Opinions...

pochase

murphyslaw2020 said:

QrizB said:

maxmycardagain said:

QrizB said:

maxmycardagain said:

Why am I lending Eon money? 
I want a monthly to pay on demand now

Switch to prepayment. Problem sorted.

Im already £220 in credit, I don't pay upfront for anything else

Ok then, cancel your DD and switch to pay-on-receipt-of-bill.

I prefer pay on receipt of bill, it means money stays in your own account and you gain interest on your own money. 

I had the problem with my energy company, even though I had plenty of credit in the account, where they, without my knowledge, we’re about to help themselves from my bank account and take £117 out. 

They did not send any e Mail or letter to say they were going to do this beforehand. I therefore cancelled both direct debits and pay each month. 

I feel they cannot be trusted with customers money.

You must have an excellent savings account that gives you more than the 7% direct debit discount you get for paying by direct debit instead of paying on receipt of the bill for most suppliers.

Only a few suppliers like Bulb and Octopus don't have different unit rates for different forms of payment, and from some threads it seems as if Octopus also will be more expensive now if you don't pay by direct debit.

You should check if your supplier has a variable direct debit that will work the same as a payment on receipt of a bill, just still set up as a direct debit and you will still receive the discount.

[Deleted User]

Helping themselves without your knowledge?  So they managed to set up a direct debit agreement with your bank without you having any knowledge of the fact?

I think you are misremembering the situation.

Ultrasonic

murphyslaw2020 said:

QrizB said:

maxmycardagain said:

QrizB said:

maxmycardagain said:

Why am I lending Eon money? 
I want a monthly to pay on demand now

Switch to prepayment. Problem sorted.

Im already £220 in credit, I don't pay upfront for anything else

Ok then, cancel your DD and switch to pay-on-receipt-of-bill.

I prefer pay on receipt of bill, it means money stays in your own account and you gain interest on your own money. 

I had the problem with my energy company, even though I had plenty of credit in the account, where they, without my knowledge, we’re about to help themselves from my bank account and take £117 out. 

They did not send any e Mail or letter to say they were going to do this beforehand. I therefore cancelled both direct debits and pay each month. 

I feel they cannot be trusted with customers money.

Customers are protected by the direct debit guarantee. It's not the case that companies can just do whatever they want without justification.

murphyslaw2020

[Deleted User] said:

Helping themselves without your knowledge?  So they managed to set up a direct debit agreement with your bank without you having any knowledge of the fact?

I think you are misremembering the situation.

I did at the time have 2 direct debits have done for years. 

When I opened up app there was a message saying that they were taking £117 out of account in 4 days so went onto bank app and deleted them both. 

At no time had the company asked me, no e mail, no letter, it was only by luck that I happened to check energy app. 

I telephoned them the next morning and put in a complaint. 

I have never had a company help themselves to a personal bank account without informing person.

So yes, the energy company were helping themselves.

This has happened quite a lot with other customers too. 

Just look what happened when energy companies went bankrupt and none of customers credit was available or had disappeared. I read somewhere that we are paying extra on our bill for that so people didn’t loose all the money they had trusted the energy companies with.

maxmycardagain

QrizB said:

maxmycardagain said:

QrizB said:

maxmycardagain said:

Why am I lending Eon money? 
I want a monthly to pay on demand now

Switch to prepayment. Problem sorted.

Im already £220 in credit, I don't pay upfront for anything else

Ok then, cancel your DD and switch to pay-on-receipt-of-bill.

I've been trying but oddly, they won't reply 

Section62

murphyslaw2020 said:

Deleted_User said:

Helping themselves without your knowledge?  So they managed to set up a direct debit agreement with your bank without you having any knowledge of the fact?

I think you are misremembering the situation.

I did at the time have 2 direct debits have done for years. 

When I opened up app there was a message saying that they were taking £117 out of account in 4 days so went onto bank app and deleted them both. 

At no time had the company asked me, no e mail, no letter, it was only by luck that I happened to check energy app. 

I telephoned them the next morning and put in a complaint. 

