British Gas and renewal of a EV tarrif

Scottieman333

@QrizB.  no i cant. Ill take the hit on cancelling at £50, then look elsewhere, I hope everyone else is away that they now calculate DD on the total usage. ( remembering that 70% of my usage is at night when I charge EV and is prices at off peak 7p )

rp1974

I fully understand the attractions of "smart" EV charging,for my own circumstances I wasn't pandering to the whims of an energy supplier,not exactly money saving but given that there's not a huge difference in cost I was prepared to take the minimal increase.
Im on an Eon fix that ends in March rolling onto another fix prices move from 6.7p/23p to 7.5/27p for dumb charging,I was building up a large credit balance and arranging refunds so asked Eon to move to variable direct debit which they did without issue.
Any problem with an energy supplier that I've had has been sorted,to my satisfaction or I've left on principle and gone elsewhere.

born_again

Scottieman333 said:

OK, I apologise if there is a thread on this, but I cant see one.

Over the past 3 months, since Oct I have to call British Gas to reduce my Direct Debit.

I have now found out why they are doubling my DD without my permission each month.
They constantly look at DD amounts to help customers( this I understand) but they use total usage then the cost as a rough guide for DD.

I constantly say to them, 75% of my electric is used for EV charging and is cost is 7p per kwh. but they use the full price of kwh for the calculation for the DD.

my DD is £240 ( which includes gas ) but each month they increase it to £459 because my usage of electricity dictates this amount. Again I say to them, for the past 3 years its almost been the same cost ( ok, it gone up a little ) and my account has always had a £240 DD. I am not actually pay more in historical money terms, so why raise the DD to more than double.
During a call they agreed that my £240 DD per month would cover me for the year, but they have to go by the calculation of the full price of electricity per kwh.

Is there a way around this ? has anyone had similar problems with BG, or any other energy supplier ?

Its just daft the way they calculate the DD

Switch to another company. Octopus works well for me & IOG.

How much are you in credit by at the end of last month?

QrizB

born_again said:

Switch to another company. Octopus works well for me & IOG.

OP has a Hive charger, which does limit their options for smart tariffs. Hive isn't listed as a compatible brand on the IOG info page, for example. They'd need to have a compatible car instead.

WiserMiser

Don't phone, write.

Send a formal communication headed COMPLAINT then go to the Ombudsman upon receipt of a deadlock letter, or after eight weeks if they don't send one.