​@Emmanuelle_OVO 

I’m having a smart meter that is set up to send half hourly readings. From the technical view, it has been completely the same, nothing has been changed. I mean, if there is a network issue, it should be there right from the beginning. And if it didn’t affect my DD before, it shouldn’t now. As I understood, sometimes my meter has troubles with sending data, but by the end of the day you have it all. In other words, no any change at all from my side. 

Hey ​@costeek 

If your meter isn’t sending in meter readings this would mean your bills & estimated annual consumption would be incorrect. If your EAC is incorrect this would affect your direct debit calculation.

The following topics may be helpful to you:

​@Emmanuelle_OVO No, it’s not there case. OVO has all my readings. With estimate readings I wouldn’t be able participate in the Power Move, but I do (and do it well). There is network issues - sometimes, it doesn’t affect the accuracy of my readings. 

Am I going to have that annoying warning all the time? 

Can we please remove some of the confusion here?

• Notification to me means something like a letter or an email to tell me, for example, ‘Put your DD up or we’ll do it for you.’
• A warning on the website to the effect that the current DD would leave you in debt in a year and a half’s time is - for the time being - just that. The Continue button will show you a suggested DD to avoid that debt. At this stage, it’s just a recommendation. It may trigger a notification at some stage, but until it does, nothing will change unless you do it yourself.

So, have you had a notification, or have you just seen a warning? 

Whatever happened to 2025? My DD will be OK by April 2026!!!!!!

Sadly, it’s not an error. This is the new system, guaranteed to keep your account healthy for this winter and the next. If you’re currently in debt, it means you have longer to pay it off. If you’re in credit, they’ll hang on to your money for an extra year.

I’ve not been able to get any explanation or justification for the change.

Personally I believe that this is a one-off ‘17 months to zero balance alignment’

The aim is to get everybody, (including fixed tariff customers), in line for a end of March zero balance by March 2026  - at which point it will revert to being 12 months only again, the end of March each year.

ie. Just a one-off to give 17 months to get all accounts in line.

If you recall, in November last year they set it to end of March 2024 for variable tarrif customers, which only gave 5 months for some to then attain zero balance, which of course led to complaints.

Now they have looked at Fixed Term tariffs as well.
Many current Fixed Term contracts run to beyond March 2025, so they decided not to do it that same way for fixed terms. It might look like they were shortening those Fixed terms and breaching contracts.
They wouldn’t actually be shortening them, they would still be a fixed price for the full 12 months of the Fixed Contract; (but it’s the look of things that can upset people).

So for fixed term they have set an end of March zero balance alignment date that was further than 12 months away.
That’s a change to the required DD calculation. but it isn’t a change to the fixed contract.

And for simplicity (??) they also did the same for variable tariffs; so that now all acounts of either type are set to try and achieve zero balance at the end of March 2026.

Of course they don’t seem to have thought it through and now they are getting complaints about ‘paying for 2 winters’.

TBH it would have been better if they had delayed changing things for fixed terms until March 2025.
It might have made it easier to explain and understand at least.

HOWEVER -

I also believe that these changes are going to seriously backfire on OVO

Not for a number of months yet, not until after summer 2025.
But I can forsee problems.

These year-end alignment changes are going to make it more difficult to explain (justify) how OVO’s Direct Debit charging now works, and in particuar how DD’s on OVO’s fixed tariff contracts now work.

I strongly believe that these changes are going to put customers off choosing OVO.
Try explaining it to someone looking to switch and comparing suppliers.

Other suppliers calculate DD’s for the next 12 months (or to the end of a fixed term) rather that to a set date each year.

But quotations for how much a DD will be with OVO are now going to depend on what time of year it is rather than the contract itself.

For exactly the same tariff at OVO a quotation made in April will have a lower DD than one made in say November.
Simply because the April one will have a spread of summer and winter use, whereas the November one will only include winter use.

And if you only tell potential new customers what the yearly cost is likely to be, and don’t tell them that the DD calculation at OVO works differently to other suppliers, and what their actual DDs will be, then expect lots of complaints to the Ombudsman when they find their DD’s after signing up are higher than they expected.

EDIT - Sorry that got longer than I was intending.

If you have a large credit balance, and you are aggrieved at subsidising OVO then the simplest solution is to request a refund. You must leave a credit balance equivalent to at least three months worth of Direct Debit payments. Bank the credit and then reset your Direct debit to cover the 17 month period to March 2026.

I had a credit balance around £550, and was paying £77 per month to reduce the credit over the next six months. OVO were suggesting £94 per month and I estimate my usage, averaged over 12 months should be around £115 per month. I would need to start paying this from April 2025.

And after taking a £300 refund.

The £300 refund would pay the difference between £77 and £115 per month for over seven months (or 15 months £94 to £115).

