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)

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)

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.

Blastoise 168, thank you for your enlightening reply.

Can I just ask though, why are OVO wishing to put up my DD prior to the new PM's crisis budget.???

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!

Hi @dspinks41,

I’m sorry for the issues you’ve had.

Our lines have been very busy at the moment, you can also get in touch with Support through web messenger. 

If you’re on the variable rate, Simpler Energy, the direct debit is worked out to be an average for the year, so that there aren’t large spikes over the winter period. Direct Debits for customers on the variable plan factor in October’s price rises but not any other.

If we didn’t take into account future costs this may mean customers fall into debt balances. Here are some helpful guides about how direct debit reviews are calculated:

We understand direct debits aren’t for everyone. If you aren’t already on the Simpler Variable on demand plan you can opt to move onto it. This means you can pay through your online account when you receive your bill. This plan is more expensive than the Simpler Variable direct debit plan. 

We do advise paying by direct debit as your rates will be cheaper, it’s automated and it avoids large spikes in your bills over winter. 

You should be able to initiate a refund of up to £500 through your online account but the following criteria needs to be met:

• Have an active Direct Debit with at least one payment received from that bank account

• Request a refund of over £5

• Request a refund up to £500

• Leave a remaining balance of at least one month's Direct Debit

• Been billed within the last 28 days to an actual meter reading

If you don't meet the criteria an error message will be displayed.

I 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

Your phone lines will continue to be busy through these difficult times suggest ypou might need more staff ,,,, 

web messenger was also not working ….either ….

sent an email but no reply …. I am over £200 in credit I want to continue using DD but object to an increase from £175 to over £300 per month based on some obscure software that Ovo uses to predict usage …. I only want to pay for the energy I use and not top up Ovo’s cash assets …..

I will call later in the week ….. 

Very unhappy customer … I have made an official complaint but have as yet seen no acknowledgement nor response …. 

dcs

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.

If you wish to dispute payments and request a freeze, you can discuss that with the Collections Team on 0800 0699 831 or Support Team on 0330 303 5063. Please bear in mind that the teams are extremely busy right now, so it may take longer to answer your call.

Alternatively, try the Live Chat at https://help.ovoenergy.com . :)

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.

Oh and thanks for your support @KeithA , between the group of 10 or so forum volunteers, we’ve dealt with several hundred threads in recent weeks. We try our best to divide the load between us and sometimes we’ll call on each other if one of us thinks another volunteer might be better suited to a particular question.

When backed up by the forum moderators (who do an amazing job!), a smart meter engineer and a few of our “forum friends” as I like to call them, we’ve got a very powerful team.

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.

There’s more as well.

OVO is currently rolling out a massive upgrade within the Support Team and it’s being rolled out to all members this year. The plan as I understand it is to try and have a 100% rollout by the end of this year, but it could be a bit faster or slower.

Can’t say too much, but I will say this. You will notice a huge upgrade once your account is enabled. Faster call answering, more personal service, a whole squad of agents assigned to you… And that’s just the start! It’s way better. I’ve been on it for some time now and I know you’ll enjoy it. Just imagine having a personal account manager, except that rather than having one account manager… You have a whole squad of 10+ account managers. That’s basically the idea.

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.

Double the gas for the estimate does seem a bit steep. However I would suggest (if you can stand the suspense) letting everything settle for at least a month while the new gov rates kick in and see how it looks then. 

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. 

For the last 2 months every 2 weeks Ovo has taken £116 from me even though my bill isn’t that high. Why is this and how can I make this stop?

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.

So - I had an email yesterday casually informing me that my DD was going up by about £35 a month to ensure that I was going to be in a good place in March 2026 - 12 months away.

My issue is that I'm about £320 in credit and my contract expires in 90 days.

My existing DD is (was) £156 pcm - and we are now coming into the time of the year when my solar panels and battery storage systems will effectively mean that I will draw from the grid (on good days) from about 0200hrs to around 0900 hrs when the house is at rest and not using much energy.

I managed to get through to a human on the ‘chat’ system who informed me that their little robot (their words) automatically adjusted my DD based on predicted usage through to March 2026. No human involvement required - until, that is, I complained.

