Octopus Energy tried to treble my monthly payments

nick789uk

Hi just had an email from Octopus energy saying that they will put my monthly payment up to £395.85 pm from £150 pm. I am over £200 in credit and at the moment,  my monthly bills for electricity and gas is around £80. I contacted them and asked them why they were doing this they said it was estimated that is the amount I would use, I informed them that they do not need to estimate the amount I use as I am on a smart meter for both electricity and gas and should know how much I am using as I know, they then agreed to put it back to the £150 pm. Is this just pure grabbing money off the customer as if I hade not notice then I would have been paying the new amount. 

Robin9

Are you by any chance just coming to the end of a long fix ?

EDIT What is your actual annual consumptions please ?

[Deleted User]

With respect, you do need an estimated annual usage figure which may well be sourced using your smart meter data. If you were paying £150 a month, then your annual payment would be £1800 a year. A credit of £200 is not that significant given that most people use 70% of their annual energy consumption over the Winter months.

Before crying ‘foul’ you need to work out what you think that your annual cost will be for the next 12 months.

What are estimated annual consumption figures for gas and electricity in kWh/year not £s. What Octopus tariff are you on? 

RelievedSheff

You can work the figures out for yourself.

Take your annual use in kWh times that by your unit cost and then divide that number by 12 to give you your monthly cost.

All of the information you need will be on your bills. Make sure you use the latest unit prices though if you have or are due to come off a fixed rate deal and onto a standard variable rate.

[Deleted User]

RelievedSheff said:

You can work the figures out for yourself.

Take your annual use in kWh times that by your unit cost and then divide that number by 12 to give you your monthly cost.

All of the information you need will be on your bills. Make sure you use the latest unit prices though if you have or are due to come off a fixed rate deal and onto a standard variable rate.

And if you are on a capped tariff then increases in October and next April need to be factored in. DD payments are based on a rolling 12 month cost period.

wakeupalarm

Just ask Octopus to move you to variable DD, that way they don't hold any of your money as credit balance and you only pay when your bill is produced.  No need to worry if Octopus goes bankrupt and no need to wait months for your money to be returned under the SOLR process.

If you need to budget regular amounts, just round up to £150 and put the excess into your savings account and then come winter you can withdraw from that to help pay for the higher winter bills.

Alnat1

You do need to make sure you can afford the big winter bills though.

wrf12345

Octopus's boss was recently on the radio saying he had cutting edge software yet he is doing the same trick as the others. tripling the usage for estimates. Ofgem are well aware of this but do nothing about it except telling everyone to behave. Useless.

[Deleted User]

wrf12345 said:

Octopus's boss was recently on the radio saying he had cutting edge software yet he is doing the same trick as the others. tripling the usage for estimates. Ofgem are well aware of this but do nothing about it except telling everyone to behave. Useless.

Tripling estimated usage to increase monthly payments is a breach of Ofgem regulations; however, tripling a DD payment based on usage, and actual and future energy costs isn’t. Remember for customers on a capped/variable tariff, suppliers base their cost estimates on a rolling 12 months. 

 I am expecting my gas price to increase from 3.5p/kWh a year ago to over 10p/kWh in October with, possibly, another increase in April 2023. 

Based on this 3-fold price increase, the supplier is right to look at increasing my monthly DD payment by a significant amount. If you were an energy supplier what would you do to ensure consumers do not get into debt?

Mstty

wrf12345 said:

Octopus's boss was recently on the radio saying he had cutting edge software yet he is doing the same trick as the others. tripling the usage for estimates. Ofgem are well aware of this but do nothing about it except telling everyone to behave. Useless.

I have found a fair few of the big contributors here are massive Octopus fans as what they need Octopus supplies. So bear that in mind with replies. Same for the OP.

I doubt however any of the software can get to grips with the £400 from October with the process still not agreed.(that's another matter entirely but it sprang to mind)

In this instance the OP has not clarified the rates they are coming from and to and their kWh usage.

Until then no one can judge who is right or wrong👍

Mstty

Xbigman said:

Mstty said:

wrf12345 said:

Octopus's boss was recently on the radio saying he had cutting edge software yet he is doing the same trick as the others. tripling the usage for estimates. Ofgem are well aware of this but do nothing about it except telling everyone to behave. Useless.

I have found a fair few of the big contributors here are massive Octopus fans as what they need Octopus supplies. So bear that in mind with replies. Same for the OP.

I doubt however any of the software can get to grips with the £400 from October with the process still not agreed.(that's another matter entirely but it sprang to mind)

In this instance the OP has not clarified the rates they are coming from and to and their kWh usage.

Until then no one can judge who is right or wrong👍

And you pop up on every thread that mentions Octopus criticising them. Everyone should bear that in mind. 



Darren

It's called balance 👍

Actually I have been promoting the following recently by Octopus on many posts and I believe the following should now be added at the top of Martin Lewis table for best deals

1) the Agile tariff is now the best out there for fixing electricity only at 35p for 12 months but act quick
2) actively promoting Octopus customers to consider the Tracker tariff for gas due to the 11p cap rate fixed for 12 months (we all hope) with agile for electricity.

Balance is key not bias and if you view my replies you will see both positive and negatives for Octopus.