MSE News: 30% of British Gas, Octopus & Shell Energy customers say their direct debits have DOUBLED

THD123

Well I may be a lone voice but I am very happy (so far) with Shell Energy. I was "ported" to them when Green went bust last Autumn. I began with a DD of £60/month and always stayed in credit. They had website glitches in April and (fearing the huge increases that have been reported elsewhere) I contacted them to determine my new DD following the price-cap increase. The agent couldn't see all of my account info but agreed to my suggestion that at a 54% rise would mean a new DD of approx. £92 and my account was updated to that figure. Once the website glitches to the "Account Summary" page was sorted there was an updated annual estimated useage with a recommendation in April that I could reduce my DD to £72 and this month they have recommended it could drop to £69

So rather than the big rises some have experienced mine and now represents an increase of around 20%

Mstty

THD123 said:

Well I may be a lone voice but I am very happy (so far) with Shell Energy. I was "ported" to them when Green went bust last Autumn. I began with a DD of £60/month and always stayed in credit. They had website glitches in April and (fearing the huge increases that have been reported elsewhere) I contacted them to determine my new DD following the price-cap increase. The agent couldn't see all of my account info but agreed to my suggestion that at a 54% rise would mean a new DD of approx. £92 and my account was updated to that figure. Once the website glitches to the "Account Summary" page was sorted there was an updated annual estimated useage with a recommendation in April that I could reduce my DD to £72 and this month they have recommended it could drop to £69

So rather than the big rises some have experienced mine and now represents an increase of around 20%

How does the rise of 54% equate to your actual kWh usage for the year and the current price cap.  That is what counts👍

polymaff

MSE_Petar said:

At least 30% of British Gas, Octopus Energy and Shell Energy customers who were in credit and on price-capped tariffs ...

Well done for focusing in on the previously far-too-broad call for data.

Of course, you can ask for a variable DD.  Then you'll never be paying the wrong amount and you won't build up a credit balance / provide the supplier with an interest-free loan.

You have to take on the responsibility for meeting the varying DD but, hey, I come from the generation that used to be trusted to open railway carriage doors

Gillybxxx

I'm struggling to understand how, when I am on a fixed rate tarrif which ends in February 2023, my direct debits have increased from £90 per month to £179 per month.  I called British Gas and they said it is because of my usuage??? which is rubbish because I have been really careful to ensure that I have lowered my usage of both gas and electricity.

pochase

So what do your bills state? Are you in debt or credit after the latest bill and by how much?

Undisputedtruth

My bills have effectively doubled since October last year.

The energy cap of 54 per cent only applies if your electricity and gas bill are of equal amounts. If your gas bill is higher than your electric then you are going to pay well over the 54 per cent and closer to double. Conversely, if your electricity is higher than your gas bill then overall you will pay under the 54 per cent cap.

For most people with unequal sixed energy bills, the 54 per cent energy cap is a next to useless number to calculate your energy bill. 

wild666

NorthtoWest said:

I was with Bulb energy before they folded. I was moved to E-on Next in October '21. I have been paying £85 a month for my gas and electric. By the time each quarterly bill was issued I have always been in credit. Just before it was time to calculate the new direct debit amount in April (with the hike in electricity costs), E-on Next made 8 charges to my account making me in debit by -£990.26! They then recalculated my monthly direct debit to £190.76! Then reversed these charges! I had a back and forth, via email, with their customer services dept who would not answer the question as to why they had made these charges/refunds. I escalated it to the complaints department. The answer came back:

"When you were initially billed, there were anomalies in the calculations that were system driven as part of the move of supply to us. This was re-billed from November 2021 to March 2022, and is why the bill shows multiple reversed charges and them replaced with correct charges". - They didn't replace them with correct charges - they literally charged my account -£990, recalculated my DD they refunded these charges!

