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

markocosic

The chapturned out to be eminently helpful:
"Thank you for your email dated 16th August 2013

Please accept my sincere apology for the inconvenience caused to you due to the subject line. It was a mistake from my side for not changing the subject line. This is to inform you that whenever an online form is received, the request comes under the category ‘MyAccount failed meter read submission’.

I also wish to inform you that whenever the system receives a read which is either too high or low and also if the read is not falling in line, the system restrict itself from accepting the read as it could leads to possible incorrect billing. This is the reason why we need to confirm the read with our customer before we update it on our system manually. As your point on this issue is also very genuine, I would refer your valuable feedback to our higher authority so that we can work upon this issue to serve you even better.

I am also thankful to you for the way you have put your point forward regarding the direct debit calculation and as per your request I have reduce your monthly direct debit amount to £80.00 (Gas - £50.00 and Electricity - £30.00) and the next payment date will be 15th September 2013.

I would like to apologise to you again for all the inconvenience caused to you. I have logged your dissatisfaction and your case number is 90863527 for your future reference. Please let me know if you need any further assistance on this query by contacting me directly at <removed>"

No word on their policy on direct debit calculations though, so I asked again. ;-)

"Many thanks for you help. It sounds rather like a complete moron has designed EDF's online support, meter reading, and billing systems and the rest of you now have to deal with the consequences.


You didn't answer the one specific question I had regarding the calculation of my direct debit though:

"Please confirm whether ignoring the existing credit in an account when calculating the direct debit is standard company practice, or a staff error on this particular occasion?"

Could you answer this please, or also refer this to the higher authority along with the feedback on the meter submission page."

oldboy64

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi can we help with this?
There is more information about Direct Debit and billing in our support centre, including video guides and PDF documents.
Let us know if you would like specific assistance.

David

I know I am jumping in here but I have a major major problem with your company.

1. Received a letter from SP dated 19/7/13, but not delivered until 3rd August 2013 telling me that the monthly DD for the 7th August is going up from £84 to £120 - no explanations, no calculations.

2. Telephoned SP Monday 5th & Tuesday 6th and got no one just kept hanging on. Tried the call back feature - gave me estimated times of between 3hours 26mins to 5hours 9minutes - I gave up.

3. Went to the bank and asked what I could do to stop the £120 coming out and to keep it at £84 until SP and myself could agree why the increase and if the increase was correct. Bank told me that they could do nothing - it was between me and SP.
Bank advised that if the amount they are claiming is wrong, not happy with the figure etc I should stop the payment under the DD Guarantee. This I did but SP still took the £120 from the bank on the 7th August.

4. Telephoned SP and told them that they had better send the money back which they did on the 8th August.

5 Letter from SP telling me that as I have cancelled the DD I have lost the 'Fresh Start' tariff and will now be charged on the cash monthly one.

6. None of this is my fault - I wasn't given enough time to deal with SP. They were extremely busy. When I spoke to SP a young lady apologised for the late delivery of the letter saying that a whole bundle of letters were late in being sent out.

7. All I want is a full explanation of how the £120 was calculated, to be put back on to 'Fresh Start' tariff (which I have been told is now impossible) and a discussion to take place on the monthly amount I now need to pay.

8. I have told SP that until all of this happens they will get no more money from me. They are now intending to install prepayment meters (gas & electricity).

So in a matter of two weeks I have gone from the Fresh Start tariff of £84 a month to prepayment meters being put in at what cost I don't know - been told it may be £180 a month instead of the £84.

Not happy!! And no intention of contacting your company wasting my time, and no one repeat no one will get anywhere near my home with these meters that I can promise!

grabbit

After battling with Scottish Power for several years I finally complained to the ombudsman because of their insistence on re-evaluating my direct debit payments without any factual historical or future data.

Guess what ......
Toothless, spineless, powerless Ombudsman says that while they should base direct debits on reality, they don't have to.

Goodbye Scottish Power. AND Energy regulator. You are the weakest link !

