Variable DD

Qyburn

MWT said:

Qyburn said:

Qyburn said:

On a smart meter you need to persuade Octopus to take the reading every month on your chosen date. They're not very good at that, and keep changing ours to apparently random dates#. They reset it when asked, but can't tell me why it keeps changing.

As if prompted by my post, Octopus have just whacked out a bill covering import, but not export, for the period 1st to 22nd July 2025. That end date has no significance whatsoever.  Honestly Octopus now appear to be acting as if they actually want to anger their customers.  

Calendar monthly billing is not something that is practical to support when you have millions of customers as it tends to concentrate the resource load into a few days instead of spreading it out across the month.

I don't accept that for one second. Think how many bank accounts there are, with statements being generated monthly.

In addition that isn't an excuse Octopus have ever made, they have always said they will bill on my chosen day and it even says so on my account.



Furthermore their practice of billing import and export on different dates, and of billing part months and overlapping periods must surely put more load on their system than raising just one bill per month rather than four or five.

t0rt0ise

My gas and electricity are billed on different days by Octopus. The electrc bill got out by a couple of days so now they collect one by DD one day and then the other two days later. So I get seemingly constant reminders about one then the other. It's a real pain.

born_again

Qyburn said:

I don't accept that for one second. Think how many bank accounts there are, with statements being generated monthly.

But not all on the same day... Statements are generated on acc opening date.

MWT

Qyburn said:

MWT said:

Qyburn said:

Qyburn said:

On a smart meter you need to persuade Octopus to take the reading every month on your chosen date. They're not very good at that, and keep changing ours to apparently random dates#. They reset it when asked, but can't tell me why it keeps changing.

As if prompted by my post, Octopus have just whacked out a bill covering import, but not export, for the period 1st to 22nd July 2025. That end date has no significance whatsoever.  Honestly Octopus now appear to be acting as if they actually want to anger their customers.  

Calendar monthly billing is not something that is practical to support when you have millions of customers as it tends to concentrate the resource load into a few days instead of spreading it out across the month.

I don't accept that for one second. Think how many bank accounts there are, with statements being generated monthly.

Thank you for making my point for me, I manage a number of accounts all of which issue monthly statements on a different day from each other.

New statements/bills are also a major generator of CS contacts so no company would rationally wish to do anything other than spread the load across the month...

  

Spoonie_Turtle

born_again said:

Qyburn said:

I don't accept that for one second. Think how many bank accounts there are, with statements being generated monthly.

But not all on the same day... Statements are generated on acc opening date.

I have no opinion either way on this specific point but just to add the data points that I have five bank accounts across two banks that generate statements, and only one of those has them generated on the date of opening.  The other four accounts' statements are calendar monthly.

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[To the topic of variable DD, I decided to go for it as it sounds like I'll be able to clear the balance in full every month when they generate the statement, but without it being late from their perspective.]

Qyburn

Spoonie_Turtle said:

born_again said:

Qyburn said:

I don't accept that for one second. Think how many bank accounts there are, with statements being generated monthly.

But not all on the same day... Statements are generated on acc opening date.

I have no opinion either way on this specific point but just to add the data points that I have five bank accounts across two banks that generate statements, and only one of those has them generated on the date of opening.  The other four accounts' statements are calendar monthly.

---

[To the topic of variable DD, I decided to go for it as it sounds like I'll be able to clear the balance in full every month when they generate the statement, but without it being late from their perspective.]

I'll bet your banks don't randomly change statement dates month to month, or produce part-month statements with no explanation.

Spoonie_Turtle

Qyburn said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

born_again said:

Qyburn said:

I don't accept that for one second. Think how many bank accounts there are, with statements being generated monthly.

But not all on the same day... Statements are generated on acc opening date.

I have no opinion either way on this specific point but just to add the data points that I have five bank accounts across two banks that generate statements, and only one of those has them generated on the date of opening.  The other four accounts' statements are calendar monthly.

---

[To the topic of variable DD, I decided to go for it as it sounds like I'll be able to clear the balance in full every month when they generate the statement, but without it being late from their perspective.]

I'll bet your banks don't randomly change statement dates month to month, or produce part-month statements with no explanation.

That is true, they don't.  The date - whatever it falls in the month - is fixed.

I have never taken note of when they're actually generated but the date range covered is consistent.

Qyburn

Another Octopus bill in this morning. Export only to 25th July 2025, estimated. So just looking at the last couple of months the bills I've received so far ..
1. Import to 29th June, export to 25th June
2. Import 30 June (separate bill for just that one day)
3. Import 1st to 22nd July
4. Export 26th June to 25th July

Before my account was constantly in credit I quite often had three DDs taken in one month. Not always because when they issue bills in quick succession they sometimes combine them into a single DD.

MWT

On a related point, I do wonder how much longer variable DD will survive as an option given the way Ofgem are enforcing the liquidity rules for energy suppliers?

I believe the number they are now requiring is for suppliers to keep £115/customer available, which is going to prove to be a significant disincentive to allow variable DD as an option...

Chrysalis

MWT said:

On a related point, I do wonder how much longer variable DD will survive as an option given the way Ofgem are enforcing the liquidity rules for energy suppliers?

I believe the number they are now requiring is for suppliers to keep £115/customer available, which is going to prove to be a significant disincentive to allow variable DD as an option...

Maybe Ofgem should look at all the debt balances before that.  Suppliers managed fine in the days before people were racking up thousands of debt on fixed direct debit systems.

Shareholders can supply working capital.

Also consider credit balances dont have the 12 month protection.  The last time I left my supplier (Octopus) to manage my balance I had over £1000 credit in the middle of December.  Not doing that again.  Their fixed direct debit system wants me to set a monthly payment of over £400 due to a massively inflated EAC value.