British Gas not allowing MVDD

Jonboy_1984

[Deleted User] said:

pseudodox said:

Dolor said:

As it is the norm for suppliers to pay their wholesalers in advance of supply, I do not think it unreasonable for suppliers to ask for some payment in advance. The greater the number of consumers that elect to ‘pay on presentation of a bill’ the higher the supplier’s borrowing costs will be. All businesses need cash flow to survive.

I need cash flow to survive - I need cash NOW to pay the plumber to fix my loo. OVO wanted me to pay them 29% of my income each month in advance for their prediction of my consumption being more than double the energy I had used on average over the previous 17 years with SSE.  By now they would have taken almost £1800 in FDDs since October whereas  my energy consumption since then has been £890.  Now THAT is not some payment in advance, that is an unreasonable attempt to support their cash flow with my savings!

You are an outlier. I thought that Ovo was offering interest on consumer credit balances. 

https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-interest-reward

They don’t offer interest to customers that joined after a specific date, including most (possibly all) that where migrated from SSE.

The excessive use estimates that exceed years worth of data with SSE are also not unusual…

[Deleted User]

Jonboy_1984 said:

Dolor said:

pseudodox said:

Dolor said:

As it is the norm for suppliers to pay their wholesalers in advance of supply, I do not think it unreasonable for suppliers to ask for some payment in advance. The greater the number of consumers that elect to ‘pay on presentation of a bill’ the higher the supplier’s borrowing costs will be. All businesses need cash flow to survive.

I need cash flow to survive - I need cash NOW to pay the plumber to fix my loo. OVO wanted me to pay them 29% of my income each month in advance for their prediction of my consumption being more than double the energy I had used on average over the previous 17 years with SSE.  By now they would have taken almost £1800 in FDDs since October whereas  my energy consumption since then has been £890.  Now THAT is not some payment in advance, that is an unreasonable attempt to support their cash flow with my savings!

You are an outlier. I thought that Ovo was offering interest on consumer credit balances. 

https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-interest-reward

They don’t offer interest to customers that joined after a specific date, including most (possibly all) that where migrated from SSE.

The excessive use estimates that exceed years worth of data with SSE are also not unusual…

In that case report the problem to Ofgem - consumer.affairs@ofgem.gov.uk

Ofgem keeps a close eye on consumer credit balances and there are rules:

pseudodox

AFAIK - & it has often been said on this board - OVO still only give interest to historical customers.  It was not made available to anyone who was migrated to them from SSE.  But I still would not use them as my savings account.  I needed money TODAY to pay the plumber, not in the future after a request for my money be returned to me by an energy company.  And I want MY money where it is available when I need it, for such urgent items.

[Deleted User]

pseudodox said:

AFAIK - & it has often been said on this board - OVO still only give interest to historical customers.  It was not made available to anyone who was migrated to them from SSE.  But I still would not use them as my savings account.  I needed money TODAY to pay the plumber, not in the future after a request for my money be returned to me by an energy company.  And I want MY money where it is available when I need it, for such urgent items.

Well choose a different supplier. I made a request to reduce my small credit balance by £100. My request was acknowledged 20 minutes later and the money was in my account 3 days later. One of those  3 days was a BH.

pseudodox

I did choose a different supplier.  I moved to EDF and am very happy there.  Perhaps you are very fortunate in being able to not only hand over excess money to your energy supplier, but also have anough put by to pay for life's other essentials - which in my case this week includes a leaky toilet which would not wait 3 days.  Well I suppose it might if I could cross my legs tightly!!