Octopus hidden charge

Gerry1

Ildhund said: no

FreeBear said:

Gerry1 said:

Just call them and ask for Variable Monthly Direct Debit.

Of course, that means higher bills in summer and lower ones in winter

Unless you are down under, I think you have it the wrong way round - 

I always thought that winter and summer were the other way round too, down there. 

It's because they stand on the left on escalators, they're all upside down and back to front down under...

MikeJXE

StamfordRoars said:

EssexHebridean. Thanks for that. This is the math. Their annual predicted cost, elec and gas together is £2209.88. I am paying £203 per month direct debit and according to the bill issued today I am £406 in credit. Doing the math has turned confused me into angry me. I even checked to see whether there was a debt when everything switched from Shell to Octopus but there wasn’t.
i am completely baffled and despite them saying three days they would. ‘escalate’ the issue to a more senior level to give me a clearer response no clarity as yet. My feeling is I should claim the credit and bank it without spending it and then be ready to leave so they cannot simply grab the money if I switch to a new tariff or leave. 

Winter is almost on us and with that large energy bills

Doing what you suggest is jumping from the frying pan into the fire 

Gerry1

If you cancel your direct debit your bank will notify Octopus and you'll automatically end up on a more expensive tariff.

Switching to Variable Direct Debit should trigger a reconciliation and make things clearer.  You can always revert to Fixed DD if necessary.

If you cut and run and your account shows a significant debt, you may be blocked from switching supplier.

If there's still no progress, it would be better to raise a formal written complain and escalate it to the Ombudsman upon receipt of a deadlock letter or after eight weeks if you're not sent one.

wrf12345

I think the mistake was emailing rather than phoning them, that works best for Octopus in my experience... and, yes, variable direct debit works brilliantly for me, though it is no longer aligned with receipt of WFA for me but that will just mean not turning the gas on until Dec rather than Nov, unless global warming goes off the scale and we suddenly find ourselves in a tropical paradise over Xmas (more likely continuous rain knowing our luck).

MattMattMattUK

StamfordRoars said:

EssexHebridean. Thanks for that. This is the math. Their annual predicted cost, elec and gas together is £2209.88. I am paying £203 per month direct debit and according to the bill issued today I am £406 in credit. Doing the math has turned confused me into angry me. I even checked to see whether there was a debt when everything switched from Shell to Octopus but there wasn’t.
i am completely baffled and despite them saying three days they would. ‘escalate’ the issue to a more senior level to give me a clearer response no clarity as yet. My feeling is I should claim the credit and bank it without spending it and then be ready to leave so they cannot simply grab the money if I switch to a new tariff or leave. 

It depends if they have calculated you have enough credit to get you through without winter without you getting into debt. If their calculations show that you would get into debt over winter then Ofgem rules say that they should increase the Direct Debit now to stop that happening, then lower the Direct Debit to 1/12 of estimated annual usage in late spring. 

EssexHebridean

StamfordRoars said:

EssexHebridean. Thanks for that. This is the math. Their annual predicted cost, elec and gas together is £2209.88. I am paying £203 per month direct debit and according to the bill issued today I am £406 in credit. Doing the math has turned confused me into angry me. I even checked to see whether there was a debt when everything switched from Shell to Octopus but there wasn’t.
i am completely baffled and despite them saying three days they would. ‘escalate’ the issue to a more senior level to give me a clearer response no clarity as yet. My feeling is I should claim the credit and bank it without spending it and then be ready to leave so they cannot simply grab the money if I switch to a new tariff or leave. 

OK - and your actual annual use of each gas & electricity? 

molerat

Just change the DD amount on line, no point stressing over it.  I changed one from £230 pm ( a way off guess from them) to £110 and nothing was said / done about it except at the 6 month review they changed it again (to a lower figure than their first) and I immediately changed it back.

born_again

StamfordRoars said:

EssexHebridean. Thanks for that. This is the math. Their annual predicted cost, elec and gas together is £2209.88. I am paying £203 per month direct debit and according to the bill issued today I am £406 in credit. Doing the math has turned confused me into angry me. I even checked to see whether there was a debt when everything switched from Shell to Octopus but there wasn’t.
i am completely baffled and despite them saying three days they would. ‘escalate’ the issue to a more senior level to give me a clearer response no clarity as yet. My feeling is I should claim the credit and bank it without spending it and then be ready to leave so they cannot simply grab the money if I switch to a new tariff or leave. 

My Annual estimate is £1735, but with the increase of gas will be £1792. Electric still to come through for October increase. I pay £180 a month. Like you I'm £400 in credit.

£400 is a nice amount to cover the extra usage over winter. Which for last year was around £100 a month more than summer worst months. From my previous bills.

So I can't see what your issue is. looks to me you are in the right ball park on monthly DD cost.
Given your £400 to 500 extra estimated cost & a extra £23 a month compared to mine 🤷‍♀️

clowning

I also had an additional charge with my DD of £21.50 when my tariff was variable, however, I recently changed to a fixed tariff and I can no longer see the additional amount. I don’t think it was due to a predicted shortfall as I am £441.98 in credit and it was before the announcement that the rates would be increasing in October. I’m not worried about it as it provides a larger cushion against the winter bills.

Yorkie1

MattMattMattUK said:

It depends if they have calculated you have enough credit to get you through without winter without you getting into debt. If their calculations show that you would get into debt over winter then Ofgem rules say that they should increase the Direct Debit now to stop that happening, then lower the Direct Debit to 1/12 of estimated annual usage in late spring. 

I agree with your suggested reason. When I took out my previous Octopus tariff, I knew what my annual usage would be and thus what my monthly payment spread over 12 equal payments would be. But Octopus put my DD up significantly, pre-winter, when I was in a decent amount of credit at that point in the annual cycle, because (I assume) they wouldn't allow me to drop down to below zero for another part of the annual billing cycle. My DD was subsequently lowered - but only a little and certainly not to 1/12 as mentioned above.

It seemed disingenuous to me.