I recently depleted the large credit balance on my account following the end of the Interest Reward scheme. Since the start of April 2024, there has been a warning on my Home page like this:
Now, I’m well aware that I can’t go on paying only £5 a month for long, but the current balance is high enough to keep me in credit into the summer. I plan to increase the monthly payment to a realistic sum before the account goes into debt.
Can anyone with experience of warnings like this and what they lead to explain ‘what happens next’? How soon can I expect to be told that I have to increase my Direct Debit? How soon after that is an increase imposed?
I’m asking because the Future Annual Consumption figure for my account is far too high, but falling. With any luck, it will meet my actual annual consumption in August or September, but until it does, the recommended DD will be too high. I’d like to pre-empt any OVO-mandated increase. If I were to adjust the DD now to the current ‘minimum payment’, my account would show an average positive balance of £150 for the next year, a figure I’m not prepared to live with.
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Basically OVO increase your direct debit!
I too had a large balance which I started to run down when the reward scheme finished, but I reduced my DD to £50. I still have a balance of over £550 and OVO have increased my DD to £77. I had intended to leave it at £50 until the balance had reduced to the point where I could change the DD to the actual annual usage (£105) to keep the balance positive over the winter.
From my plan the electricity usage is pretty close (2437 kWh against 2428 kWh actual), however the gas estimate is way too high (9571 kWh against 8905 kWh actual). The figure used seems to correspond to the end of 2023. However this discrepancy in gas usage would only amount to £36 over the year.
I was tempted to request a refund but I’m getting too old to play games with OVO (I get a refund, then OVO increase the DD further to “balance” the account). Something I have done in other years is to re-adjust the DD just after a payment is made (the balance is higher, the DD estimate lower).
Finally the plan electricity usage does not differentiate between standard and off-peak (economy 7) usage.
Thanks.
Basically OVO increase your direct debit!
Yep, I’d gathered that. I was most interested in what happens up to that point, bearing in mind the number of complaints in these forums that the DD was ‘suddenly’ increased; I had the impression that warnings were issued (by email?) before that, and I was wondering at what stage that started happening.
Finally the plan electricity usage does not differentiate between standard and off-peak (economy 7) usage.
If you’re referring to the FAC, I think you’ll find it does. It’s not easy to find what the peak/offpeak figures are, but of course they’re vital to assessing the cost of future consumption. Many of the tariffs specified on this page will show the numbers along with what they would mean at the tariff concerned: smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/orex/api/available-plans/1234567
(with your account no. instead of 1234567). Here’s one extract from that page for me:
],
"estimatedAnnualCost": {
"amount": "701.45",
"currencyUnit": "GBP"
},
"estimatedAnnualConsumptions":
{
"projectedConsumption": 1147,
"timeOfUseLabel": "peak",
"clockingTimeLabel": "day"
},
{
"projectedConsumption": 582.5,
"timeOfUseLabel": "offpeak",
"clockingTimeLabel": "night"
}
],
Add the two projectedConsumption figures to get the number shown on the Plan page.
By “advanced notice” do you mean an e-mail saying the next payment will be ….? Immediately followed by an e-mail confirming the increase. That’s about 2 weeks notice for me.
Hi @Firedog
I just checked back through my old emails from when I was on variable tariff and yes each time they increased it I did get emailed warnings 10 days before. Usually when they were doing a review for new tariffs.
The reviews are every 3 months now, we have just had one at the end of March for the new rates and so if you haven’t had an increase email (and don’t get one) this month then you can probably expect one towards the end of June.
Actually it’s not a very strong warning as such that they were going to do it, and no date is given of when they are going to do it - more of a suggestion that you do it yourself. Here’s an example from the end of March last year, which I ignored and they put it up themselves exactly 10 days later. (So I then had to get on the phone and argue it down again).
Thanks to you both - that’s what I wanted to see. I thought there had to be some sort of notice, because the payer has to have time to ensure that there are funds available to cover the increase. The timings must be linked somehow to the DD date, too.
I’d be interested to see the bit below the bottom of the screenshot - how we worked this out.
I’d closed my email so had to open and find it again.
It doesn’t tell you much:
But then I noticed below that this saying that they would be increasing it after giving 10 days notice, but not actually saying clearly that this is the notice:
Then below that is ‘If you feel the amount we’ve recommended is too much’ the usual call support, etc. Then another page of bumf about getting debt advice and how DDs work.
Hmm. The email should start with the fact that if you don’t increase it they will in 10 days time !!!
It doesn’t tell you much:
You can say that again. How is anyone to check whether they got the estimated costs right? To the nearest penny?
… they would be increasing it after giving 10 days notice, but not actually saying clearly that this is the notice ...
That’s not what it says*. 10 working days before the payment date isn’t necessarily the same as 10 days from now - that’s why I mentioned the significance of the DD date. 10 days is long enough to make sure the payment will go smoothly. And presumably you could take some action - unspecified - in order to push the increase into the next month by cutting in to the ‘10 days before payment’ window.
I’ll be watching with interest to see what they say about my DD.
* This is another example of the small print in emails being overlooked; we regularly see posts like ‘I’ve just had an email about the new prices. Do they include VAT?’ even though the email says so in a footnote. If there’s a general review of standard emails going on, perhaps @Emmanuelle_OVO could pass this feedback on: don’t hide important details in a block of verbiage at the foot of the message.
I've had another look at the emails that I got aorund that time
I had recieved that email posted above the day after a DD payment was made.
Reading it again it’s true that it doesn’t say that it is the actual notice, - but I don’t think that it is intended to be. It’s more of an early warning.
However the email that I then got 10 days later (including non-working days) “Important: Your Direct Debit is increasing” may well be the one that they consider as the notice.
Even though it's written as a fete-accomplis rather than notice it was still 21 days before the next DD payment was due, so technically I suppose it’s 3 weeks notice.
(Note that in just those 10 days the DD recommended amount had jumped by £15 up to £190. But that’s a whole different FAC story as you already know).
