Does OVO offer a change from monthly to quarterly billing?

Hey there @m1962 ,

I’m really sorry, but OVO doesn’t offer quarterly billing or quarterly payments to anyone who’s not already on them. In actual fact, an increasing number of suppliers are dropping support for quarterly bills/payments or have started out by never offering them as monthly billing and payments is better for cashflow, which in turn allows for cheaper rates. In fact, almost every type of company you can think of is slowly doing away with quarterly bills too.

There is no supplier that I can think of which will offer you quarterly bills either. And if there are, they probably won’t keep doing so for very long.

Sorry about that.

OK thanks. So basically OVO are allowed to keep my money in their account - currently over £600 - based on what they think I might spend, and I am not allowed to take control of my own spending. That money is becoming essential for day to day living since my DD was doubled in April. I’m apparently not allowed to have it back because the amount doesn’t meet OVO’s criteria for a refund which states that I need to have three months worth of bill payments on my account (actually in their account). 

This is all about building up their cash reserves, not customer choice. I have never been in debit, never missed a payment and have taken a responsible approach to reducing my monthly energy usage significantly this year.

The money is actually held in a separate holding account that OVO can’t touch until after a bill is generated. You can ask for it back at anytime by requesting a refund.

If you still want a refund despite the self service options blocking it, you may be able to get one by talking to the support team. Likewise, they’re able to adjust your payments to any amount - even below the recommended minimum level - on request at OVO’s discretion. But please be advised that doing say may have negative effects later.

If you still want to do this anyway, please get in touch with them on 0330 303 5063.

Many thanks for the replies

According to the Which price comparison website a few suppliers do quarterly direct debits, at least for my address.

https://switch.which.co.uk/index.html?db=dual&go=profile

The following come up with quarterly direct debit tariff options for my address. 

EDF

EON Next

Scottish Power

Sainsbury

Of course i think you would need to contact the suppliers directly to check they will actually do this assuming they have a tariff you like. I am sure monthly is the norm these days. 

I’m afraid I’m going to have to shorten that list a bit.

My friends have told me that neither E.On Next nor Sainsburys Energy offer quarterly billing/payments at all. They also seem to have a policy of moving all existing quarterly billed E.On customers to monthly as well…

EDF also confirms here that they do monthly billing for Direct Debit customers and quarterly billing is not available for that payment method. The only way to do quarterly bills with them is to pay by cash or cheque.

Scottish Power is a nightmare to find info for because they’ve dumped all the support pages into Khoros, but I found it eventually. They offer monthly payments and billing only, no quarterly bills on offer by the looks of things.

So best to ignore the Which price comparison calculator then for their quarterly filter? 

A few other quarterly options came up on the Which site but i assume these are invalid also.

Are there any comparison sites you would recommend in normal times or might  they all have similar issues? 

This is interesting, but not encouraging. It really does seem as if most energy companies have forgotten how to serve their customers. There should be a proper choice of payment methods and, importantly, no penalties for doing so. My understanding is that for customers who can pay quarterly there are different rates for prices. Other than a means to scalp customers, why is this? Everything is done online with no armies of clerks processing payment instructions and the cost to the companies must be minimal, and even f there is a charge levied by banks, it wouldn’t justify the additional c.£20 per month increase on my own bills when I was last able to check.

Energy companies are not alone, and other institutions such as insurance companies have also got used to ripping off customers off if they dare to try and change anything on their accounts.

There cannot be any real justification for energy companies including OVO for resisting customer wishes to pay quarterly other than to generate cash for their reserves, as if the monthly charges aren’t enough already.

The fact that I’ve had to come on here and ask evidences the fact that the information is buried within the website, not easy to find and clearly not intended to be common knowledge.

Paying quarterly increases the risk that suppliers take on of a customer failing to pay, and it also disrupts cashflow by having fewer opportunities for cash to come in during the year. With monthly payments it’s 12, with quarterly it plummets to just four. Which options a supplier decides to offer is left to the discretion of that supplier. To my knowledge, Ofgem doesn’t require any supplier to offer quarterly payments, nor block suppliers from applying surcharges to cover the additional costs of quarterly payments and more expensive payment methods. It’s not just admin time that’s involved here, there’s also payment processing fees and they’re not cheap! And bank fees are just the start...

If a supplier chooses to charge more for not paying via a specific payment method and/or frequency, that’s basically their decision and theirs alone. As long as it’s reasonable like for covering the additional costs incurred by the supplier and - for variable rate and prepayment tariffs - stays within the current Ofgem Default Tariff Cap, it’s allowed. Likewise, afaik as long as multiple payment options are available like - for example - paying via Direct Debit, Cash at the bank, Bank Transfer, Cheque, Card payments or even more fancy options like PayPal, Samsung Pay, Google Pay and Apple Pay, that’s sufficient to give you choice.

@Jeffus as far as I’m aware, I’m afraid none of them are reliable. I’ve been seeing several comparison sites (you know who you are!!!) trying to offer tariffs that have been long withdrawn by suppliers and also from suppliers that died ages ago. And that’s before I go into the issues with the quarterly/monthly billing thing.

To me, it seems all the comparison sites are getting out of sync again and the only reliable method to verify any offers is to manually run the quote through your chosen supplier directly. Personally, I don’t think comparison sites deserve the commission if they can’t get their tools to work properly but that’s just me.

I won’t name and shame any right now, but if they’re reading this, it’s worth noting that I will consider calling out comparison sites in the future if they don’t fix their problems.

I will give one example though. I had one of my friends test out one of the most trusted comparison sites a few hours ago (she’s currently on British Gas) to see what it would come up with. It told her that Nabuh Energy had the best possible deal right now, but there’s a bit of a problem there.

Nabuh Energy got nuked by Ofgem with a Final Order in October 2020 which revoked both their Gas and Electric supply licenses in September 2021. Centrica had already bought the entire customer book by then and merged it with British Gas, ultimately making Nabuh Energy only continue to exist as a name. Technically speaking, you can no longer sign up to Nabuh unless you move into a property they’re already supplying. And given that it’s basically British Gas with a fancy skin, you may as well just move the supply to British Gas and cut out the middleman.