Is it OK or not OK to have a debit balance?

I’m surprised to hear you say that with a Direct Debit at the recommend amount (£5) you’d still end up with significant credit, @BPLightlog by your contract end date. As Firedog says, the system is designed to get you to £0. 

Interesting just how common it is for customers to go into into negative balances over winter with suppliers. 

This is from an Octopus blog last year

"This is fairly normal, within reason – and is the case for a lot of our customers. At the end of March, the average customer ‘owed’ us £214. At the end of last Summer, we owed the average customer around £36." 

Hi again everyone,

I’m a little bit bewildered here. I marked @Abby_OVO ‘s answer as the “best answer” because I thought it represented the official OVO stance on the issue. Now I find that @Firedog ‘s answer has been marked as “best answer” instead.

While I genuinely value @Firedog ‘s contribution, it wasn’t my choice as best answer. I don’t feel I “missed an important factor” when doing my sums - I did make it clear that I was starting with a zero balance, not a negative one. Also, I can’t really agree that there is a moral issue at stake here (“it’s really up to you and your conscience...”). If OVO paid interest on the credit balance without charging interest on the debit balance, then I could see a moral case against balancing a period in credit with a period in debit. But that isn’t the situation.

More importantly, Abby and Firedog take entirely opposite stances in response to my question. Abby says it’s OK to have a debit balance; Firedog disagrees. All I wanted was a clear, unequivocal answer as to what the official OVO position is. I thought ( had that with Abby’s reply, which is why I marked it “best answer”. But now I find the “solution” has been changed. So who is right? I’m plunged back into confusion.

Sorry about that, JP, but it wasn’t me! 

Some of us regular contributors have had a bit of a chat about this off-board, and apparently it’s not quite as straightforward as it ought to be. 

• Existing customers may be treated a bit more gently than new ones;
• New customers starting during the summer may be treated differently from those starting in the winter;
• The legally-enforceable terms of the contract may be varied by text on help pages or by agreement with a support agent;
• Marking best answers is done either by the original poster or by OVO staff. I’m not sure why the answer marking was changed in this case, but it doesn’t smell right. 

Your basic question still isn’t answered, so perhaps it’s best just not to ask it. It’s fairly clear to me that your potential dip into debt in the winter won’t raise any red flags, so long as you’re still on track to zero in twelve months’ time then. 

Meanwhile, please check your private messages.  

Many thanks @Firedog! That’s a very clear presentation of the situation. I would mark it as best answer (if I could) 😀.

@Tim_OVO This happens to anyone with a sizeable credit balance. Even if it would take a negative DD to use up the accumulated credit, the system will still recommend £5, because it seems to be hard-coded as the minimum allowable.

That’s probably because anything less than £5 would result in it costing OVO more to process the payment than they’d actually get from it, making it unviable to go lower.