I have never had a company help themselves to a personal bank account without informing person.

So yes, the energy company were helping themselves.

So when you signed up to using the app, was there nothing saying you were agreeing that this would be the method by which the energy company would communicate important account information - such as your direct debit amount - and that by continuing you were accepting that they wouldn't send you this information in the post (or other methods)?

If there was, then you agreed to them informing you by the app, which they did before taking the DD. Whether you look at the app regularly to check for important information -  like the direct debit amount - is up to you.

They were not "helping themselves".

murphyslaw2020 said:

Just look what happened when energy companies went bankrupt and none of customers credit was available or had disappeared. I read somewhere that we are paying extra on our bill for that so people didn’t loose all the money they had trusted the energy companies with.

The customers got their credit back.  It hadn't "disappeared".  It was spent supplying people with energy, but wasn't enough to keep the company afloat with the increased costs they had.  When the companies stopped trading, the statutory arrangements to protect people's credit kicked in.

That has nothing to do with companies "helping themselves" to customer's money via DD payments.

murphyslaw2020

Section62 said:

murphyslaw2020 said:

Deleted_User said:

Helping themselves without your knowledge?  So they managed to set up a direct debit agreement with your bank without you having any knowledge of the fact?

I think you are misremembering the situation.

I did at the time have 2 direct debits have done for years. 

When I opened up app there was a message saying that they were taking £117 out of account in 4 days so went onto bank app and deleted them both. 

At no time had the company asked me, no e mail, no letter, it was only by luck that I happened to check energy app. 

I telephoned them the next morning and put in a complaint. 

I have never had a company help themselves to a personal bank account without informing person.

So yes, the energy company were helping themselves.

So when you signed up to using the app, was there nothing saying you were agreeing that this would be the method by which the energy company would communicate important account information - such as your direct debit amount - and that by continuing you were accepting that they wouldn't send you this information in the post (or other methods)?

If there was, then you agreed to them informing you by the app, which they did before taking the DD. Whether you look at the app regularly to check for important information -  like the direct debit amount - is up to you.

They were not "helping themselves".

murphyslaw2020 said:

Just look what happened when energy companies went bankrupt and none of customers credit was available or had disappeared. I read somewhere that we are paying extra on our bill for that so people didn’t loose all the money they had trusted the energy companies with.

The customers got their credit back.  It hadn't "disappeared".  It was spent supplying people with energy, but wasn't enough to keep the company afloat with the increased costs they had.  When the companies stopped trading, the statutory arrangements to protect people's credit kicked in.

That has nothing to do with companies "helping themselves" to customer's money via DD payments.

When I complained about what they were about to do they did apologise for their mistake and compensated me, but after that, all trust was lost in company and I feel it is better to pay monthly upon receipt. I was originally transferred from another energy company which was bought out.

[Deleted User]

murphyslaw2020 said:

I feel they cannot be trusted with customers money.

Your credit balance is 100% protected by Ofgem (or to put it another way, by millions of energy customers).

If you cancel your DD, then you will pay c.7% more by paying this way. I am not aware of any Banks paying this amount of interest. 

If your supplier allows it, you could move to a variable DD where the supplier claims the full amount each time a bill is raised. You would then retain the DD discount. It would though be up to you to ensure that there is enough money in your account to pay for future bills as they arrive.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] said:

murphyslaw2020 said:

I feel they cannot be trusted with customers money.

Your credit balance is 100% protected by Ofgem (or to put it another way, by millions of energy customers).

If you cancel your DD, then you will pay c.7% more by paying this way. I am not aware of any Banks paying this amount of interest. 

If your supplier allows it, you could move to a variable DD where the supplier claims the full amount each time a bill is raised. You would then retain the DD discount. It would though be up to you to ensure that there is enough money in your account to pay for future bills as they arrive.

Eon Next does and this is the way I pay for my energy in this way.  Bill raised on 2nd October (covering September's usage with accurate reads).  DD comes out to zeroise account circa 17th October.  Funds already put away for what I originally anticipated to be a much higher set of unit rates.