Does Octopus offer variable direct debit?

Pat38493

Question is in the subject - does Octopus offer this?  Hopefully I'm using the correct terminology but what I mean is that each month, my full invoice amount will be debited rather than an estimated yearly usage divided by 12?

MikeJXE

Yes they do 

LindsayT

As MikeJXE says, the answer is yes. I pay Octopus by Variable Direct Debit.

Gerry1

You may have to phone them to set it up but it works very well.

Leew89

Yes they do. I managed to switch to variable via email.

Newbie_John

Oh good to know, I've set up £1 DD and keep paying everything else online by card on the day the bill is issued

Andreg

I found variable direct debit, where they debit the full amount of each month's bill, is actually less variable than a 'fixed' direct debit.  With a supposedly fixed direct debit they make such huge errors with their estimates of annual usage that you end up building big debit / credit balances and then having huge 'corrections'.

Variable direct debit is obviously higher in winter but that is predictable and easy to budget for, unlike the changes in fixed direct debits which seem to come out of the blue.

Netexporter

Andreg said:

I found variable direct debit, where they debit the full amount of each month's bill, is actually less variable than a 'fixed' direct debit.  With a supposedly fixed direct debit they make such huge errors with their estimates of annual usage that you end up building big debit / credit balances and then having huge 'corrections'.

Variable direct debit is obviously higher in winter but that is predictable and easy to budget for, unlike the changes in fixed direct debits which seem to come out of the blue.

Or you can just monitor you credit/debit levels and change the fixed DD amount, to suit, with a couple of clicks.

Andreg

Netexporter said:

Andreg said:

I found variable direct debit, where they debit the full amount of each month's bill, is actually less variable than a 'fixed' direct debit.  With a supposedly fixed direct debit they make such huge errors with their estimates of annual usage that you end up building big debit / credit balances and then having huge 'corrections'.

Variable direct debit is obviously higher in winter but that is predictable and easy to budget for, unlike the changes in fixed direct debits which seem to come out of the blue.

Or you can just monitor you credit/debit levels and change the fixed DD amount, to suit, with a couple of clicks.

In fact quite often you can't change it to the required amount with a couple of clicks, because the amount you want is outside their system's tolerance, so you have to phone someone up and discuss it with them.  And if you have accidentally built up a large debit balance, you're going to have to pay it anyway.  Complete waste of time.

stuartp2000

just just to add I moved to variable in July.

I used Twitter to contact them via a DM was super quick and easy, I have found they monitor social,media much more than they do e-mails.

Netexporter

Andreg said:

Netexporter said:

Andreg said:

I found variable direct debit, where they debit the full amount of each month's bill, is actually less variable than a 'fixed' direct debit.  With a supposedly fixed direct debit they make such huge errors with their estimates of annual usage that you end up building big debit / credit balances and then having huge 'corrections'.

Variable direct debit is obviously higher in winter but that is predictable and easy to budget for, unlike the changes in fixed direct debits which seem to come out of the blue.

Or you can just monitor you credit/debit levels and change the fixed DD amount, to suit, with a couple of clicks.

In fact quite often you can't change it to the required amount with a couple of clicks, because the amount you want is outside their system's tolerance, so you have to phone someone up and discuss it with them.  And if you have accidentally built up a large debit balance, you're going to have to pay it anyway.  Complete waste of time.

Not my experience. In fact I changed mine from £60 to £10 a few days ago. I could probably have changed it to zero, which is what Octopus did when the government payments came in.