SO ENERGY- REMOVED ABILITY TO ADJUST DIRECT DEBIT ONLINE!!

Fisaplisap

I wanted to reduce my energy direct debit as 1. I was luckily in credit by quite a bit and they hadn't taken this into consideration when working out my new direct debit 2. I'd rather pay the energy company the minimum I can to pay my bills but not line their pockets with my money. 
When I logged on to my account, in the payment section you could reduce your direct debit. When I've tried to save the new amount (only £15 less per month), it came up with an error. Emailed SO asking how I can do this but do far no response. Went into my account today..... and the function to adjust the direct debit appears to have disappeared!! Is this in light of the recent news regarding energy companies over charging DD and this function has been removed so it's difficult for a customer to reduce their direct debit? Very very sneaky and querying if lawful?! I'm going to phone but I'm not convinced they'll answer.....

MattMattMattUK

Fisaplisap said:

I wanted to reduce my energy direct debit as 1. I was luckily in credit by quite a bit and they hadn't taken this into consideration when working out my new direct debit 2. I'd rather pay the energy company the minimum I can to pay my bills but not line their pockets with my money. 
When I logged on to my account, in the payment section you could reduce your direct debit. When I've tried to save the new amount (only £15 less per month), it came up with an error. Emailed SO asking how I can do this but do far no response. Went into my account today..... and the function to adjust the direct debit appears to have disappeared!! Is this in light of the recent news regarding energy companies over charging DD and this function has been removed so it's difficult for a customer to reduce their direct debit? Very very sneaky and querying if lawful?! I'm going to phone but I'm not convinced they'll answer.....

Yes it is lawful, something is not illegal just because you do not like it.

Try have probably removed the option to reduce online because many customers were trying to reduce their Direct Debit payments below their usage. With that option now only available via customer services they can talk to the customer to find out if they actually understand the current pricing.

ATaleOfTwoWaffles

I'm also with SO Energy, but the option to amend DD payments is still visible for me. However something odd is certainly going on.

They recently updated my DD payments, a few days ago I went in and amended the payment amount down, as (similar to you) they hadn't taken in to account the amount of credit in the account when setting the new DD payments. Today they had reverted my amended DD back to the level they had previously set.

I've adjusted it down again, confirmed on screen as changed - although the system doesn't allow the level to be set to the minimum amount they show as allowable. We'll see if the amended figure sticks this time or if the company will randomly alter the amount again.

Ultrasonic

For info. plenty of energy companies have never offered a simple way to amend DD amounts via a webpage, so if such a feature were to be removed it would hardly be somehow shocking.

bristolleedsfan

None of the energy suppliers seem to take into account credit balances when trying to increase direct debits.

Anybody on So Flex who is happy to pay winter bills as they come and is unhappy about how So Energy is operating budget direct debit, ask to change to Variable DD//Pay on receipt of bill by direct debit.

Pay for what has been used every month, no credit balance - See lower part of linked page
https://help.so.energy/support/solutions/articles/7000046298-your-energy-statement-explained