Direct debit and energy suppliers

trainedsoldier

I joined the oct 15 collective from MSE I gave e-on all the information about my usage and they set the direct debit to take £52 per month. they now want to up this to £88 per month. My question is why do they want to do this? When we have only had the deal running for the winter months. I would like to pay for what I use every month but they say they cannot do that Why? they have a direct Debit mandate from me and can take what they want every month. I was with First Utility (who I will be going back to at the end of my contract with e-on) before and they did it, I gave them a meter reading every month and they took what I owed, so why can't the big six do the same?

System

Hi. It is the deal that you signed up to. EDF has a DD review process (see their website for more details). They appear to have calculated that you have used more energy than was initially projected amounting to £26 times 6 months or £156 for the year. By raising the amount to £88 per month, they will be aiming for a zero balance in October 2016. You could call EDF and offer to pay them £156 and keep the DD at its present level. Remember a DD payment is meaningless. It is just a monthly credit to your account.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

trainedsoldier wrote: »

I joined the oct 15 collective from MSE I gave e-on all the information about my usage and they set the direct debit to take £52 per month. they now want to up this to £88 per month. My question is why do they want to do this? When we have only had the deal running for the winter months. I would like to pay for what I use every month but they say they cannot do that Why? they have a direct Debit mandate from me and can take what they want every month. I was with First Utility (who I will be going back to at the end of my contract with e-on) before and they did it, I gave them a meter reading every month and they took what I owed, so why can't the big six do the same?

Hi trainedsoldier

We review Monthly Direct Debits quarterly but will only make changes at the mid-term and annual reviews. At the other times, we'll let you know if payments need to change but leave it up to you to make any alterations. Sounds like you've reached the mid-term point. Thought it might help if I give you a bit of information about what happens.

As Hengus says, our Monthly Direct Debits are set up to achieve as near as possible to a zero balance by the time of the annual review. To do this, they're based on current prices and past usage. If either changes, so will the monthly amount.

When you joined us, we'll have set up the payments in line with the information you gave us. As you're on the MSE Fixed Price Collective tariff, the prices won't have changed so it may be the usage isn't quite what was expected. Also, if the usage is higher, a debit balance might have built up. If it has, it will have been included in the ongoing arrangement and spread up to the next review. This, in turn, will have increased the monthly payments. If this is the case and you can clear any arrears, the monthly payments can be lowered to cover the ongoing usage only.

Make sure the account is billed up to the latest meter readings. If it's been estimated, let us have readings. We'll be happy to rebill and review the arrangement.

We understand that forecasting future usage can never be an exact science, so we've introduced some measures to give you more control over payments and to make sure there's not too much credit/debit on accounts. As above, we regularly review payments to make sure they're on track for a zero balance by the annual review. At this point, any credit balance over a fiver is automatically refunded. Any debt is included in the ongoing payments and spread up to the next review.

We've also introduced an online tool for customers registered with our website. This is the Direct Debit Manager and it gives you more say including being able to alter the payments. Comes in handy should circumstances change. Provided the account is billed up to the latest meter readings, payments can be changed by up to 20 per cent up or down. By up to 5 per cent up or down without readings. Before confirming the new amount, we'll let you know by how much we anticipate the account will be in credit/debit by the annual review if payments are changed but usage doesn't alter as expected.

There's another online tool called Real Time Billing that might be of interest. This lets you produce your own bills. If you log in to your online account and pop in readings, you'll be given the option of seeing the balance that would result or actually issuing a bill to those readings by choosing 'Request a Bill.' This way you could have monthly bills.

You could also set up a Variable Direct Debit. With this, we'll take the amount produced by the Real Time Billing about 2 weeks after you use the tool. The downside is that you'll lose the lower daily standing charges that apply to Monthly Direct Debits. They don't apply to Variable Direct Debits so your bills will go up. You'll have to contact us to set this up as it's not possible to arrange through our website.

Hope this is of interest trainedsoldier.

Malc