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

I have this morning received an E-mail from OVO telling me I must increase my direct debit to cover increasing costs, but they haven't told me what these are!!!!

They further tell me if I don't increase it they will just take more anyway, is this legal, or even morally just???

Further to watching BBC's Panorama last night, I find they lied to me recently saying that my electricity costs were due to OVO buying my "100% renewable electricity " on the open market, when according to Panorama the electricity price is just coupled to the gas price, nothing to do with production costs or availability. 

Cheers, Ali, (rant over)

Hi @Ali fae Crieff ,

I’m one of the trusted forum volunteers here. I don’t work for OVO myself.

You might want to look at the Direct Debit Calculator in MyOVO, as this will show you how OVO has figured things out and will also tell you what the recommended payment amount is. OVO is legally entitled to increase your payments if you’re not paying enough to cover what you owe. It’s part of the terms of service that everyone agrees to by signing up.

As for the prices, OVO does do 100% renewable and it’s disclosed in the OVO Fuel Mix. Ultimately, the real problem comes down to the fact that the cost of buying energy on the wholesale market (which is where all suppliers buy it from) is always pinned to the most expensive source, usually gas. Even a supplier that uses absolutely nothing to do with fossil fuels at all in their Fuel Mix, would still be forced to pay the same rates wholesale as one that uses 100% fossil fuels in their own Fuel Mix.

There is no separate market for just renewable sources right now. OVO has stated they want one to exist and would happily switch to it, but until then they’re forced to use the same open market that everyone else does.

You’re welcome, thanks for understanding.

I’m afraid I can’t speak on behalf of OVO, so I hope you’re OK with me giving my personal thoughts.

At the moment, there’s no way to know what’s in that crisis budget, so I’m going to guess that OVO is going off of what is already known and officially available in the public domain. That crisis budget could have literally anything in it (and for all I know, could just be giving everyone free giant teddy bears!) so it’s better not to speculate and try to second-guess what isn’t yet available.

Once the details of that crisis budget are announced, I’m pretty confident OVO will react to it accordingly and announce something if it makes sense to do that.

Until then, OVO can only go off of what’s in the public domain, which is going to be and the only thing that’s relevant for that is the new price cap.

Hope this helps!

This spring when we was with SSE we was £880 in credit which we got back, kept dd the same and at switch over to ovo we was £380 in credit. I refuse to put up my dd I will pay the excess if need be

I’m sure at some point the advice to try Live Chat was sound at some point, but having been repeatedly cut off by phone and waiting on Live Chat for 6 hours today with no response, I’m not sure whether it’s a viable option currently.

Like many people here, I’m in credit (by a sizeable amount), having been pro-actively building up my credit balance and reducing my energy consumption, and I’m stilling getting mailed to tell me to increase my direct debit. Post October increase I will have a credit balance of 8 x my adjusted monthly usage.

OVO are going to make a huge problem far worse if they can’t find a way to actually respond to customer’s issues and concerns.

BTW. I really do applaud the volunteers responding to queries in  these forums. TBH, your selfless efforts seem to be far more than OVO currently deserve.

It’s a difficult balance to be honest. There’s no point having 1,000 support agents if most of them are just going to be idle for 99% of the year.

You might want to try calling 0800 0699 831 instead, the Collections Team can discuss this one with you.

Thanks for the response. It’s very much appreciated. I will try the collections team number tomorrow and give the web messenger another go as well.

I am very happy to pay for what I use and very aware that energy prices are volatile at the moment, therefore DDs will be expensive. It also makes sense to me that energy use is calculated over the entire year and the DD is calculated by taking this into account.

What I am not happy about is OVO taking me on as a new customer with a suggested DD amount, having been given my actual kwh usage for both gas and electric taken as the highest out of the last 3 years and yet they have got some magic crystal ball out and decided that I will use more than double the amount of gas I have used in the last three years and must therefore pay them an additional £50 a month. 

Well this must be worked out on your usage with them since you started I hear you say. Alas, it is not, because I have not quite been with them 8 weeks yet and in that time I have used 2 kwh of gas. And when I finally get through, they start telling me they can offer me assistance and 'breathing space' to manage my payments. I just want them to use a bit more common sense and not pull a figure out of the air, I have no problem paying my bills.

Its a bloody con.

Hey @tneast,

I’m sorry for the issues you’ve had.

We understand direct debits aren’t for everyone and you can opt to go onto the Simpler Variable on demand plan. Then you can pay on receipt of the bill instead of by direct debit.

If you believe your estimated annual consumption is incorrect you can contact Support about this. If you give them your annual usage figures in kWhs they will be able to check if the figures we have are out of line. If necessary they can put your account of a direct debit review hold. 

Hope this helps. 

Hi @Naikoru ,

I think the Collections Team are probably best placed to help with this one. You can reach out to them by calling 0800 069 9831. If they agree that there’s no need for this, they can put a stop to it for you.