Increase to Direct Debit - new way of calculating Direct Debit amount?

Just as a general comment for Emmanuelle_OVO; when the conversation has repeatedly made it clear that all participants have read the (uninformative) OVO material already, it's profoundly insulting to our intelligence to then paste the whole text into the response verbatim just to bulk out your reply. 

Morning ​@neophlegm,

Just to let you know Emmanuelle hasn’t re-posted the original OVO material. Two posts around the same subject have been merged together, with Emmanuelle’s comment being assigned as ‘best answer’. Topics will often be merged together if they are around the same subject.

As Moderators we can only advise of OVO’s standpoint around Direct Debits, and any complaints or issues around the calculations must be discussed with our Support Team.

​@Firedog - I don’t need spurious comparisons on the personal fiinancial impact of granting OVO the right to bank a DD surplus that is based on nothing other than the cash flow demands of OVO.  I asked 2 questions neither of which have been answered. 

NB.  If the interest impact is so paltry why don’t OVO give me the interest repayment (as they used to do in the good old days when I was in credit) instead of keeping it for themselves?   I guess all those pints of milk and books of stamps go a long way towards benefiting OVO's cash flow, but unfortunately do nothing for mine.

Part of that has been discussed previously.

OVO used to be able to run OVO Interest Reward with special permission from Ofgem - that permission was necessary to run it at all because the regular rules didn’t allow it. However, it came with an “open to recall” type clause allowing Ofgem to revoke that permission at anytime.

That clause was triggered a couple of years ago and is the ultimate reason why OVO IR no longer exists. The same is true for ALL suppliers that offered similar schemes - they all terminated their versions around the same time.

Morning ​@Corgimajor,

Thanks for your post. At the moment the ‘one size fits all’ approach in the way we forecast and review Direct Debits will be staying as it is, though our Direct Debit teams will continuously make refinements. As it stands, there are no plans to amend Direct Debit review procedures in certain ways for individual customers. As an long term OVO customer and employee I do understand the frustrations caused by the Direct Debt policies, but we have to make them as ‘fit for all’ as possible, under Ofgem guidelines.

Ofgem wrote last year that “Where a consumer is in a credit position, we expect suppliers to reduce the associated Direct Debit level with the intention of returning the account as close to a zero balance [sic] over the next 12 months.” I think that ‘we expect’ in Ofgem-speak has at least as much of a mandatory effect as a guideline, so how does ‘one month’s credit’ conform to ‘close to a zero balance,’ and what happened to the 12 month adjustment period?  

The point still stands, however the information got there, that it’s very patronising.

I also think the “you can request a refund” excuse is misleading. You can only request a refund if you have enough credit to pay one month, right? So as long as Ovo keeps increasing our monthly direct debits they can keep them ahead of any credit we’ve accrued and we never get to withdraw. Is that correct? What am I missing?

I’m really sick of this. I’m going to change provider. Your Which? rating is poor and it’s clear why.

My monthly payments have been increased even though I have been building up enough credit to cover the coming winter months the idea of having to maintain a full month's credit by March 26 is unethical my fixed tariff ends soon and I will be switching as soon as it expires.

Thought I'd do a search of this forum after reviewing my account.

My current balance is a credit of £650. My direct debit is £237 per month, so you can see I have more than the 1 month credit people are talking about.

I requested a credit as my balance is continually going up due to the fact majority of my electricity usage is for my electric car and therefore credited back under the Charge Antime rate of 7p per kwh.

It seems that despite my nett electric bill being below my direct debit, they want to keep the money in their account.

Always been happy with Ovo until this point but at this rate my end of year balance will be over £1k. 

Probably will look at other suppliers now. 

It's like giving Tesco a month's worth of grocery money and picking your goods up later as and when you need them if OVO end up holding on to every customer's 1 month credit how many millions of pounds in their coffers will they be sitting on?I too have been happy with them up till now but this is sharp practice by any standards