Shell Energy Advice
Hello everyone, so Shell Energy notified me that my DD will more than double which is unaffordable as well as laughable. When I spoke to them they wanted to refer me to a third party company to 'assess' my income which I declined to do as I do not feel comfortable with providing all my personal details to a company I've never heard of.
I then informed them of my intention to cancel their DD (which I did) and pay what I can afford manually via their website every month. I want to understand the consequences of doing this, although I'm not planning to miss any payments, the amount won't be close to what they have requested. However, the payments will be 20% more than the original DD amount.
I want to understand what actions they can take if I am still making regular payments, even though it is not close to what they have requested.
Thanks in advance.
I then informed them of my intention to cancel their DD (which I did) and pay what I can afford manually via their website every month. I want to understand the consequences of doing this, although I'm not planning to miss any payments, the amount won't be close to what they have requested. However, the payments will be 20% more than the original DD amount.
I want to understand what actions they can take if I am still making regular payments, even though it is not close to what they have requested.
Thanks in advance.
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By cancelling your direct debit your cost thas increased by 7 to 9% as you have lost your direct debit discount.
You are just mentioning that the new direct debit is unaffordable for you, but not if it is justified.
What was your old DD, and what are they are asking for now? What is your annual usage and what are your rates?
When you canceleld the direct debit they will have put you on payment on receipt of bill. So if you get your bill and don't pay what you owe you will build up a debt. At the same time you are refusing to work with them on an accessment of your financial situation.
Especially during the winter with higher usage your debt will build up much faster.
Most likely scenario is that they will switch you to prepaid meters, which means that you are not paying what you can afford, but you can only use what you can afford.
As above, cancelling the DD is not a good idea.
As Pochase says - by cancelling the DD you have already increased your costs unfortunately, it would be better to reinstate the DD but work through the process to ensure that it is indeed "reasonable".
As above - your starting point here is your actual annual usage as that will inform what your annual cost will be. You will also need to factor in that costs will increase by around 20% in April, and that this past year we have had the benefit of the £400 EBSS payment, which will not be happening again next winter.
You need to work through this urgently before you start to go into debt - which allowing that you will now be on "payment on receipt of bill" and we still have at least a couple of higher "winter period" bills to come, is likely to happen imminently if you didn't already have credit on the account. Otherwise you do run the risk of being told that they need to switch you over to a prepayment meter.
The OP still needs to do the sums around whether the amount they are currently looking to pay monthly will in fact cover their annual spend, IMO, as even if they did subsequently go to variable DD, it is those sums that will inform the amount they need to be setting aside on a monthly basis through the year.
Problem would be if there is not enough money to pay the bill and the DD does not go through.
The problem with both - variable direct debit and pay on receipt of bill - is that if the OP is not able to pay the fixed direct debit set by the supplier, the amounts in the bill will be much higher than the fixed direct debit during the winter months.
This is under the assumption that the fixed DD was not set to high, but for the next 2 month it is very likely that the monthly bill is at the same level or more expensive than even an overestimated direct debit.
OP will need to come back witht he usage figures before we can give any further advise.
Regarding affordability, even after cuts in other areas to help with the cost of living, in my view the level of payment they are asking for is ridiculously high. Regardless, the rates they charge us cannot be controlled by the consumer, and from what I understand it is not worth switching to another supplier, so it is what it is.
Looking at my last bill, my predicted annual usage for electricity is 5,803 kWh and for Gas 11,123 kWh. My DD was in the low 200's now they are asking for over £400 so over double. Currently my account is over £1000 in the red which should start levelling out over the spring/summer as somebody mentioned.
I cannot understand how they are making billions in profit and still, they are charging these abnormally high rates. Surely if the increases are down to their costs, their profits would be modest right?
Reading above, cancelling the DD was probably not the right move but, ultimately, I just want to be in control of my finances. I only knew they planned to change my DD because I logged on to my account, I didn't receive any notifications on the subject.
I will get back in touch with them and try and agree a way forward although to be quite honest, a pre-paid metre doesn't sound that bad to me as I'll have more control. I stand by not wanting to be reviewed by a third party though as I don't want to be sharing my personal information.
Thanks again for your help and advice.
Separately I was also transferred to Shell when Pure Planet dropped out of the market. I am now a few hundred in credit but have just transferred to another supplier. I wonder how long it will be before I get my credit balance back. If it's relatively quick I'll probably move my mother's account elsewhere too and then she can have the benefit of her money again.