OVO - has anyone cancelled their Direct Debit and is paying on receipt of bill?

Sunelectric

I’m currently paying by Direct Debit but have a £400+ credit balance (will be £600+ when the next payment goes out on the 1st Nov) but OVO are only willing to reduce my monthly payment by 5%. According to my account online they’re also looking to increase my DD for the 2nd time in as many months.

How much extra would I pay if I was to cancel my Direct Debit and pay on receipt of bill and how would this charge be reflected? Would the unit rates increase or would a “non Direct Debit” surcharge be added?

[Deleted User]

Sunelectric said:

I’m currently paying by Direct Debit but have a £400+ credit balance (will be £600+ when the next payment goes out on the 1st Nov) but OVO are only willing to reduce my monthly payment by 5%. According to my account online they’re also looking to increase my DD for the 2nd time in as many months.

How much extra would I pay if I was to cancel my Direct Debit and pay on receipt of bill and how would this charge be reflected? Would the unit rates increase or would a “non Direct Debit” surcharge be added?

The unit rates and standing charge would be different.  Probably somewhere between 7% and 10% higher.

Yorkie006

@Sunelectric Not sure if OVO do this, but can you change to variable DD? That way you'll keep the existing rates but only pay for what you actually use. Obviously, your winter bills will be noticeably higher than summer ones but if you have a lot of credit built up, it should not matter that much.

Jonboy_1984

I am with the SSE part of OVO and pay on receipt of bill. My estimate received last week reckons I am paying £100 per fuel per annum vs direct debit for the privilege and am currently on the national estimated usage for the calculations as only in the property since July.

(I went to set one up the other day and they wanted to collect £4k per year for an estimated £2.5k usage, so am holding back to see how actual use pans out for a couple more months).

jimjames

Sunelectric said:

How much extra would I pay if I was to cancel my Direct Debit and pay on receipt of bill and how would this charge be reflected? Would the unit rates increase or would a “non Direct Debit” surcharge be added?

You're confusing the payment method with the billing method. You can still pay by DD but based on your usage for the month, well at least EDF and some others do. It does mean your bills in the summer will be very low and in winter very high so you'd need to be able to manage your budget. Cancelling DD would be a bad idea as you'll lose the discount which means your payments are around £200 more expensive for the average user paying £2500 pa.

RobM99

I pay by varying DD with (much maligned) UW. Suits me.

ariarnia

Jonboy_1984 said:

 paying £100 per fuel per annum vs direct debit for the privilege

thats very belivable. i think most companies charge around 5-7% more for not having a dd set up so for the 'average' £2500 thats 125-175 per year. 

pochase

To my knowledge Ovo does not offer variable direct debit, so it is fixed direct debit or a more expensive form of payment.

Peter999_2

No, Ovo do not offer the variable direct debit which is frustrating.    However, as usual, no doubt people would moan like mad if their variable DD went up over winter.

I am way in credit with Ovo but they have written to me to ask to change my direct debit to £186 a month.   I didn't want to put up the direct debit as I'm only spending £106 a month at the moment.       I then got an email this morning to say as I haven't done anything they've automatically put my direct debit to £186 a month.   This really pisses me off and I'm not wasting my time contacting them for their incompetence.

I'll just wait while I end up more than three months in credit and get the money refunded as you can do that on the website without talking to anyone.

Flight3287462

I can't understand why people want to start slashing their DD just as we are going into winter.  The time to do it is as we go into Spring, you just don't know how cold and how long the Winter is going to be and having a cushion is a big plus.

ariarnia

Peter999_2 said:

No, Ovo do not offer the variable direct debit which is frustrating.    However, as usual, no doubt people would moan like mad if their variable DD went up over winter.

I am way in credit with Ovo but they have written to me to ask to change my direct debit to £186 a month.   I didn't want to put up the direct debit as I'm only spending £106 a month at the moment.       I then got an email this morning to say as I haven't done anything they've automatically put my direct debit to £186 a month.   This really pisses me off and I'm not wasting my time contacting them for their incompetence.

I'll just wait while I end up more than three months in credit and get the money refunded as you can do that on the website without talking to anyone.

can't you just use the tool on there website and put it back down again?