"On the back of rebilling your charges, the payment review we completed shows that the payments you need to be making to cover the consumption you use and so you do not remain in a debit balance every month (as you were prior to the the balance going up to £900 odd), that £190 is better suited" 

I have now been able to reduce the monthly DD but I think this is disgusting behaviour.  As your article says, a massive percentage of customers didn't think they could challenge their new DD amount. Anyone else experience anything similar?

That's the reason I take daily readings for electric from my smart meter and weekly for gas, I use so little gas that in a week I can use less than 1 unit, 11.4 kWh, if any energy company tried that with me I would have years of readings to fall back on from suppliers like BG, OFTM, Bulb and Avro all of who have not questioned the readings.

wild666

pochase said:

molerat said:

Thrugelmir said:

"that they've seen their direct debits double – even though the price cap rise is half that, at 54%."

For a site suppossedly expert on the matters of finance that's a shocking piece of journalism. No wonder there's mass confusion if the experts cannot even get their facts right. 

MSE editorial content is now little more than a click bait red top rag run by a company with financial interests rather than the consumer focussed organisation it once was,

This article encouraging people try to reduce their direct debit without  first analysing their situation is just wrong There is nothing about calculating first how much the energy you need will really cost you and it seems supplier go knowingly with direct debit amounts that will not be sufficient for the next year.

Yes, from what we see there are suppliers who are trying to milk customers for as much money upfront as possible, but it is by far not as bad as described in the article. They don't mention at all that there is no 54% increase, but that each situation is different, or that the 54% only describes a specific scenario  going from SVT to SVT, and is completely different for coming of a fixed rate. A 150% increase or more might be complete justified here.

Going from the success stories that are posted at the moment I expect a lot of threads in 10 to 12 months time reporting that they suddenly have a huge debt and why their supplier did allow them to build up this debt by reducing their direct debit under the amount required.

No idea why suppliers agree to reductions that will cause problems. Are they maybe scared of the Ofgem investigation into direct debit orders and are now making their mistake sin the opposite direction?

I use my readings plus any credit I have to work out my DD, I recently upped it from £48 to £55 but will be using around £65 per month with a £307 credit. I could have reduced the DD but chose to increase it so that the credit decreases slowly rather than swiftly over a few months. 
I don't want any debt on my account so when the credit is used up I will increase the DD again.

JaneEdin

A sort of success story. My mother is with Eon and lives in a retirement flat with electricity supply only which has been expensive in the past but affordable. In March we decided to increase her dd by 15% to cover current monthly consumption and to start to reduce the £300 winter deficit. We check her consumption regularly and are fully aware of the additional support the government is providing for pensioners so knew that she'd be back in credit before the winter period.
In May Eon increased her dd by 59% with no prior notice and when we queried they told us the dd couldn't be reduced and that she should speak to the Step Change debt charity. I found this quite frustrating and after a very annoying telephone call they eventually agreed to reduce the dd but not down to the March level (an £3 extra which thankfully is covered by her April pension increase).
We fully understand the current energy crisis plus my mother is carefully managing her finances and is not in debt so it feels so wrong that (some of) the energy companies can treat people this way, very disrespectful and quite stressful for the older generation. Once matters settle down we're going to change suppliers.
As an aside I'm with Octopus and have found them to be refreshingly easy to deal with - will definitely be considering them as my mother's future supplier.

pochase

The 59% increase does not sound unreasonable at all. The increase for electricity with the cap was more than 35%, and your mother was in debt at the end of the winter period, so she was not paying enough.

The summer months are not being used to reduce the debt from the winter, they should be used to build up a credit to cover the higher use in winter.

Did they just take more money, or did they just send an email or was it on the bill that the direct debit will be increased?

The energy grant of £400 will cover the debt and there will be just £100 left as credit.

You have now a DD which is 15% higher than the one which got your mother into £300 debt, while the cost increase in April was already more than 35%. In other words the debt next year will be much higher than the £300. Add to this the expected increase in October.