British Gas stopped Standing Orders forcing Direct Debits

spiro

You say

"as usual i could be in the red over the winter months due to a higher useage but this usualy evens out over the warmer summer months. sometimes this has put me in credit."

But at the begining of the summer you balance was £127.76 dr and by October this has increased to £214.00 dr. So you are coiming up to the winter when your useage will increase and you are in debt.

As already said there are basically 4 ways you can pay for gas/elec.
1) Quarterly billing - pay on receipt of bill.
2) Monthly billing - pay on receipt of bill.
3) Quarterly bill - pay by monthly direct debit
4) PAYG meter

You are not doing any of the above and are in debt (august bill not paid). Therefore unless you take action to bring your account up to date (pay the £214) soon I think you could find they will want you to have a ppm installed. At worst they will force you to have a ppm installed.

p00hsticks

sharpmantf1 wrote: »

Standard tarriff,
I get a bill every quarter.
I pay x amount each month by SO, have done for a good many years.

Presumably the x amount you pay was agreed with British Gas and you adjust it promptly when they ask ?
The option to simply pay the bill in full when you recieve it (via online banking or over a bank counter) should be available to you.

brewerdave

p00hsticks wrote: »

Presumably the x amount you pay was agreed with British Gas and you adjust it promptly when they ask ?

Think that is the key issue - going back to when I paid by SO for utilities etc I can remember being sent pre printed paperwork (with the new required amount already inserted) which I had to return or send direct to my bank after signing. If you are still paying an historic amount which is too low to ensure a zero balance in the Spring then ......

p00hsticks

sharpmantf1 wrote: »

it states as the methods of payment as:
Pay by Phone
Card
Cheque
DD

I appreciate you are reluctant to pay by DD, but what's your objection to the first three options ?

smidgey

To clarify!

When you are on a payment plan and you have a debit balance it can be rolled into the plan. This prevents any debt collection activity from taking place. The payment amount is set and each month on the agreed payment date the system knows what amount to expect. With DD the payment is collected automatically. With SO the bank sends the money electronically to us. So long as the right amount is received everything will be fine.

Standing order has been withdrawn as a payment option now. You can obviously have a standing order setup at your bank and BG will gratefully receive payments as normal. The difference being is that you will no longer be classed as being on a payment plan meaning that when a bill is produced if you are in debit, you will be expected to pay any debit balance within 14 days. You can no longer carry balances forward unless you're on Direct Debit.

Standing order was still subject to the same reassessment process as Direct Debits and customers were notified on bills. "We've reviewed your account and you new payments will be £x.xx - Please amend the amount with your bank"

Of course alot of customers never did this because they simply missed the notification or didn't agree with the new amount. They left the payment amount at the lower amount and debit balances would start to build up. For example the system would expect £50 a month but on £30 is received etc so the plan would be cancelled eventually anyway for underpaying which in turn led to a poor customer experience.

Front line agents cannot now setup standing order payment plans and I think gradually over time people will be phased off "Standing order" onto "Cash/Cheque"

Stuart_W

Many, many years back I got in an awful mess with monthly direct debits (huge credit balances over £300, refusal to reduce amounts etc, and my meter read kept being rejected because it was "too low"!!!!!).

After eventually sorting out the nonsense I moved to Ebico, pay however you like (cash each week, standing order, direct debit, debit card, prepayment meter, online, at the post office, quarterly, monthly, in advance etc etc etc ) and it costs exactly the same.

Moving to the traditional quarterly bill seemed such a relief. I even saved money.

If you are not on a formal monthly direct debit budget plan, it is important to remember that any bill balance (based on a correct meter read) represents what you have used and should therefore be paid promptly. If you are paying monthly by standing order but have an outstanding balance when the bill comes, unless you are on a specifically agreed budget plan you need to clear the outstanding balance and it suggests here from what you've posted you payments are not enough.

Paying quarterly for my actual usage means my winter bill is often five or six times the size of a summer bill, but I'm much happier paying for what I've actually used straight away. A monthly amount can be very misleading and often has little to do with actual usuage - either building up a credit over the summer, of paying off arrears from last winter.

Joyful

Smidgey

Is there not still the option to also pay fortnightly or monthly by card?

davidgmmafan

I don't buy the thread title to be honest, it seems to me two things are being confused. A company cannot stop accepting standing orders anymore than they can stop accept a bill payment. If you have thier bank details and quote your account number they WILL recieve the payment.

The issue here is, whatever payment plan was agreed, has evidently failed. There would've had to have been a payment plan running in the background in order for the customer not to recieve reminders when there was a balance owing. Such a payment plan would be reassessed to reflect balance and consumption periodically just like a direct debit.

If the amount changed, and the standing order was not changed to reflec this then the payment scheme would be cancelled as the system would think the customer was not keeping to the agreed payments.

Don't say to companies I want to pay by standing order as some will say we don't accept those, probably because DD is better for them. Just say I want to make a bill payment so I need your bank details. Setup a non DD payment plan if you don't want reminders.

Yellowcard

Joyful wrote: »

Smidgey

Is there not still the option to also pay fortnightly or monthly by card?

This is still an option!