EDF increasing DD despite me still being in credit 5 March at 10:56AM in Energy 32 replies 1.2K views

Scot_39

jvjack said:

in_spired2  said   "EDF are increasing my dd from 153 to 219 a month.  My account is around £150 in credit."
I got my 6 monthly bill with new Direct debit this week. It says new DD is for next 6 months only. Does your show similar. Looks like yours is over the whole year. 

Interesting.

Some suppliers used to do a 6 month sanity check and a 12 month hard review.

Wonder how this setting of DD amount works in background to smooth out summer / winter use on fixed direct debit plans ?

And to be fair - given some of the Ofgem changes forecast - suspect many DD going to need more regular fiddling several times in near future.

EssexHebridean

I'd suspect that DD changes doing the rounds now are still having to be at least in part based on the increase that was planned from April, that now appears not to be happening. Until the suppliers are told officially that the EPG is definitely being held at the same level, it makes sense that they might well be incorporating that into their calculations when account reviews are happening. 

badmemory

In view of the new 3 monthy changes by ofgem then I would fully expect the energy companies to follow suit.  Otherwise we could all land up with 3 months arrears.  It isn't as if it is ever going to come down, they aren't going to let that happen.

EssexHebridean

badmemory said:

In view of the new 3 monthy changes by ofgem then I would fully expect the energy companies to follow suit.  Otherwise we could all land up with 3 months arrears.  It isn't as if it is ever going to come down, they aren't going to let that happen.

That last sentence simply isn't true assuming that the current forecast from Cornwall Insight - usually a reliable source - is at least somewhere about correct. If it is, then we'll be seeing an in-the-region-of £300 per year drop on "Typical use" from July. 

Ultimately, allowing that it's the government/Ofgem  that set the EPG (currently)/the cap - the energy suppliers don't really have much say on the matter! 

badmemory

I sincerely hope you are right.  I agree that Cornwall Insight has been getting it right & hope that they have still got it right, I just have a nasty feeling that once they have us paying this then it will not reduce.  Yes I do suffer from lack of trust especially where governments & quangos are concerned.

wild666

Suppliers do not take into account any credit a customer has in the account when working out the monthly DD. I queried this with my supplier some time ago and the DD is worked out on the years usage but doesn't take account of any credit in the account. 
A customer can have hundreds or thousands in credit and they will work out the usage on the yearly figures they quote and nothing else. 

Scot_39

badmemory said:

In view of the new 3 monthy changes by ofgem then I would fully expect the energy companies to follow suit.  Otherwise we could all land up with 3 months arrears.  It isn't as if it is ever going to come down, they aren't going to let that happen.

The Ofgem cap just announced is already down £1000.

Was £3580 to Oct to Dec, £4279 Jan Mar to £3280 Apr Jun.

The Cornwall Insight forecasts for July is currently another £1000 cheaper.  At c£2100/2200..


Issue at the moment is that the EPG is discounting those figures -but due to go up to £3000 in April - although many forecasting will be frozen.

Scot_39

wild666 said:

Suppliers do not take into account any credit a customer has in the account when working out the monthly DD. I queried this with my supplier some time ago and the DD is worked out on the years usage but doesn't take account of any credit in the account. 
A customer can have hundreds or thousands in credit and they will work out the usage on the yearly figures they quote and nothing else. 

Not universally true.  And those who do that should refund any significant credit - automatically - as EOn have for me twice in recent past.

SP allow users to select what happens with credit at review stage - others might to.

For electric online tariffs iirc that's full refund, refund above 75 and adjust billing or adjust billing.

I logged in for parents account when last swapping, they gave the options as selected - and reduced the forecast DD as requested. 

I haven't seen the emails for last weeks drop to SVT yet. But it offered the same 1 week before when could have switched early (no point doing it in advance and paying more for week).

EOn at least used to auto refund over a higher threshold and then do the billing.  They didn't hold onto £100s in credit my case  though. Certainly not £1000s. 
My last rebate was just sub c£200 at annual review - about 3m DD at time. 

dunstonh

A general rule of thumb is that if your monthly payment is broadly accurate for your use, you should be able to draw the excess credit in your account after your early May reading has been taken into account.

This is because the cold spells should be over and May is when you effectively start building up credit again for the year ahead.

If you take credit out now, you are probably doing it too early.  Chances are there will be credit due to the mild weather but it in most cases, Feb, March and April draw against the credit, May is generally broadly breakeven.

EssexHebridean

dunstonh said:

A general rule of thumb is that if your monthly payment is broadly accurate for your use, you should be able to draw the excess credit in your account after your early May reading has been taken into account.

This is because the cold spells should be over and May is when you effectively start building up credit again for the year ahead.

If you take credit out now, you are probably doing it too early.  Chances are there will be credit due to the mild weather but it in most cases, Feb, March and April draw against the credit, May is generally broadly breakeven.

that depends on when you joined your supplier in some cases - they don't all run on a summer in/winter out model now. When I joined Octopus I was a bit concerned about whether they would get alarmed if I ran into debit mid winter due to not having made many payments to them - I was assured that they run a 12 month account system though. (And in fact we've used less than expected so the Government EBSS payments have meant we have actually stayed in credit right through!)