Cancel direct debit

louisepineapple

I’m thinking of cancelling my direct debit and paying my bill monthly, can anyone advise if this is a good idea ? Looking back in the last 12 months I only was only in debit on my bill for 1 month ( January) , always end up in credit at the end of the 12 months . 

Archie_Duke

There is almost always a small discount on energy unit rate given by the supplier for paying by direct debit. You could change to pay by variable direct debit as long as you think you will be able to afford the much higher predicted bills over the next couple of winters.

Mobtr

not the the best idea, you’ll lose the discount you get for paying by direct debit so your bills will be higher. If you want to change, go onto variable direct debit where you give a reading every month, get a bill & they take the full amount out of your bank account 14 days later. Only issue with this is you will get lovely low bills in the summer but very high ones every month during the winter so will need to budget for this 

lsur02

I set up a standing order instead of the direct debit. I pay what I want to pay monthly not the 50percent increase the company were asking.

Get your company's sort code, account number and your customer reference. You can set up a SO easily and cancel the DD.

Did this 5 months ago with Bulb and no problems

t0rt0ise

lsur02 said:

I set up a standing order instead of the direct debit. I pay what I want to pay monthly not the 50percent increase the company were asking.

Get your company's sort code, account number and your customer reference. You can set up a SO easily and cancel the DD.

Did this 5 months ago with Bulb and no problems

Bulb don't charge more for paying by standing order. Others might. Variable Direct Debit is better.

The_Fat_Controller

lsur02 said:

I set up a standing order instead of the direct debit. I pay what I want to pay monthly not the 50percent increase the company were asking.

Get your company's sort code, account number and your customer reference. You can set up a SO easily and cancel the DD.

Did this 5 months ago with Bulb and no problems

Which is fine if you want to be paying around 7% more for your energy by foregoing the DD discount.

Doesn't suit everybody and you still need to keep an eye on your usage to make sure your SO covers it.

pochase

lsur02 said:

I set up a standing order instead of the direct debit. I pay what I want to pay monthly not the 50percent increase the company were asking.

Get your company's sort code, account number and your customer reference. You can set up a SO easily and cancel the DD.

Did this 5 months ago with Bulb and no problems

It works with Bulb because there is no difference in the rates for different forms of payments.

For most other suppliers the "small" difference is 5% to 7%. The only other company I am aware that has no different rates is Octopus.

@louisepineapple
If you are not with the two companies there is a good chance that you will pay more money.

Mobtr

lsur02 said:

I set up a standing order instead of the direct debit. I pay what I want to pay monthly not the 50percent increase the company were asking.

Get your company's sort code, account number and your customer reference. You can set up a SO easily and cancel the DD.

Did this 5 months ago with Bulb and no problems

This is fine for the summer months but if you don’t increase your SO for the winter expect reminder letters or worse as SO is not usually a recognised payment method and the equivalent of paying on receipt of the bill 

lsur02

Of course you change the amount every so often if usage changes. Also, surely it is a recognised method? It might not be what companies prefer because the customer is in control. Bulb certainly gave me the ok when I asked them about the change and volunteered the account details.

pochase

So why not just change to variable direct debit and pay each month what you use? Much easier than adjsuting manually all the time. You just need to give monthly readings.

That will also work for suppliers that have higher rates for non direct debit payments.

Of course as describes by @Mobtr you have will have very high bills in winter and need to be prepared for this.

sully1311

lsur02 said:

Of course you change the amount every so often if usage changes. Also, surely it is a recognised method? It might not be what companies prefer because the customer is in control. Bulb certainly gave me the ok when I asked them about the change and volunteered the account details.

Have you not read what anyone has said? If you're with Bulb, there's no increase in cost by paying by SO.