Building up large credit amount due to charge anytime credit not being included into direct debit

I had set my DD to £90/month. OVO wanted to increase to over £100. I pointed out to them that after CA credits I use less than £80/month.

It then took 30 mins to be offered EITHER 6 months at £88 OR 3 months at £91 before reassess.

Pretty close to the £90 I had set anyway.

30 minutes I will never get back

I received a phone call, just after my last comment, from Gail at Ovo, who told me the lowest amount I could pay would still have to be over £200! I’ve now lodged an official complaint. I’m on Pension Credit and receive the Winter Fuel Allowance and Warm Home Discount. The only way I could pay the increase would be to stop buying food!

This is where the way OVO do their EV use pricing is, in my view, flawed. As far as I can see, everyone else charges 7p (give or take a bit) at point of use. No messing about with rebates that can't be included in DD calculations.So if you use 20kWh charging overnight per day you'd get charged £1.40, not £5 and have to wait to get the difference back. We've just got an EV and because of this "full price charge and wait for rebate" malarkey we'll be leaving as soon as our fix is over to one that bills at 7(ish)p/kWh at point of use 

Apparently all energy companies will be doing this.

Following my complaint, Ovo and I agreed that, instead of paying by DD, I will now just send a payment of £100 on the 1st of each month. I'm happy with that.

I've been with Ovo around 13 years and, apart from this, they've been good to me.

Hey ​@Gingernut49, 

I’m sorry it was a convoluted process, but I'm glad you found a mutually agreeable resolution.

I’ll mark your response as the best answer to the thread to let others know at a glance what the resolution was. If you have anymore questions please let us know!

You haven’t told us what tariff you’re currently on. Since you have apparently been able to cancel the DD and agree to start paying by other means, I suspect you’re on the Simpler Energy price-capped tariff. If that is the case, then I should expect your unit rates and standing charge to increase significantly once the DD goes away. It won’t be easy to spot the increase, because price-capped rates all come down by 5-10% tomorrow 1 July. Please keep an eye on your rates - they should be clearly laid out on your Plan page.

If you have indeed managed to negotiate a payment schedule not involving Direct Debit but retaining Direct Debit pricing, a lot of other customers in a similar situation will want to know about it! 

Two year fixed.

Thanks, that’s interesting. Others in the same boat* may well want to pursue the same sort of arrangement if there’s no financial detriment.  The no-DD penalty is currently £60-70 a year for the typical customer.

*    Those who have been and remain eligible for the Warm Home Discount, for example, should not be obliged to pay a higher DD in the period April-November only to see the account leap into excess credit when the WHD is applied.  

I receive pension credit, Winter Fuel Allowance, Warm Home Discount etc.

Yes, but of those it’s only the Warm Home Discount that’s significant in this context, because it’s applied as a discount on your energy bill. There are also other bolt-ons that work as discounts like Charge Anytime, so ideally the DD calculation should take them into account, too, if there’s a consistent pattern. It’s good to know that there is a workaround for deserving customers, so thanks for keeping us updated.