It looks as if you fixed at the wrong time: those prices are much higher than current standard variable ones. On your Plan page, you should see what the exit fee is for ending your contract early, and on the Renewal page you can see whether there’s a plan that fits at a lower price. If you see the 1-year Loyalty fixed rate plan, that is quite attractive at the moment.
You have a couple of choices:
- Wait a few more weeks: sometime after 13 June, you should be able to switch to a different plan without having to pay the exit fee. This ‘free period’ starts 7 weeks before the contract end date.
- Do your sums, estimating your consumption of electricity and gas between now and the end of your contract, then working out what this would cost on your current tariff and on a different one that takes your fancy. If the difference is more than the exit fee, you’d be better off switching now.
The Direct Debit calculator will be working out how much it expects you to use up to the end of the contract and what that would cost. It then adds on your negative balance and divides the result by the number of payments left in the contract period. That’s why it’s so high at the moment: you only have a couple of months in which to pay off that debt. If you switched to a different plan, I think you’ll find that the debt would be discounted over the period of the new one (if you fixed again) or over the next 10 months (to 31 March) if you opted for the variable tariff. This would bring your Direct Debit down significantly.
You should always be able to make a card payment even though you usually pay by Direct Debit.
If I were in your shoes, I’d:
(a) use any spare cash I had lying around to make a card payment to bring the debt down. Only if it’s really spare, though: you don’t normally pay interest on debt to OVO, but you would if you overdrew your bank account to pay it off.
(b) switch now to the 1 Year Fixed Loyalty - 09/05/2024 tariff unless the exit fee makes this unattractive. This offer may not be around much longer.
@Firedog Can’t see the new tariffs, due to being over 55 days in contract.
I did use my card to pay some off last contract, but it wasnt credited so I asked for a refund…. Not sure why this was the case.. If any staff can chime in on to clarify why this was?
Maybe I should opt for the variable-rate next time? Are the standing charge fee’s more forgiving? I know that’s how suppliers make the money but.
♂️
Hey @PalsyP
We can’t say what you should do about changing tariff and what would be best for you, but we can certainly clear up that you should always be able to make a one off card payment, no matter what your typical payment method is.
So even if you are on Direct Debit, you can make an extra payment into the account anytime. As we don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum I can’t be entirely sure what went wrong here. but it’s possible that the payment didn’t reach the actual account and so didn’t reflect in the credit, but we can’t be sure here without access to the account.
I’ve linked to a handy topic on card payments that may be useful:
@Firedog Can’t see the new tariffs, due to being over 55 days in contract.
OK. There are other places to find them:
- Visit ovoenergy.com in a private (incognito) browser window. Use the first Get a quote button to find the plans available in your postcode.
- Visit Our prices | OVO Energy to see all the plans available in your postcode. Use the filters to narrow down the search results; there will still be quite a few, but many of them will be the same. Ignore the plans with funny names - they only apply to specific classes of customer. In particular, see if you can find the Loyalty tariff.
The unit prices are attractive (10p cheaper), just hope they stay the same when my contract is near its end.
@Abby_OVO Do you allow card payments over the phone as well, so I can pay off the debit amount?
Hey @PalsyP
Yes you can do it over the phone or over webchat too.
https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/article/how-to-pay
… just hope they stay the same when my contract is near its end.
That’s not guaranteed: these tariffs change quite frequently in response to wholesale energy market prices.
See if you can find the Terms & conditions that apply to your current plan. Some of them have apparently changed in the last few days, so it’s not certain that the new ones apply to you, but it’s worth checking. The new ones for the 1-year fix state specifically that “If you change to another OVO fixed tariff you will not be charged a termination fee.” If this is the case, you might want to consider saving quite a bit by switching now rather than waiting until you get into the ‘renewal window’ seven weeks before the contract’s end date.
