Where's my £66?

k_man

Bimbly said:

Thanks everyone. I agree, it looks like my decision to increase my DD to £250 has confused Octopus.

Yes, the whole £250 was taken. I was surprised because that was not what was supposed to happen (should have been £250 -£66 (£184)).

To answer a question above, my account says that the £250 DD credit is pending. 

I imagine it will come out in the wash. It will be interesting to see if my bank account or my Octopus account gets credited with that £66.

I'm not going to complain to them - unless the £66 doesn't turn up by the end of the month - I'm sure it's all a bit of a nightmare at their end.

If you put it up to £250 at around the same time they were reducing the DD by £67, the changes are likely to have clashed.

As you say, it should all sort itself out over the next month.

Apodemus

There seems to be an extra complication (at least with E.On Next) that their computer considers the actual amount paid as being the new-rate DD minus the £67.  The computer's DD rate remains as the unrebated figure and is higher than the amount actually taken.  My old DD was £70, my new payment was £99, which was their new DD rate of £166, less the £67 paid back.  All fair enough, I guess...   

Unfortunately I then complicated things by deciding that I wanted to increase my payment to be the old £70 plus paying back the £67, so an actual payment of £137.  That is not possible, though, because the computer will only allow you to reduce your DD by a maximum of 10%, which on their figure of £166 was £149.40!  So they essentially can't automate anything for me between £99 and £150!  It's no great problem, I can just pay lump sums to achieve the same thing, but slightly frustrating that modern automated banking can't actually cope with what a human might want to do!

BeerSavesMoney

molerat said:

I suspect people changing their DDs all over the place has totally confused the computers.  Putting the DD up to £250 has likely set the system to £250 actually taken plus £66 credit when the correct thing to do was likely set the DD to £250 - £66 so that £184 was taken and the DD will increase to £250 in April.

I was thinking the same, Octopus reduced my direct debit by £66 so I’m guessing if they’ve put it up after Octopus reduced it then they’ll get £250 + £66 credit to their account in a few days.

Max68

Right just spoken to Octopus and this is the scenario for Octopus, other companies may be different.  The lady said that from Octobers bill until March £67 will be taken off your bill.  The reducing of direct debits seems to have led to some confusion.  The rationale seems to be as your bill will be £67 less, they also reduce your D/D by £67 but if you want a buffer then it's down to you to increase your D/D back up to your usual amount or higher.   ***Just to clarify I am just reciting what I was told by the lady at Octopus when I rang to see how the credit would be applied.  She may be wrong of course, but don't shoot the messenger!

Spoonie_Turtle

Max68 said:

Right just spoken to Octopus and this is the scenario for Octopus, other companies may be different.  The lady said that from Octobers bill until March £67 will be taken off your bill.  The reducing of direct debits seems to have led to some confusion.  The rationale seems to be as your bill will be £67 less, they also reduce your D/D by £67 but if you want a buffer then it's down to you to increase your D/D back up to your usual amount or higher.

It's taken off your bill in the sense that it is a credit added to your account and applied to the bill, so you are charged less.  They are crediting it to people's accounts.

https://octopus.energy/blog/government-support-with-energy-costs-this-winter/

The £400 Energy Bill Support Scheme kicks in too.

• Sometime in the next week or so, you'll receive a £66 credit from us. It won't necessarily be on the 1st of the month, so don't worry if you don't see it. This is first credit of six you'll receive this Winter, adding up to £400 non-repayable government support.

[Deleted User]

Max68 said:

Right just spoken to Octopus and this is the scenario for Octopus, other companies may be different.  The lady said that from Octobers bill until March £67 will be taken off your bill.  The reducing of direct debits seems to have led to some confusion.  The rationale seems to be as your bill will be £67 less, they also reduce your D/D by £67 but if you want a buffer then it's down to you to increase your D/D back up to your usual amount or higher.

That isn’t correct. Your tariff only changes with respect to the application of the EPG. When the EPG is applied, the cost of energy for a typical Ofgem consumer will rise by 27% from the 1st October.

The £400 reduces the typical EPG consumer cost from £2500 to £2100 but this is still an increase of £200. For most consumers, the £67 will be taken off the monthly DD payment. That is, if the monthly DD payment is £100 then you would pay £33 but £100 would still be credited to the energy account. Charges for the energy used against the agreed tariff will then be deducted as usual.

For those that pay on receipt of a bill, my understanding is that there will be a £67 deduction for each month of the billing period.

razord

Octopus implemented this change by lowering your direct debit about 10 days ago, so DDs from 1st October would be lower.

If you then updated your direct debit to a higher amount, it would have overridden that change. They did it this way so that those people who wanted to still pay the same amount (and just gain the extra credit), could go in an edit their DDs manually.

Max68

I'm just reciting what the lady at Octopus told me.  If it's wrong, then the lady at Octopus is wrong.  In my personal case my bill was £85 for September.  My direct Debit was down as £130 but today Octopus have only taken £63, and, on my account, it says A payment of £63.00 hasn't yet been applied.  I have since paid another £67 direct to Octopus, so I know now that £130 has been taken out of my account as per usual.  If they credit my account another £67 or take it off my bill at the end of this month, I don't mind which as long as I personally can still put £130 of my own money into my account each month building a buffer, of which I have the last few months, for when the bills rise above £130.

MWT

Max68 said:

I'm just reciting what the lady at Octopus told me.  If it's wrong, then the lady at Octopus is wrong.

She is wrong, but that is not unusual as a lot of the CS staff do have problems keeping up with the changes.

phillw

molerat said:

I suspect people changing their DDs all over the place has totally confused the computers.  Putting the DD up to £250 has likely set the system to £250 actually taken plus £66 credit when the correct thing to do was likely set the DD to £250 - £66 so that £184 was taken and the DD will increase to £250 in April.

Unless you're with santander and have a 123 account and want to make the most of the 4% cashback for the next two months...