Nada666

oldboy64 wrote: »

I know I am jumping in here but I have a major major problem with your company.

1. Received a letter from SP dated 19/7/13, but not delivered until 3rd August 2013 telling me that the monthly DD for the 7th August is going up from £84 to £120 - no explanations, no calculations.

[...]blah blah blah[...]

5 Letter from SP telling me that as I have cancelled the DD I have lost the 'Fresh Start' tariff and will now be charged on the cash monthly one.

6. None of this is my fault- I wasn't given enough time to deal with SP. They were extremely busy. When I spoke to SP a young lady apologised for the late delivery of the letter saying that a whole bundle of letters were late in being sent out.

7. All I want is a full explanation of how the £120 was calculated, to be put back on to 'Fresh Start' tariff (which I have been told is now impossible) and a discussion to take place on the monthly amount I now need to pay.

8. I have told SP that until all of this happens they will get no more money from me. They are now intending to install prepayment meters (gas & electricity).

So in a matter of two weeks I have gone from the Fresh Start tariff of £84 a month to prepayment meters being put in at what cost I don't know - been told it may be £180 a month instead of the £84.

Not happy!! And no intention of contacting your company wasting my time, and no one repeat no one will get anywhere near my home with these meters that I can promise!

You chose not to pay the debit. You pay the consequences. An increase from £84 to £120 is a difference of only £36. That could be an initial debit that is only £13 out - only 15% out on an £84 debit. Entirely within normal bounds. If you are paying be direct debit then that is an entirely expected difference.

The correct procedure was to pay the debit and investigate yourself if it was reasonable.

Was there any genuine difficulty in meeting the payment or were you just blustering with indignation? If the former then, because of the delay in notificiation, the Direct Debit guarantee would have provided for you to have it reversed (but not cancelled).

In the future you need to calm down before spiting your face.

ayshaarfad

ive been with bg for ever 2 years i paid £46 a month dd covering gas and electricity with them around may last year a changed to an online tariff again covering gas and eceltricity. i said i wanted the dd the same as they cover my usage. ive only recently realised they have been taking a very low dd of about £28 out each month instead of the agreed amount. im really bad with paperwork and didnt check the online bills each month now when ive looked into it im £932 in debt with them. i spoke to a guy at bg on the 10th of oct explained the situation. he agreed a payment plan where i pay £60 a month £40 gas £20 elec i also said when if i have extra cash at the end of the month i will knock an amount off the balance he agreed. i received an email confirming this from bg. today i get a phone call saying i dont have a dd set up with bg and because i owe over £900 i need to set up a dd of around £140. i told them i cant afford it explained i had an agreement with their employee which i have in writing. they have said because it wont be paid off within a year and wont cover my usage they cant do it.
my sister said she would lend me £450 to pay some off so it will reduce my monthly bill. the lady i spoke to said my usage was about £45 a month i said maximum i can pay is £80 so that would mean every month the money i owe would reduce. she put me through to a lady who could do that. after speaking to her i find out thats not possible eith because according to her my monthly usage is around £90 so i have to pay over £100 to cover every thing i dont have that kind of money.
i told her ive been lied to time and again by bg firstly the guy who set up my account inicially he didnt do it right, then by the guy who said i could pay£60 a month which i have a confirmation for, then the lady who said my usage was £45 a month and i would be able to pay £80. i said all you guys have done is lie to be.
i tld her id ring her back tomorrow so i can sort something out. i dont know where i stand they set up my dd incorrectly, they didnt contact me to tell me my dd dont cover the usage,its been over 12 months since they set it up not once did they call to increase my dd which they should have and have done previously. now they cant help.please please advise me on what i can do i dont have the money to be paying over £100 a month.

tahrey

Now I can't really say anything to help Ayshaarfad, and I suggest everyone helps them out before coming to my own post as that sounds pretty bloody chronic to be fair...

