Energy Direct Debits: Get money back & your payments lowered Discussion

Scottish_Power

Hi thompsonscp,

This payment will only be made at your annual review so if you were to get your refund prior to this you would lose out on the payment.

Kind regards

Graeme

sly_dog_jonah

EDF wrote to us today trying to jack up our Gas Direct Debit over 50%. This was despite us being on a fixed rate tariff (until Sept 30 2012) and our usage being exactly in line with the annual average usage (kWh, not £££) we provided when we switched in August. The direct debit was set correctly for the anticipated annual usage at the start of the contract (although the switch took the best part of 16 weeks from the start of August).

It seems EDF's systems cannot cope with new customers who join in the run up to winter and thus their higher than average winter usage will leave them owing money in the Spring. Our total (gas+elec) bill was 16% higher than our direct debits amounted to over 3 months (as is to be expected over winter), yet they wanted to jack up the direct debit by 26%. Unless there had been a subsequent review of the direct debit within 12 months, we'd have ended up in credit by £250 by this time next year.

I know EON only review DD's annually, but the EDF CSA claimed that there would have been another review at the next bill. The CSA also claimed that 'the system won't let you build up debt balances and will therefore adjust the direct debit' (up by £21pm to cover a £30 shortfall in our case) but she was able to manually set the direct debit back to the previous amount if I cleared the £30 outstanding amount on the bill. This contradicts the graph of 'typical direct debit balance' on the bill which clearly shows that in the winter months there is 'High energy usage (balance in debit)' -but according to the EDF CSA debit balances weren't allowed by the system.

Anyway, to avoid a fight in future to get the direct debit put back down again, I cleared the outstanding balance so that the Direct Debit would stay the same.

As an aside, I also don't accept that a DD should be adjusted now to reflect the increase in charges after the fixed tariff ends (in 8.5 months), as it is wrong to assume that customers will not switch tariff or provider at that time. The DD should only be adjusted when the fixed term ends. I've often heard energy companies using this as an excuse to increase direct debits, but in reality they are just looking for a justification to improve their cashflow.

pigeonpie

I'm always in credit with EDF on their DDs and they tried to put mine up as well. Only solution imho is to ring them and argue your case. They put mine back down again when I did. At least it's freephone.
They changed computer systems (apparently), thus generating new account nos without telling customers (me anyhow) and now I'm having hell on wheels trying to get my last annual KwH statement for dual fuel out of them, so I can check my best options. The person I spoke to said they can't access the 'old' account details (??!).
I am going to pick up the phone and have another try. Sometimes it depends on who you get on the phone.

beanjay1

Due to the huge amount of trouble that I, and apparently others, have in controlling Direct Debits is it really worth all the hassle?
You do not get the full 6% discount in any case because you are often paying up front for your energy supplies with money you could use to make savings elsewhere.
That is apart from the cost of all the time wasted and unneccessary aggrevation in trying to sort out problems that do not happen with other payment methods.

luv_my_brass

beanjay1 wrote: »

Due to the huge amount of trouble that I, and apparently others, have in controlling Direct Debits is it really worth all the hassle?
You do not get the full 6% discount in any case because you are often paying up front for your energy supplies with money you could use to make savings elsewhere.
That is apart from the cost of all the time wasted and unneccessary aggrevation in trying to sort out problems that do not happen with other payment methods.

I have always paid by direct debit, managed my account online and never had any problems. I'm happy to be in credit because at least I know the energy I've used is paid for & less likely to be faced with a large bill during the Winter months. Look at it as a bit of a bonus when they have to pay back the excess. When I changed suppliers recently, Scottish Power paid me back £180 in total for both Gas & Elect. And I am now paying £12 less per month with my new supplier.

Casper3

EDF sent my bill and notified that they were increasing my DD.

On looking at the future estimated usage that they provided I was already paying enough to cover what they thought I would use in the next year plus I was in credit. Increasing it would have meant I would pay £400 a year too much.

