Octopus Target Payment

Horseygirl555_

Hi

Does anyone know if Octopus are allowed to add an £30.53 extra payment on top of bill payment to make sure I have money saved for later?

Are they even allowed to do this? Very angry and have sent email to them questioning them.

To me it's like a piggy bank straight into their pockets.💳🐷🐷 money grabbing so n so's, hate it with a passion.

Totally disgusted with them again, have looked into changing supplier but not yet found anyone cheaper yet.

la531983

More details needed. Have they added a line onto your bill stating this, seems very unlikely.

Or, do you mean you have used (as an example) £100 and the monthly DD is £130? No issue here tbh, we arent in the high usage period yet, if you only want to pay for what you use ask them to put you on variable DD, they only take what you use then. Obviously will mean in winter you are going to be paying more.

All providers will work on the same basis whereby credit is build in warmer months to use in colder ones, unless you ask for variable DD.

This is a very easy fix, as per above.

[Deleted User]

If you don’t like the DD amount that Octopus has set you are free to change it in the Octopus App. My DD is currently set at £10 so that I can drawdown some of the credit balance accrued over the summer months. None of this impacts the charges for energy. Energy charges are based on the amount you use and the tariff that you are on. Your DD payment just goes into a personal pot from which actual charges are deducted.

la531983

Mine is set at a fiver, they have no issue with this at all.

MultiFuelBurner

I would suggest when "normal" customers are coming into the forum stating they pay £100+ etc. Perhaps those with solar panels could caveat their comebacks of I only pay £1/£5/£10 a month but that is because I have solar panels or because I have so much credit due to Santander cashback etc.

It can confuse the new to energy cost calculation as to why their bills are much much higher imo.

Just a thought and bin it off if you don't agree.

la531983

MultiFuelBurner said:

I would suggest when "normal" customers are coming into the forum stating they pay £100+ etc. Perhaps those with solar panels could caveat their comebacks of I only pay £1/£5/£10 a month but that is because I have solar panels or because I have so much credit due to Santander cashback etc.

It can confuse the new to energy cost calculation as to why their bills are much much higher imo.

Just a thought and bin it off if you don't agree.

I dont have solar panels or anything fancy and Octopus have always allowed me to pay a tenner or a fiver, I then top it up manually using a debit card (and get cashback for doing so). How long they will allow me to continue like this I have no idea, but I have been with them since Feb and they have allowed it.

The issue the OP is describing is ridiculously easy to fix and wont require a switch of provider, assuming I have understood his or her issue correctly.

PennineAcute

If I understand you correctly, your statement total is £30.56 less than your DD amount - and you thing this is wrong.

Now we are hitting the colder periods, would you also think it is wrong when your statement total is £100 higher than your DD amount?

Keep_pedalling

If you prefer to move to a pay as you use option you can do that with Octopus but you will be paying a lot more in the winter so need to budget for that.

BeerSavesMoney

Horseygirl555_ said:

Hi

Does anyone know if Octopus are allowed to add an £30.53 extra payment on top of bill payment to make sure I have money saved for later?

Are they even allowed to do this? Very angry and have sent email to them questioning them.

To me it's like a piggy bank straight into their pockets.💳🐷🐷 money grabbing so n so's, hate it with a passion.

Totally disgusted with them again, have looked into changing supplier but not yet found anyone cheaper yet.

If you are able to budget then ask for your direct debit to be changed to variable which means each bill will be paid in full. 

This obviously means higher payments will be taken in winter and lower payments will be taken in summer.

Another option is to do as others have suggested and set your direct debit to say £10, then pay the balance by debit card when the bill is produced.

molerat

They just added £128.31 to my granddaughter's DD.  Don't know where they dreamed up the usage, more for her 2 bed flat than my 3 bed detached with above average use (although the gas at 19173 kWh would be a stab in the dark as her old imperial gas meter was unregistered until a couple of months ago ).  Managed to drop the DD down but too late to stop them taking the larger amount next month, will give her a reasonable buffer for the winter though.

[Deleted User]

Octopus does have a Balance Checker Tool:

https://octopus.energy/blog/balance-forecast-explained/

I confess that I have no idea whether it helps or not as time-of use tariffs are something of an unknown when it comes to future costs.