But, I've got something mildly similar with EDF. Ever since I signed up, my direct debits have been hilariously low. First it was thirty-something quid per month, which barely covers the electricity if even that... then it was raised to £52, which was still far too low. Recently they've done a review and upped it to £60...

Which as far as I'm concerned is an utter joke, given that my average usage for each of the last two years is more like £85-90 per month (in fact, almost exactly the "typical" £1150ish per annum used for comparisons of cheap tariffs on this site), and it's easy to see that even from the figures given on the same bill where they outline the increase. I keep ending up quite a long way into debt on the bill, with no easy way to "overpay" it at my leisure, and end up being hit with £150-250 "catchup" charges that come in at what are, as far as I can tell, entirely random times.

Now, although I wouldn't be happy about it, I can both accept and more or less afford £90 a month on my energy bill (my flat is horribly inefficient despite my attempts to economise), but I do have to try and budget quite carefully at the moment, and a random bill for a couple hundred quid when I'm not expecting it (e.g. after paying for car servicing that I've had to save up for) could easily send me into overdraft.

I really can't tell how they've arrived at any of these figures - you'd think just taking the amount used over the previous year and dividing by 12 wouldn't be so difficult, would you? Instead it seems like they divided by 18 or 19 instead. Maybe some glitch means it's only considering either the gas or electric instead of both?

Anyway, I'm about to give them a call and see if I can have it raised (bet they won't have had one of those in a while) ... how do you rate my chances of success? Or even accurate success (ie getting it upped to, say, £88, rather than overshooting to £188)? Am I likely to have to start knocking heads together? And if I'm mulling over swapping to a longer term fix near the end of the year (I'm on an older fix tariff thru to March '14), how big's the risk that it'll happen all over again?

Alternatively can I just shoot them a planned overpayment once a month from my online bank interface, with my account number etc attached to it?

ta!

temperabouttoexplode

In December my previous deal was coming to an end, on talking to your sales staff it was agreed that I would start a new deal until 2015. He would arrange for the credit to be refunded an amount of £614 to reach me by cheque before Xmas. I have made an official complaint, wit a response of "sorry" they will deal with it within 10 days. I thought this was far too long and insisted it should only take 3. They left an answerphone message advising it would be done and that my future Direct Debit would be £132, I was quoted at the point of sale in December £89. There was no explanation given, I asked if this member of staff can do this without consultation. The reply was "yes". In these circumstances what would you do Martin Lewis? By the way, I am still waiting for my refund, and yes, it ruined my Christmas. Yours truly, Living hope but about to explode.

jaldijeno

Hello,

I have stepped into a situation where a friend with longterm debilitating illness has discovered a huge overpayment occurring due to meter reading access not being possible.
Company is E-on, its for gas and occurred as there was nobody to help him install a CO alarm or check its safety and he switched to electricity and was unable to manage his direct debits - this has been a genuine oversight and obviously a nice surprise.

But... On an estimated bill i had been told it was £400. A meter inspector came and the reading was verified by me. Now he has been given a cheque for exactly £1000 and we are suspicious this is a bit too neat. When on the phone they refused/avoided even giving the precise overpayment figure to me and I didnt think they would avoid declaring it, which now looks the case.

What should we do? Do they have a right to withhold anything if they can argue that lack of access was an issue? It goes back several years- I think about 2009.

donfanatico

I have switched to EON recently and you can set your own DD online , whether they will change it later regardless I don't know yet as I haven't been with them long enough

condoghost

Every month from August 2012 through to October 2013 receive a monthly bill from first:utility without fail. Then no bill is sent until 5th July 2014 which advised a statement period 22 May 2014 – 21 June 2014 making little to no-sense whatsoever. With a Personal Projection of £1617 per year and payments received already totaling £1790.18, first:utility hadn't answered any of the emails sent throughout the year.

The answer for me was to switch via the Cheap Energy Club. Estimated savings £116 per year + £30 cashback + a whopping refund credit from first:utility of £1055.06

Nice One:money: Eric ))