Why am I being forced to change my Direct Debit?

Hi, I just received an email saying my Direct Debit is increasing from £60 to £146, but I’ve only been with OVO since August. I’m the only person living in a small studio flat and use average energy. Why should I get charged that much?

These are my three bills from August 4th - 3rd November. What have your bills been for that same time? This may give a clue as to why your Direct Debit has been increased (or it may not!).

Hi

Ovo keeps putting up my direct debit even though i am on a fixed tariff and my average bill does not change. I do use charge anytime to charge my EV. I get a credit back at the end of every month so maybe they are looking at daily uses. With the new direct debit i will be paying more than £60 a month more than my usage. Has any one else have this issue. 

Yes, your DD will be being set to cover your total energy use.

The fact that part of that use is for EV charging and you get a credit back is unknown to the DD calculator - it just goes by your total comsumption and your full tariff rate.

So everybody who uses Charge Anytime then gets a ‘Recommended’ DD amount that is too high.

There are many posts/complaints here about the DD calculator being too ‘simple’ to cope with things like CA, or empty properties, or anything else other than full use at full rate.

There appears to be no willingness at OVO to improve it.

There are some things you can do to reduce what you are paying.
Firstly you should be able to quickly drop it yourself by 10% in your online account.
Go to ‘Adjust Your direct debit’, click ‘Continue’ and scroll down until you see this:
 

If you want more than a 10% reduction then contact support and argue your case.

Hi ​@Nukecad 

Thought that would be the reason. Have sent an email to OVO lets see what happens. I suppose it is a good way to save money :) I can just keep asking for a refund of my credit. 

Thanks for confirming the issue.  

That doesn’t sound right, and it’s a good idea to question it. At the outset, I’d remark that while OVO’s DD calculator works quite well for most customers, there are several classes of users for whom it’s not so clever. It sounds as if you are in one of these - customers who have been with OVO for less than a year, or whose meter was installed less than a year ago. 

If there is no usage history for the DD calculator to work with, the account will start from an estimate of annual usage. New customers can allegedly supply their own, based on e.g. what happened elsewhere, but those with new meters start from scratch. This means whatever consumption the national database thinks this meter will register in a year. This often fanciful figure will gradually approach reality as meter readings are submitted, but it can take months.   

The online Direct Debit Calculator will show the effect of changing the DD amount, so play around with it. Clicking Continue will open a new page; be very careful not to click on the Change amount button. You can Check your monthly minimum payment calculation - if you’d like to know where the numbers there came from, we’d need some information* from you. In the meantime, this article may help: Getting to grips with the Direct Debit Calculator on your online account | The OVO Forum

* If you’d like us to check, we’d need these details to be able to see why OVO are demanding such a large increase in your Direct Debit. Sign in to your OVO account in a browser and find them. 

• Navigate to the Plan page and note these numbers for each fuel (electricity and gas, if you have it):
  ■   Future annual consumption;
  ■   Standing charge;
  ■   Unit rate(s) - (All, with their names, if there’s more than one).
• On the Home page, the current balance;
• On the Payments page, the date the DD is taken each month.
• On the Meter readings page, the latest readings, and under Reading history, readings on the day you moved in.

None if this information is at all sensitive.

Hey ​@RonB,

Welcome to the community, i’ve added an EV badge to your profile 🚗

I actually disagree with Nukecad's advice and recommend that you don’t use the 10% reduction tool mentioned above, as it can lead to complications in the future. This tool is intended for people who are struggling to pay their bills and offers a temporary reduction in payments as a short-term solution. In your situation this could lead to your Direct Debit increasing at the end of the 3 months to a much higher value than it might be right now. 

While it is true that your Direct Debit is affected by your Charge Anytime usage, this is because Charge Anytime was designed as an add-on. You are charged for all your usage first, and then the add-on refunds you for any Charge Anytime promotions you qualify for. If your Charge Anytime usage is causing your Direct Debit amount to increase significantly, I suggest contacting our Support Team. Explain your situation and let them know that you feel your Direct Debit is too high relative to your overall usage. They will be able to review your account and consider a reduction for you. Additionally, if you start accumulating a higher credit balance on your account, we can also look into refunding that. You can find all the options to contact our Support Team in the article below.

Sorry Chris,

I know from my own experience of much ioo high recommended DD payments (due to a gas AQ that would periodically spike up to a 4x inflated figure, OVO, Kaluza, and Xoserve could all see the spiking but couldn’t explain the cause nor prevent or fix them).

Talking to support is not significantly differnet from lowering 10% yourself other that they can lower it by a bit more.

However it will still get banged back up again after 3 months (by the DD caulculator) and so you have to have exactly the same conversation again with support.

Of course it starts from scratch again each time - after you have had to do it several times it gets excessively wearisome arguing the same point over and over, getting the same hidebound corporate platitudes each time, and knowing that whatever promises you are given that you will have to do it again in 3 months time.

this could lead to your Direct Debit increasing at the end of the 3 months to a much higher value than it might be right now. 

That is the same same situation whether you reduced it 10% yourself or get support to reduce it by a bit more.
The DD calculator will still increase it again after 3 months or whenever it is next unleashed.

There is only one real solution and that is to spend the time (and money) to update the DD calculator so that it can cope with real life billing and not just a too simple ‘general situation’ calculation.
(With the advent of EVs etc, that ‘general situation’ has changed from waht it used to be).

EVs are a part of peoples lives now.
Schemes such as CA are now part of many customers monthly billing.
However the outdated OVO DD calculator has not kept up and been revised to be able to cope with such changes.

The DD calculator as it currently stands is no longer fit-for-purpose. It needs to be updated/changed so that it can cope wit modern patterns of energy use, and modern billing practices.

We have been trying to tell OVO this for a while now, but it appears that either no one is listening, or that no one is prepared or responsible to make the necessary updates.

Thanks for replying. I have been an OVO customer for at least 5 years. So it in not an issue . I do have an EV and had this for less than a year though. I get credit back via OVO Charge

Below are the readings you mentioned. I don't have the start date so have put in one year ago.  

• ■   Future annual consumption; 
• Electric 5492 KWH
• Gas 6926 KWH
  ■   Standing charge; 
• Electric 48.99
• Gas 26.45
  ■   Unit rate(s) - (All, with their names, if there’s more than one).
• Electric 22.68
• Gas 5.66
• On the Home page, the current balance;
• £300.11
• On the Payments page, the date the DD is taken each month.
• 5th of every month
• On the Meter readings page, the latest readings, and under Reading history, readings on the day you moved in.
• Electric 26695  November 2024 31338
• Gas 03827 November 2024 3276

Morning ​@RonB,

Based on the forecasted consumption and rates, the average monthly cost would be £142 without standing charges included.

If you could provide some up to date readings I can see how your actual usage tallies up to the forecasted usage.