The end of the interest payment to help the customers pay the right amount through direct debit

So just had an email saying no more interest on credit balances after this month.☹️

This is a real shame this was one of the reasons I joined OVO in the first place.

Agree completely. This is a joke. And not a funny one. Not only is the interest reward ending, reading between the lines they're going to make me either get a refund or get me to lower my payments so I'm not keeping more in my account than needed. How the heck do I know what's needed when prices keep changing every 3 months?  I deliberately keep a lot of credit in my OVO account so that I know the money is there if we have cold snap like recently so I can put my heating on and not worry about finding the money.

If I only have one month worth if credit like they propose, that might not cover me for 2 months of bad weather then they'll home the payments that I probably can't afford to do.

It's my money, if I want to keep it in my OVO account so I don't spend it that should be my choice not OVO's, or the government's, or Martin Lewis (who has been a big campaigner on this stuff).

@Lucky2 you 

You can leave as much in your account as you wish and don't have to change the DD.

Is it completely up to you.

And wasn't a condition of receiving the interest that you didn't contact OVO customer service? Guess we can contact them now without repercussion. So when more of us are contacting them it will inevitably result in higher prices to maintained the service. All good things come to an end.

That was something different called the self service reward which is already gone.

Another one here who liked the £500 interest as it made it simpler to build up some credit in the summer to cover the winter gas prices and at least get some interest on it rather than having to take the money out into an interest paying account.

To compound this change, the automatic direct debit system does not seem to take into account the charge anytime rates as it is trying to set the direct debit to the normal rate price - this will mean I am forced to have a lot of credit in my account, which reading up on the expectations will likely mean by direct debit will change frequently as the system tries to get the amount of credit down.

This change is definitely one for the worse!

@Jeffus That's what I do I have the same DD all through the year so I know I have the money in my Ovo account when it comes to the winter months.

Not quite how the email reads.

The aim is to make sure customers are paying the right amount for their energy. We don’t want you to have more in your energy account than you need to.

Extra credit in your OVO account? Here’s what to do

The choice on what you do with any extra credit is completely up to you. You just need to leave one payment’s worth of credit in your energy account.

The phrasing of that seems to imply they'll prefer it. (and probably keep pestering) if we only had one or two month's DD amount in our account. I'd rather my money he there so I can't spend it and then not have it when I need it.

Myself and a few friends with Ovo have used Ovo to store our savings for the past few years as the 5% interest was more than most savings accounts.

Given how suddenly this scheme is ending, Ovo are going to have to refund a considerable amount of funds all at once. Probably the vast majority of customer funds they hold…

The title of this thread is misleading. It sounds like it’s the Interest on credit that’s ending. That’s a shame but it has no bearing on whether customers choose to leave plenty of credit in their account. Lots of people have complained that OVO asked for too much credit to build up, that requirement is now apparently being relaxed.

It is ending 

This change is due to an OFGEM requirement to all energy suppliers to have them target customers having little credit - https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/direct-debit-market-compliance-review-progress-update

OVO have a responsibility now to keep changing the Direct Debit to prevent a build up of credit.

OVO to stop paying interest on credit balances. Can I still keep a balance more than the equivalent of one months direct debit? I need to take this action as presently I cannot accurately foresee my monthly bills as I no longer have gas central heating but individual electric radiators, some oil free, some oil filled. When my bank balance is healthy I top up my OVO balance so it is more than the previous bill. I don’t have, or want, a smart meter. 

Yes

The whole point of paying monthly is to build up credit in the summer months to pay for the higher bills in winter,  If you only keep 1 months credit during the summer, then you are going to get a big rise in the Direct Debit when winter comes, you might as well be paying on receipt of the bill if it was not more expensive to do so.

However, I think OVO are using this as an excuse to remove the interest payments, which they could have continued with on lower balances for those who wanted that.

Changes due to government regulation and ‘do-gooders’ like martin lewis usually end up costing the majority of us more money to the possible benefit of a few.

That is very unfair on Martin Lewis, he was trying to stop the practice of some energy companies forcing customers to build up large levels of credit that much more than were needed to cover the average cost of the year (Which I wholeheartedly agree with him on!) . The problem is the way that goal was then translated into legislation which is now having this opposite effect with forcing energy companies to minimise the amount they hold in credit.  

I too got the email and wanted to change my payments to reduce the credit but it wont allow me to reduce the amount so my credit will not reduce any time soon.

Jeffus wrote:

juliamc wrote:

The title of this thread is misleading. It sounds like it’s the Interest on credit that’s ending. That’s a shame but it has no bearing on whether customers choose to leave plenty of credit in their account. Lots of people have complained that OVO asked for too much credit to build up, that requirement is now apparently being relaxed.

It is ending 

 

Sorry Jeffus, I phrased that badly. I meant the title suggests that Credit is ending..!! Whereas all that’s ending is the interest on credit.

Actually I’m surprised it’s gone on for so long as Blastoise said some time ago that Ofgen only allowed it as a special case (or words to that effect - they will put me right I’m sure!!).

In addition, the “don’t talk to customer service” thing is no longer being enforced even for people who were still getting the reward after it was shut down. OVO basically said “you’re welcome to keep the reward until contract renewal BUT we won’t penalise you for contacting us anymore”.

However, iirc no-one’s getting it now.

This:

Actually I’m surprised it’s gone on for so long as Blastoise said some time ago that Ofgen only allowed it as a special case (or words to that effect - they will put me right I’m sure!!).

Is the correct answer. OVO had to get very, very special permission from Ofgem to be able to offer OVO Interest Reward in the first place, for which one of the strictest conditions was that it had to be open to recall at anytime at Ofgem’s discretion. The ability to offer it has never formed part of the Standard License Conditions, so if memory serves OVO got some kind of derogation to allow it. But we’re going back a loooooooooong time and I don’t really fancy digging that far back into the Ofgem Master Publications Library at this hour. But if you’re up for it, please feel free.

It must be stated that Ofgem actually asked OVO to make changes to OVO IR a couple of years ago, which was one of the reasons it stopped being offered to new customers and is not available to anyone who came over from SSE. I predicted at the time that OVO IR would inevitably come to an end for everyone at some point in the future. The only bit I got wrong was exactly when it would happen.

This is not a decision OVO just made overnight - Ofgem probably requested OVO to do it.

Also, any savings made by NOT giving out OVO IR can always be re-invested elsewhere in the business.

Thank you

I’m sorry to see the IR go. At least this is one fewer headache for those responsible for VAT at OVO. Those of us who have been lucky enough to earn the reward have always achieved more than the advertised percentage, because (negative) VAT has - rightly or wrongly - been applied. The maximum was thus 5.25%, and my reward for 2023 was more than 2½ times what I paid in VAT.

I shall be leaving ovo as a result of this decision:( I enjoyed the 5% interest. Its nothing to do with the government how much credit I'm in and the way ovo reward us. Anyway once my contract ends I will be off to octopus.  Only reason I wasn't there before was cause of the interest I got with ovo.

Why just Octopus?

Are you going to look around for others deals that might be cheaper?

Did you try asking for a refund of some of your credit as an alternative?