Monthly direct debit increase help

brad5014

Ends year later from Jan when it started. I just waiting on the phone for over hour and they just hung up when I asked about the debt increase ..... Wut

brad5014

It's has gas but it's not used everything is on electric including cooker shower etc 

TheBanker

brad5014 said:

It's has gas but it's not used everything is on electric including cooker shower etc 

Does this include heating during the winter months?

If you are using electricity to heat the property in winter, then I think £70 per month over the year looks low, especially taking into account that prices jumped in April (probably not used much heating since then) and will jump again in October.

As others have suggested you need to find meter readings covering the last 12 months. If you use a period less than a year it won't be accurate because you will have a disproportionate number of warm months skewing your total.

brad5014

I don't use heating and if I did would only be during the night if it's extremely cold but not even had to since I switched I'm not in very often. But I've not been with them for over a year and last company I was with went bankrupt or something and I got changed so no idea how to give you a year total 🤔

brad5014

Well I just rang up again and waited for ages and got hung up on again right after asking about the debt increase ..... They couldn't even be bothered to answer my question again like what the heck 🤦‍♂️

Is this a cash grab before declaring there bankrupt and running with customers money or something surely they have to give you a reason and not ignore you 

ariarnia

ovo are one of the larger suppliers so its not likely they're going to be bankrupt.

more likely its' because your contact is ending in january and then you'll go onto the October cap (unless Truss does something tomorrow to change that). so they've probably looked at the next 12 months against your usage so far and think you're not paying enough.

you could try direct messaging them via twitter. when we had a question before then they replied quickly and were helpful. i just needed to give them my account details which are on my bill and verify my name etc for security. 

but if you go onto your ovo online account and go to 'payments' do you see an option to adjust your DD? if you do then before you can make any changes there's a tool where you can type in different amounts and see what that would do to your account balance over the next 12 months. that might be helpful at understanding what they expect you to use and when?

TheBanker

brad5014 said:

I don't use heating and if I did would only be during the night if it's extremely cold but not even had to since I switched I'm not in very often. But I've not been with them for over a year and last company I was with went bankrupt or something and I got changed so no idea how to give you a year total 🤔

Do you have either old bills from your previous supplier, any records you've kept of meter readings, or perhaps a smart meter that was installed over a year ago?

What you are looking for is an actual meter reading from around this time last year (not an estimated one). Then you can read your meter today and work out how much electricity you've used over 12 months. You need to know this in KwH or Units rather than the £ value.

Assuming no major changes to your home or lifestyle it's reasonable to assume usage over the next 12 months will be similar. If you've made changes then you'll need to adjust the total to reflect these, but don't over-estimate the impact of small changes (e.g. turning lights off) on your total consumption.

If you can post the most accurate meter readings you can find then I think someone can help do the calculations. It's probably worth doing this before calling the supplier again.

The other potential issue is that if you haven't been submitting regular readings (manually or via a smart meter) then your whole bill will be based on estimated usage which could be over or under. So you could have a credit or debit balance which needs to be factored into the amount of your DD. 

brad5014

There smart meters that are sending actual readings every day and were installed by ovo they didn't like my last smart meters no idea why and no access to the old statements since there all online these days 

brad5014

The online tool just says it has to be minimum of £261 won't let me change it and says to contact them to talk about it but I'm finding it impossible to actually talk to some one who will even talk about it ... 

RobM99

brad5014 said:

The online tool just says it has to be minimum of £261 won't let me change it and says to contact them to talk about it but I'm finding it impossible to actually talk to some one who will even talk about it ... 

That's SO annoying! I just want to talk to someone about it - but "all our operators are busy". Well, employ some more!