Safe to stop my direct debit ?

Matthaus73

I'm just changing energy supplier and have a £235 credit with old supplier. New supplier will take payment upfront on 6th December , old supplier DD due to come out on 1st December.
So rather than pay 2 lots of energy (especially with Xmas coming up) would there be any foreseeable problem canceling my DD at old supplier ? 

Hasbeen

You might have to wait on your refund of credit?

Neil_Jones

Matthaus73 said:

I'm just changing energy supplier and have a £235 credit with old supplier. New supplier will take payment upfront on 6th December , old supplier DD due to come out on 1st December.
So rather than pay 2 lots of energy (especially with Xmas coming up) would there be any foreseeable problem canceling my DD at old supplier ? 

You're not paying "two lots of energy".  That's just the contribution towards the kitty.  You'll get it back eventually after your final bill deduction.

Because of the way the system works it's inevitable that when you change suppliers you almost always make a payment to the outgoing supplier and the new one in the same monthly cycle.  You may find that even if you do cancel it it'll just get reinstated.

Plus of course if you're on one of the accounts that give you the cashback on the direct debit payments its in your interest to keep those payments going to as many suppliers as you can legitimately get away with.  The occasional month of "4 direct debits at 2% cashback" on the 123 account is quite unique if nothing else

Matthaus73

Unfortunately I'm not on 1 of those accounts and I also don't have an extra £100 hanging around at this time of year .
I've already over contributed to this years kitty by over £200 so would really rather not add anymore to my 0% interest kitty. 
So is it safe to cancel DD or could it slow down my energy switch 

bradders1983

It wont slow the switch down no. What it might do is slow down the refund of the credit balance. But thats it.

brewerdave

bradders1983 said:

It wont slow the switch down no. What it might do is slow down the refund of the credit balance. But thats it.

It shouldn't. This is a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth by suppliers. There DOES NOT have to be an active DD on an account after the switch. I routinely cancel DDs to an "old" supplier if it is due on or around the switch date now after an experience with a supplier a few years ago , that continued to take DDs even tho' I was in credit and had left !!!

bradders1983

It shouldn't no, but they always claim it. Anyway its up to the OP now.

GunJack

if you can phone/e-mail them and get Dec's DD reduced to £0, then you'll have a smaller amount of credit to be refunded....but ask them and get them to do it.

Matthaus73

GunJack said:

if you can phone/e-mail them and get Dec's DD reduced to £0, then you'll have a smaller amount of credit to be refunded....but ask them and get them to do it.

That sounds like a good idea, if I can get through to them !
brewerdave said:

bradders1983 said:

It wont slow the switch down no. What it might do is slow down the refund of the credit balance. But thats it.

It shouldn't. This is a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth by suppliers. There DOES NOT have to be an active DD on an account after the switch. I routinely cancel DDs to an "old" supplier if it is due on or around the switch date now after an experience with a supplier a few years ago , that continued to take DDs even tho' I was in credit and had left !!!

I don't trust my old supplier I've already got it in writing they would lower my DD from £90 to £70 pm but they still took £90 😠

clive0510

when I switched from british gas to octopus energy,I didn't have to cancel anything. I did it via confused.com and they arranged it so that the direct debit switched form the old to the new on a certain day. job done.

Gerry1

I'd work out the likely final bill from the final meter reading (if necessary, send them a top up payment if your existing credit is likely to prove insufficient) and then cancel the DD.  If you have to estimate your final reading in order to cancel the DD with sufficient notice, you could always make any top up payment slightly higher just to be on the safe side, e.g. if the mysterious third party tweaks your reading.