OVO have sent an email about my Direct Debit - Why are you increasing my monthly payment when I’m already in credit?

I’ve also had the email, a 10% rise: £200 to £220. Personally I think it’s a good idea. Why not build up a bit of credit so we’re braced for the enormous increase that’s coming? There is the option to set it back, but this way the pain is eased a little. 

Hi @TomThumb and thanks for this honest feedback. 

I would say that even though your account is in credit right now, energy prices could go up again next year – and fixed-rate plans currently cost more than 2020. The prices for fixed-rate plans have more than doubled compared to this time last year. 

That said, the last thing we want is for you to worry about paying for your energy. If the amount we’ve suggested doesn't feel manageable, or if feel it’s unnecessary, that’s okay. You can change back to the minimum payment in your online account. If the minimum payment still feels like too much, please let us know. You can call us on 0800 0699 831 and we can work out a payment plan together.
 

Hope this helps

I’d agree with julia as well, this does seem to be a good idea, even if the execution wasn’t perfect. But that can always be fixed for the future.

I’ve not seen the email myself and I might not get one, since I already set my payments to be well above what I need to be paying to stay on track. If I do get it myself, I’ll have a read through and give my thoughts based on my actual experience.

Probably also worth noting that OVO isn’t allowed to do anything with the spare credit other than stash it into a holding account at the bank until you’ve actually used it. The only time it gets released for OVO to do anything else, is after a bill is generated which collects some of the credit you have. Until then, it just sits in a bank account waiting for something to happen.

@Tim_OVO  Ovo informing their customer base of the ongoing energy crisis & suggesting an increase to there dd payments to ease the inevitable increase in the coming months is all well & good, it even makes sense

The  issue I have is ovo’s oversight that this approach will be welcomed by all of it’s customers & is forced upon us given that no consent has been made.

A simple check box confirming that the customer is happy to proceed with ovo’s (big brother approach) recommendations would have been a far better way of handling things.

Unfortunately I personally don’t agree with how ovo have handled this entire process,  

Edit: due to my slow typing, @Blastoise186  has hit the nail on the head with 

“this does seem to be a good idea, even if the execution wasn’t perfect. But that can always be fixed for the future.”

Tom…

I just wanted to follow up as I promised I would.

I’ve just received an email from OVO today which seems like it’s the one being discussed here. However, there’s no mention of any payment changes in my case, and MyOVO is showing no changes to my actual payments. In actual fact, my recommended payments have dropped quite a lot below what I’m paying in, but I’ve chosen to keep things as they are.

There’s a checklist about keeping my account up to date, which mentions the following:

• Verifying my contact details are correct (yup, all good!)
• Send a meter reading - Raichu does that for me anyway
• Keeping an eye on my usage with the app - which I’m always using… And bug hunting!
• Signing up for the Priority Services Register - already did that last year and I’ve recently re-verified the registration details

There was no mention of anything payment related in this particular email. My most recent bill also confirmed that everything looks good as-is.

I’m afraid I can’t share the full contents of the email for privacy reasons, so you’d have to trust my word on this, but that’s the email I’ve received in as much detail as I can post here.

Currently we are over £1000.00 in credit.

We pay £318.00 per month currently.

We appreciate that the credit helps with the Winter payments and acknowledge this.

Despite being with OVO from SSE we still are told that when we've been with you for 8 weeks you will be able to give a more detailed payment projection for the upcoming increase. It is far in excess of 8 weeks since the changeover.

Some light shed upon this would be great. 

IF you can tell me what supply region you are in I can advise the likely prices you’ll face.  Better still here are the DD prices for all regions and both fuels.  With a forecast of your consumption you can work out your likely costs at these rates for the next 12 months and decide if your DD is fair and reasonable or not.  Remember though that these prices hold till January 2023 when another increase is likely.

I live on my own and had agreed at the start of the plan that I would be paying £35 direct debit for the electricity, I have recently noticed that I had an outstanding balance of £900+, this week my direct debit changed to £219. The outstanding balance went down to £600, yesterday I spent 3 hours on the phone trying to sort this out and understand how it is so high, the 2 women I spoke were not able to help me but trying to get me to pay the outstanding balance off, I explain that I had already paid £219 and can not afford to pay anymore atm, there was a language barrier when both attempting explain. When I gave my meter reading the women put me on hold & then I was cut off, I noticed again that it had now gone down to £483. After ringing again the women explain that I would have to pay £219 a month and a excess fee until I pay my outstanding balance off. 

Hi @allysonp13 ,

Sounds like a bit of a tricky one there to be honest. I’m going to start by giving you a link to one of my guides, which also has a bunch of resources that might help you out.

It sounds like you were being billed using estimated meter readings. Could you show me what you’re seeing under https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings/history/electricity and https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings/history/gas please?

If you submitted an actual reading that turned out to prove your usage has been lower than what the estimates suggested, this would have wiped out some of the outstanding balance automatically and you would no longer owe that portion.

There is also a recently announced Customer Support Package that OVO is planning to offer to anyone who needs it and I would encourage you to apply for it once it’s available. There’s more details at https://www.ovoenergy.com/customer-support-package if you’d like to take a look.

Basically your original Direct Debit was set too low (how long ago?). So you were not paying enough for your consumption plus prices rose in April and will rise again in October.. It will take many months to clear the outstanding balance given much of your payment will go to meet current  consumption. Stick with it!