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A recommended direct debit amount isn’t available right now

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DD amount advise continually unavailable, is it just me?

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Best answer by Blastoise186 27 March 2024, 18:00

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Blastoise186
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Hi @Padster ,

Flagging to Forum Moderators now - I don’t think it’s just you.

Bear with me!

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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top man blastoise, thanks!

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DD amount advise continually unavailable, is it just me?

 

Yep, I've email and put a complaint but I have been told they've taken off the bar graphs for how much your bill is likely to be and how much debit or credit you may be over the coming months off too, on the online portal. Have to use app but that is added plava.

Blastoise186
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I’ve directly raised this to the Tech Team. Please bear with me - if/when I have an update, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, someone in my account management squad within OVO’s Support Team is watching the case so I don’t have to. It’s one of the perks of being a Forum Volunteer - we’re well known for our ability to give incredibly good detail, which helps the teams a lot.

If you don’t mind reverse engineering the API, while logged into your OVO account, open up a new tab and paste in https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/pace/recommended-dds/v1/1234567/projected-costs?limitNextYear=true

Make sure to edit the numbers to your actual account number, then press enter. You’ll see a bunch of text come up. In Chrome, hit the Pretty print button to make it less of an eyesore, then head right down the bottom and you’ll see some data under “recommendedDirectDebit” - that’s roughly what you’re after.

Be warned that it may not be exactly what you’re actually allowed to set though - and it might not factor in VAT. You’ll need to add that yourself in some cases.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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Thanks @Blastoise186, but yeah, ouch, all coded text like a printer's error

Blastoise186
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I know right! :P

That data is normally converted to a more prettified form in the way that MyOVO shows it to you. Hence why you need to be brave to reverse engineer the API to get the raw data. It’s one of those mini-projects one or two of the other forum volunteers are working on. We figure out how it works and then force it to do fancy tricks that you can’t normally do. :D

As for the account management thing? It’s a new thing OVO’s been playing with for quite a while now. If you’re under that model, you get a dedicated account management team who look after basically everything - and you’ll often be routed to that team directly if you get in touch with support. They keep track of tons of stuff and might sometimes pro-actively make recommendations to help you out.

Likewise, if you’re identified as a vulnerable customer and/or you’re on the Priority Services Register (I’m both), that gets flagged up too and may result in being referred to the Vulnerability Guild and/or dedicated PSR Teams. If that happens, you’re in for a treat. Super fast pick up times on phone and webchat (as in, potentially zero to five seconds!), extra training and some additional support to really help you out. Comes in useful sometimes.

I’ve been testing these out for a few years now - OVO invited me to the first iteration of it as a sort of “beta tester” back in 2021 and I’ve never looked back.

I can only raise cases like this if the issue also affects me. Since it does in this case, I can act as myself and raise it under my account - the fix for which will probably fix it for everyone. If it doesn’t affect me, I still have options but I just have to consider which of the other options feels right.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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@Blastoise186 ah, I see, Thanks. 

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Are you blocking tracking cookies etc.? I use Ghostery and I have had to trust “OVO” otherwise some of the features do not appear.

The power move challenge was hidden from me until I trusted OVO.

 

Nukecad
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Are you blocking tracking cookies etc.? I use Ghostery and I have had to trust “OVO” otherwise some of the features do not appear.

The power move challenge was hidden from me until I trusted OVO.

 

Nice suggestion, but this issue with recomended DD’s feature/page isn’t the same issue as that one with the Power Move box/page.

It does show you the ‘Recommended DD’ feature/page regardless of your browser/blocking settings, it’s just that what it shows is sometimes pretty useless because there is no recommendation it only says what you are already paying as the DD, and it won’t let you change your DD to less.
(So you have to phone them if you want to change your DD downwards).

Mine usually doesn’t show a recommended payment either, however yesterday it did show me one for a couple of hours, (less than I’m currently paying), but that’s gone again now.
Same browser with the same settings, the issue is at the OVO end not ours.

Today I have zero energy, so I'm going back to bed.
Blastoise186
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That’s also one of my checks before submitting bugs as well. I don’t use Ghostery, but I do use my own custom blend of tooling that’s powerful enough to also defeat the vast majority of Anti-AdBlock tools. I don’t talk about it much because my special Anti-Anti-AdBlock solution would stop working if I did.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!

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