I called EDF, they could not expain why it was being increased. It ended up that my monthly DD was reduced by £14. :T

kevquinn

OK; so I've just had a bill informing me that my DDs will increase from £104 per month, to £139. I've been with them since May 2011, so we're two months short of a full year, but those two months are probably average for the year, which is what I've assumed for my own estimates for the next year.

They've done three things:
1) Added cover for price hikes of 17% for electricity, 9% for gas
2) Made bizarre forecasts - 10% under-estimated on electricity, 50% over-estimated on gas
3) Split the 12-month forecast cost over 11 months

These three things taken together explain how they've calculated a silly new monthly DD, when by my calculation the DD was previously about right apart from any price hikes (which in my view should be dealt with when they occur and not before).

I'll tempted to write to them rather than ring - if I write, I can be calm and reasonable; if I ring I'll probably just get stressed and annoyed. Also writing special delivery removes any possibility of the "no record of a conversation" excuse.

Aside, I did some sums to determine if the DD discount is worth the hassle. Discounts over the full year will probably amount to £60. If the excess they held (about £400 on average over the year) was in my account, it'd be worth about £16 at mortgage interest rates.

jalexa

kevquinn wrote: »

I'll tempted to write to them rather than ring -

You mention "£400 excess average over the year" but the important number is not that but the account balance at time of the recalculation. You've posted a lot of detail but not that.

If you are currently in excess, as you say about average usage from now on, it should be an easy telephone request, or rather a difficult telephone defence for the hapless adviser. If you are currently in debit unfortunately the reverse applies.

If you don't try telephone you'll never know so my advice is to ask nicely. If they don't agree or don't provide a convincing argument don't argue but launch a written (or email) complaint. Licence condition SLC27.14 entitles you to a clear explanation.

Good luck.

kevquinn

jalexa wrote: »

the important number is not that but the account balance at time of the recalculation.

Thanks for replying. Yes; it was £238 - although the remaining couple of months may have increased the excess over 12 months.

I did pluck up the courage to ring in the end - and BG were very good, I was worrying for nothing. No hassle, and I didn't have to explain myself; the chap at the other end figured it out for himself from the account history. I kept my mouth shut until he'd had chance to review the account, which was the right thing to do. The excess was the first indicator, as it showed (regardless of anyone's maths!) that the DD had historically been a bit high so an increase didn't make sense. He also figured out that the system had based its prediction on just the most recent quarter, for some reason, which was why the numbers were out of whack. Calculated a new DD based on type of house, occupancy etc which came out a smidge lower than my previous DD.

Anyway, credit to BG for a pleasant experience with the call center.

Stanch

Hi,

I have just completed 12 months with British Gas on a Dual Fuel monthly DD. Throughout this period my account was always in credit. After 6 months British Gas decided to reduce my DD as they said I was paying too much. I phoned them up and requested my DD be left as it was as I knew that once the cold set in my consumption would increase. This they agreed to do. My account never went into debit. Now, 12 months into the contract they have refunded the £127 credit balance I had accrued saying it was a policy of theirs that at the 12 months review if there is a credit balance of over £100 it will be automatically refunded. It's a shame, as we are still in a relatively cold period and the credit would have reduced the cost impact on the next bill.

The next paragraph in the statement really baffles (and annoys) me. I quote:-

"We regularly check you are paying the correct amount to cover the energy you are using and take into account many
things such as the cost of fuel and how much you're likely to use in the year ahead.
Your monthly payments are changing.
We've found that your payments need to increase from £140.00 to £184.00 from 28 March 2012. This includes £73.00
for your gas and £111.00 for your electricity .
You are also due a refund of £127.70 on 09 March 2012."

I know my consumption will not increase, infact, I know my consumption is going to decrease by quite a large amount. However, British Gas has no knowledge of that, or in fact, no knowledge of my future use, so how they can factor that in is totally beyond me. So, do they know something I do not, is there going to be a 30%+ price hike soon?

I tried to talk to them about this and basically the chap's argument was the classic "computer says we must increase it"

Will I ever get an explanation on how they have calculated this?
I wonder how many others are going to receive a 30%+ hike in their DDs.
It's an absolute disgrace!!