A ‘human’ review revealed that my £156 pcm (the existing DD) was sufficient to cover my predicted costs for the next 90 days and so the DD increase was reversed.

How crazy is it to employ a robotic system that cannot take into account a customers contractual elements to correctly set a D value - and then have to waste time, effort, energy and money by having someone sort it out manually???

Morning ​@marichardson535 and thanks for your post 😁

Sorry to hear of the confusion surrounding your Direct Debit, and the fact you had to contact Support to get this sorted. I’m happy that they could sort it for you, and it sounds like they’ve put your Direct Debit on suspension so that it won’t be automatically reviewed for the next three months. The Direct Debit reviews on your account may seem too high at this moment in time - that’ll be because you’re nearly at the end of your contract. Our systems will be taking into account the price increase as of 01/04/2025 at the moment, and of course our computers can’t tell what contract you’ll go for at the end of your current plan, or whether you’ll stay with OVO etc etc. 

We’re regulated to review Direct Debits by Ofgem as a safeguarding measure and, sometimes, the reviews might not be quite right as it’s a one-size-fits-all approach. On these occasions a chat with our Support Team is necessary to make sure your Direct Debit stays where it is. In your case, your Direct Debit is now on suspension until the end of your plan, giving you time to pick a new plan when you enter your ‘renewal window’ (you’ll receive an email in the coming weeks telling you you’re up for renewal and what plans we can offer you). Once you take out a new plan, our systems will review the Direct Debit based upon the new rates, and everything will fall in line again. 

I hope this helps, and I just wanted to direct you to some previous Forum topics you might find useful 👇

I’m sick to death of dealing with OVO energy. They are constantly trying to increase my DD even though I am actually in credit by over £250 GBP . The smart meter ( which is a comical name seeing that they don’t use it) clearly demonstrates that for the past 6 winter months my energy consumption has been under £70, so as we go into late spring/early summer, would I now be using 50% more. I would suggest that the greedy dividend seeking shareholders use the actual smart meters to calculate the cost and not the enumerate people they currently employ. I will now be contacting Off-Gen to see if it is possible to do something about this company 

Two things to check in your online account:

1. The Future Annual Consumption (FAC) figure(s) on your Plan page: are they anything like the number of kWh you have actually used in the past year? These are the figures (one for electricity, one for gas if you use it) that are used to calculate your recommended Direct Debit (DD).
     
2. The Direct Debit calculator: this will show what your balance would be at the end of next winter (31 March 2026) using current rates and the monthly Direct Debit shown. This balance should be about zero. If it’s below zero, the calculator will show what the DD should be to reach zero. You can enter different DD figures to see what effect it would have on the final balance.
   
   If you click Continue on that page, you’ll see the recommendation. There is also a link How we work out the minimum monthly payment explaining how the recommendation is arrived at.

The usual reason why the recommended DD seems higher than it ought to be is that the FAC is unrealistically high. This can happen if, for example, it’s not long since you joined OVO or you’ve had a new meter installed in the past year.

Either way, Support can help, e.g. by reducing the DD amount for a time, if you explain why you think the recommendation is too high. 

Why do you say ‘they don’t use the smart meter’?

Hi ​@richierocket And if, after taking the steps that ​@Firedog suggests above, you still find the suggested DD amount is a bit steep, you could then think about asking for a refund of some of your credit amount; if a refund were to leave your account short by some amount when the entire year to March 2026 is taken into consideration, then a refund might not happen, of course, nor indeed might you want it to.  Customer support could definitely advise. 
 

Although it’s not necessarily the role of consumers on the forum to comment on the specifics of each others’ bills, it sounds to me from your post as though you’re being asked to consider increasing your existing monthly DD to around £100 (which would equate to a monthly increase of 50% of “under £70” per winter month, around £1200 annually)? So even with a monthly DD of around £100, a credit of £250 seems quite a chunky amount to leave in your account. I might have misunderstood the figures (wouldn’t be the first time!), if so please forgive my sums!

All the best, let us know how you decide things….bills are more and more a major deal with us consumers nowadays…