increase can be added).
obviously your actual usage every month is very unlikely to match the DD payment.
so you end up in credit for the summer and use more in the winter.

they do tend to round up so that the account is always in credit. so every so often you need to request a refund.
weve just cancelled the DD cause they wanted a huge rise. whilst we are making an effort to save energy ie wearing the extra jumper!
they wouldnt accept our DD payment schedule.

andrew-b

I'm still waiting for my direct debit to be reassessed by Atlantic after the recent round of energy price increases. I'm not going to volunteer they put my direct debit up but instead am trying to put the extra money that i should be paying aside so we are prepared when they do review it!

If you do have a credit against your account it's better to leave it be than ask for a refund. I've asked for refunds in the past and regretted it later when the prices have gone up which they invariably do! At the end of the day you are still paying for what you use...it's more about how much interest you would have lost for having the money sat in a savings account instead!


Andy

economiser

As Ormus says they usually try to engineer the payments such that you are always in credit (i.e. giving them an interest free loan). I calculate from my last year's readings what I would need to pay at current energy rates and haggle hard to get a reasonable deal. I like to be a zero at the beginning of the heating season so that I am in debt most of the time so now is the time of year to bargain.

davidlizard

I religiously read my gas and electric meters (no water meter - still on rates!) on the first day of every month, and record the readings on a spreadsheet. I convert the meter readings into kWH, and from that work out exactly how much I am paying per year - i.e. no estimates.

After doing this for a year, I know exactly how much gas and electricity I can expect to use per year, and consequently exactly how much I should be paying by direct debit each month or quarter.

When the utility company writes and tells me they are putting their direct debit up, I contact them and tell them what my annual usage is, quoting each quarters kWH at them - in every instance they have cut the direct debit back to what I should be paying so I always end the year no more than £50 or so in credit or debit. I dig my heals in on this, and refuse to let them increase the direct debit to more than my average monthy usage, and threaten to switch supplier.

TBeckett100

just entered my meter reading online for Scottish power. 10 weeks usgae £140 of elec.
Just had the revised DD, from £45 to £85 - someone is taking the proverbial there.