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

Please don’t concentrate on the amounts you’re being charges or required to pay by DD. Start with the Future Annual Consumption (FAC) projection shown on your Plan details page (on the web, not in the app). How does this number compare with what you see on the Year tabs on the Usage pages for the past couple of years? You could even use the average figure for this year x 12 to get an idea of the latest annual figure. The FAC is what the DD is based on, so if it’s way out, the DD will be, too. 

Thank you, i’ll look at that.

I think what bugs me is the frequency at which they adjust our direct debit. It makes it difficult to budget when its changed every few months by large amounts without any real rationale why. No other service changes with this frequency. its frustrating. I juat wondered of other users had this constantly changing direct debit and if it was juat “a thing” OVO did.

Just to mention…

OVO doesn’t actually modify the DD on a monthly basis - it’s reviewed every three months and only gets modified as a result of those reviews. The suggestions on the calculator change daily, but nothing happens unless you actually commit to those suggested changes yourself.

Thanks Blastoise186…..so the Direct debit is changed and theres nothing I can do about it. I was paying £260 last month, now its £320. I will see what they take next month. Im getting that this is just how energy with OVO is paid and have to just get used to it varying throughout a year. 

That’s why I speculated that a descent into debt might trigger an ‘out-of-band’ review, since the OP originally complained that her DD was changing ‘almost every month’. 

​If @mum3girls2025  is seeing apparently unwarranted increases in her DD, she can always use the option to reduce it by 10%. This has the effect - I think - of freezing the DD for three months. That’s why I suspect I’ve heard nothing even though my pretty little graph upthreads showed that I was cutting things pretty close to the bone near the end of August. 

My own DD is up for review in a few days’ time. I’m rather hoping that the Warm Home Discount will turn up just in time to scupper any tomfoolery by the automaton. It’s been paid in November every year for the past five years at least, but I’ve not heard anything yet this year 😟
  

I have been paying a Direct Debit of £100 per month since January 2024. However this is what I can see at the moment in what I have always referred to as “that annoying little box” on my account HomePage. For me, that “annoying little box” amount changes several times a month, sometimes every day! According to the Direct Debit Guarantee which  “is a customer protection that applies to all Direct Debit payments and is offered by all banks and building societies that accept them. It ensures you can get an immediate and full refund from your bank if an incorrect or unauthorized payment is taken from your account. The guarantee also requires the organization to give you advance notice of any changes to the amount, date, or frequency of payments. You also have the right to cancel a Direct Debit at any time.” So, if OVO have been altering your DD payment, have they been giving you notice of their intention to do so as required by the Direct Debit Guarantee? I believe that OVO review DD payments for all customers every three months. The only time that I have had a real problem with this was when, having received a “Goodwill payment”, following a Customer Service failure, of £50 in July 2024. This gave me a bill of £26.90 for the month. OVO attempted to reduce my DD to something ludicrous that I told them would put me into debit before the next review! They agreed to leaving my DD at the amount I had agreed to, i.e. £100.  I have always found that I get the best service from using the Messenger facility on the OVO Facebook Page. It is not instant, but you will get, usually, sensible replies.

IANAL, but my interpretation of the advance notice requirement is that they are obliged to inform you of any proposed change early enough for you to be able to change your instruction to the bank, something like 10 banking days before the DD is due to be taken. I’d be surprised if this weren’t the case.
  

For years, I was running a large credit balance, because OVO were paying 5% interest on it - more than any bank was offering. For many months, my ‘annoying little box’ recommended reducing my DD to £5. I did, but only when they decided to stop paying interest. [OT fun fact: all the time that credit balances were earning interest, the interest was deducted before the VAT was calculated. This had the effect of increasing the interest reward by the amount of VAT that would otherwise have been deducted.]

It’s sometimes easy to miss an actual question in the middle of a completely justified rant, so sorry I didn’t answer this earlier 🙂

I mentioned the fact that the Future Annual Consumption is the root of all evil in this particular jungle. A month’s credit is the result of this calculation:

Referring to the Plan page,

1. Multiply the FAC by the Unit Rate;
2. Multiply the Standing Charge by 365;
3. Add (1) and (2) to get a projected annual cost;
4. Add 5% for the VAT (e.g. multiply (3) by 1.05);
5. Divide the result of (4) by 12 to get the estimate for one month’s costs within the meaning of the Act.

This won’t be exact to the penny, because the FAC quoted is shown rounded to a whole number, but when used in calculations, it’s used with a single decimal. There probably won’t be more than a penny’s difference either way in (5).

The FAC may change each time a meter reading is submitted, so the figure might vary from day to day (I check mine once a week). If you’re on a multiple-rate tariff, it gets a bit more complicated unless you know the split between, say, the day and night usage.  Then you have to multiply each element of usage by its corresponding unit rate and add them all together to get to (1). 

Hey ​@mum3girls2025 

Sorry to hear you’ve seen quite a few changes in your Direct Debit, although I’m glad to see a couple of our community members have already stopped by here with some advice.

Bendog mentioned speaking with the Support Team, they can discuss the suggested DD amount and if needed, freeze that in place instead of increasing for the following 3 month period when it’s due for review again. If this took place now, we shouldn’t look to change the Direct Debit amount until February. 

The forecast will likely be predicting a continued increase in usage as shown in the last 3 bills so it looks like this might be why it’s continuing to suggest a higher Direct Debit amount. I do think, like the others have suggested that contacting the Support Team sounds like it might be helpful here. 

I’ve also linked below to a few other topics which might be helpful here:

Thank you Abby. I dont want to freeze my direct debit or ask for the reduction as thats like a payment plan for debt management and thats not what we require.

My query (not a complaint-only a query) was purely why the regular changing of a direct debit. If it is reviewed every 3 months and then changed then thats fine but I wasnt aware thats what happened. Ive previously had a fixed DD withother energy companys which would be significantly more than our usage in the summer to cover the usage in the winter. OVO frequently reviewing and adjusting the DD to cover one months payment in March means its always changing because what IS my payment in March 2026?! If i use my annual usage from 2024 and divide by 12, its not anywhere close to the £325 a month I am currently paying. I dont want to freeze DD or ask for a payment plan-Im not skint and can afford my bill-what is irritating is that this month its dofferent to last month and my account is saying it will be dofferent again next month. 
If that is how it is with OVO i will shut up and just live with it-Its just not how Ive paid for energy before.