Ovo

spidereyes

I switched to OVO energy last year and they put me onto a £60 a month Direct Debit due to it being the winter. In reality I never used this much, often averaging £57 in real usage so my credit has been building ever since.
They told me when I first joined I could reduce the Direct Debit in the spring so last week I phoned them to find out about doing this, they told me they could only reduce it by £10 to £50 a month despite my account being over £110 in credit - my usage now is very very low so every month Im paying more to the credit than I am towards my bill.
They are meant to be paying interest on the credit amount at 3% but in reality this is not happening - last month I received no interest and the month before a whole 1p.
I cant afford to have the money tied into the account and paying excessively more than I need to each month, especially as I never got into debt during the winter months anyway, is there anyway I can reclaim my credit money or the very least actually pay a realistic figure of around £20 a month because they seem to fail to accept this is realistic to what I actually use - only use any gas for the hot water now (£8pm), other than that Im very careful with my electric usage (£11pm)

Fairzo

Ovo's calculation of monthly direct debits seems to be becoming a common concern - a couple of other threads on here. I am in the process of asking for a substantial decrease in my payments and will ask for it to be dealt with through the complaints process / regulator if necessary. By my calculation I shouldn't have to make any further payments before my 12 month deal ends in September.

I am getting the "interest" payments ok on my online account - 43p last month.

glider3560

£50 is about right:
£57 per month x 12 months = £684 per year
Less £110 credit
£574 per year
Which works out at £47.83 per month

If your usage has dropped, point this out to them and ask to reconsider

3% interest of £110 should be about 27p per month

Fairzo

Just phoned Ovo and arranged a refund of my credit balance over and above one monthly payment, so should be seeing £100+ back in my account in 5-10 days. To me this seems little different to reducing the monthly payment so can't understand the contrasting approach.

Fairzo

Update - refund back in my bank account in three days. That seems to be the way to go.

beefturnmail

I joined in November and they set it high for me too as well. The way they calculate it is here: http://www.ovoenergy.com/winterconsumption_calculation_example.pdf

It was also a new property I bought, so I didn't really have a clue what my usage would be. However, I have rang up twice to get it reduced - once in March and again in May as it was still too high, and both times they have reduced it without a quibble. They also agreed to refund £100 as I had built up a credit over the winter - again this was without quiblle. I have been submitting regular monthly readings which helps.

One tip is that they are quite slow to respond to e-mail but you can get through quickly on the phone (although their phonelines close over the week-end). Despite this I have found them much better than any other energy company I've been with...