MSE News. Energy regulator orders suppliers to take urgent action on direct debits

MSE_Andrew

Energy regulator Ofgem has ordered energy firms to improve how they set direct debits, after a review found a range of failings, with 100,000s of customers on standard variable tariffs seeing their direct debits doubled – way over the last price cap rise.

Read the full story here: 
'Energy regulator orders suppliers to take urgent action on direct debits after finding major failings'

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Diana2014

What the energy suppliers have told MSE that they do (as reflected in the guide at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-direct-debits) is not necessarily an accurate reflection of how they actually behave to their customers. It's misleading guff, at least in the case of Shell Energy - to which I was automatically transferred when Pure Planet failed last autumn.
What Shell Energy actually did recently, while I was paying every month just about exactly what I owed them for my actual usage (as I'd had to force them to accept in April), was to announce that they were going to take under my DD mandate from 1st September more than double what my latest bill showed my usage to be. They didn't ask me to discuss the raise and made no attempt to explain why they believed that horrendous new amount to be appropriate - even though they couldn't charge me at the new rate until 1st November and I wasn't likely (as they knew, from last year's readings) to use much more energy in the early autumn than the summer.
Taking extra money under a DD mandate, without the customer's consent to that increase, is theft. The only way to stop them burgling my bank account was to complain in writing, telling them that I did not consent to this happening and (unless they immediately guaranteed not to take more under the DD mandate than I had agreed, which they didn't do) cancel the mandate completely.
Shell Energy then proposed that I set up a variable DD mandate instead. They haven't answered my questions about how that works - such as whether I can alter the amount to be taken under that kind of DD (which I could do under the old, supposedly fixed DD), if there are obvious errors in their billing. They have left unanswered for over 2 months my complaint about inexplicable entries on my first few bills this year, so their billing is clearly a mess. But, if I didn't do that or reinstate a regular DD mandate (and then go through all this hassle the next time they abused it), they'd charge me more than if I pay under some kind of DD, so I'm trying the variable DD mandate.

pochase

At this moment there is a price increase of 80% coming in October. Yes, almost for sure this will change, but at this moment in time the energy suppliers have to go with what they know.

Ofgem has said  that energy suppliers are allowed to adjust direct debits already before the 1st of October, so they are complete in line with Ofgem regulations.

What is your refusal to pay the DD based on? Have you calculated your cost for the next 12 months base don last years consumption and are they that far off?