OVO greed

pochase

I was trying to make sense of your numbers 

281.67	Credit
-396.7	Bill
+872	DD
=756.97	new credit

The above numbers make sense, but are hard to believe.

It seems you really had a bill of £396.70 in the middle of summer? And you say you have calculated that a direct debit of £436 would bring you to the big increase in January?

You are aware that the first big increase is in October? And you last bill would become almost £720?

BUFF

Ihammond said:

Without my consent they've just increased my direct debit from £436 to £872 

They are required to give you reasonable notice of a DD change. Have you checked your account/email to see if they did so?
You can always invoke the DD guarantee.

[Deleted User]

BUFF said:

Ihammond said:

Without my consent they've just increased my direct debit from £436 to £872 

They are required to give you reasonable notice of a DD change. Have you checked your account/email to see if they did so?
You can always invoke the DD guarantee.

"They've just increased my direct debit" when used by a poster here often means "they've just sent me the notice of an upcoming increase to my direct debit" 

Ihammond

Interesting. I thought my fix had finished. Best thing to do is ring, keep the phone on hold & I’ll talk to them tomorrow. Octopus too I think. Variable sounds simpler. Wherever I end up it’s going to be pricey for all of us next year.  Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your help & advice. All the best 

Chrysalis

Ihammond said:

hi All - i pay OVO a LOT every month, i'm constantly in credit but their annual calculations always show that i should be paying more (for them to keep on special deposit i'm sure), as it's calculated annually.  What do you think of the following - i currently pay £436 per month - i'd actually worked out that even if my bills doubled that would see me through to the big rise in Jan - i was £281.67 in credit. my dual fuel bill was £396.70. Without my consent they've just increased my direct debit from £436 to £872 putting a nett £756 credit into their special deposit account . They shut at 6pm so i can't negotiate with them tonight. Last time i rang to stop them increasing for no reason they kept me on hold for 30 minutes which cost quite a bit - I'm not a belligerent person but cancelling my direct debit for next month to force my point seems quite tempting. What do you think i should do ??  So much for their CEO's 'PR' nonsense. 

Dont cancel the DD without talking to them.

You do have a few options.

1 - Ring them up to get it reduced again, as you in credit I would expect them to comply.  Probably whilst warning you of course of a doomsday winter scenario.
2 - Change to a variable direct debit where you pay what the bill is in arrears.  So it will change from month to month, but you will never be in credit assuming you on actual readings.
3 - Change to manual payments, but if doing this I would speak to them first, so you have informed them, you would lose any direct debit billing discount if one exists on your account.

spenderdave

OVO/SSE DO offer variable direct debit, I am on it. But getting any sense out of their customer services is beyond a joke.

ariarnia

have you tried them on twitter? i had a question about our bill a while ago and they were very helpful. you can also change your DD level using their website. 

ive not had an email about paying 1000 into my account but that might be because we looked at our forecast annual usage when the new cap was announced and updated our dd ourselves based on what we worked the new 12 month cost out to be. plus we do tend to keep a fairly large balance on the account (especially this time of year) because ovo pay more interest on balances than our current account does. 

WelshPaul

spenderdave said:

OVO/SSE DO offer variable direct debit, I am on it. But getting any sense out of their customer services is beyond a joke.

OVO do not but SSE do! Odd I know, OVO own SSE. If you have a variable DD in place then it must be because you're still with SSE?

spenderdave

Yes I am still, I think, with SSE. I have an ongoing complaint with them which I am trying unsuccessfully to sort out and now have direct contact (via their CEO office) with a woman in their complaints department with an @ovo.com email address.....

spenderdave

Oh the wonders of SSE. Just been awarded the forum 'name dropper' tag having typed @ovo.com, don't think there will be any user called ovo here....