When OVO’s predecessors, SSE et al. originally  ‘sold’ us the concept of direct debit payments the justification and promise given was that averaged over a year your balance would be broadly NEUTRAL.

i.e. At the end of every winter your balance should be negative. Over the summer and autumn you would build up a positive balance which, over the winter, would again swing negative.

The curse of time, the youngsters(Ovo) never knew the rule and those who were witnesses are getting hard to find.

Well… If we’re being honest here… Many of the “Old Guard” suppliers are slowly fading away if you think about it - even British Gas will fade away eventually and get reformatted into something else.

As for Scottish Power? Erm.. Let’s not talk about them right now, they’ve caused me enough problems recently (helping to fix issues their customers face is bad enough). Or more specifically, some of their outsourced sales reps have caused me enough trouble this month (seriously, it was so bad that I will NEVER AGAIN touch Scottish Power with a 5,000 foot barge pole) that I’d laugh if that supplier faded away. :P

That’s not what the terms and conditions say:
  

Ofgem is leaning on suppliers to (a) prevent customers going into debt and (b) prevent customers from building up large credit balances. They also say that

I’m not convinced that OVO have got this right.

Hello ​@Firedog,

The rules have changed over the years. To be honest they only paid it lip service, and it quickly degenerated to large surplus payments.

In defence of Ovo they did attempt to introduce interest payments which would probably have created a fairer system, but I understand this was blocked by Ofgem.

With regard to the Ofgem position on this, how do they intend to create and maintain a ‘close to zero balance’ on something that varies wildly between seasons without positive/negative balance, varying the payment, or creating unfair surplus. 

That depends on what you mean by fair, and that’s probably the biggest bone of contention. The situation is substantially different for dual-fuel customers, whose gas usage may swing wildly from summer to winter. Electricity-only customers probably see less violent swings. 

One factor often overlooked is the date the DD is taken. If the DD represents an average month’s usage, the balance at the end of a month as shown on the DD calculator’s chart will vary from low if the DD is taken early in the month to high if it’s taken at the end, so an alarming balance chart with negative figures can be made less so simply by changing the DD date. A better solution might be an injection of cash now amounting to the biggest negative balance the chart shows, typically at the end of March.   

Some suppliers allow payment by variable DD, each month’s payment amounting to the bill, with a couple of weeks allowed for payment much like many mobile phone plans. This is a popular arrangement, but it does carry a greater risk for the supplier. I wonder how many of these payments fail in January, when the year’s biggest bill coincides with the year’s lowest bank account balance.

It’s a tricky puzzle to solve, so it’s not surprising that suppliers like OVO move the goalposts every so often with a view to patching one deficiency, only to find that the system falls down somewhere else.  

That was good. Even it was very little money, it kept me encouraged to keep a bigger balance. I as a customer need some kind of encouragement to keep my balance in credit. Otherwise I will be keeping it just enough to cover my next bill.

Clearly this is widespread and disadvantages customers whilst all the benefits are OVO’s 

I signed up to a 1 year fixed tariff in August and up until the end of October my estimated used was up to August 25. At the beginning of November my recommended DD went up and I noticed like others that the estimated energy period had switched to March 26. 

last week I got an email saying my DD was being revised and within minutes got an email saying that the DD’s had changed. 

I am now looking at switching to Octopus energy as I believe that OVO have breached the terms and conditions of the contract that I signed up to in that my account will not be in debt at the end of the contract period ie August 2025 not March 2026. I have enclosed the detail below. 
 

i would appreciate someone from OVO confirming that I will not be charged the £50 per fuel for moving my account early due to OVO breeching the contract. 
 

This is NOT a breach of contract on OVO’s part. As such, you can’t have the Exit Fee waived under that rule - if you leave, you will be subject to any Early Exit Fee that may apply to your tariff.

So OVO can increase the DD without any notice and base the increase on an estimate of time outside my contract with them, both issues set out in their terms and conditions that I pasted earlier. 
if that’s not a breach in terms and therefore a breach in contract, I’m not sure what is. 
So many people are being caught out by extending the period of the estimated usage. For me and thousands like me the estimate includes two winters in an 18 month period. It seems to me it’s just a way of boosting profits by using customers money to gain interest. 
if I agreed to the increase suggested I would be in credit by around £300 at my contract end date in August, where the terms clearly state that the estimate is to ensure I have a nil balance at my contract end date. 
Lots being said about this practice in the press. 

Where? Do you have links to press reports about this change?

I agree that this is in breach of the T&Cs on several counts, but I can’t see any way forward to challenge it. I suspect that any official complaint would simply be resolved by allowing for a more reasonable DD, so there wouldn’t be any cause to escalate the complaint to the ombudsman. I was rather hoping that ​@MCH59‘s hotline to Ofgem might spur someone into action, but sadly he’s jumped ship.  
 

Hi, thanks for your replies + posts re. OVO's strategy to prematurely fill their coffers prior to anno 2026 - by increasing DDs.

Following my "enforced" variable tariff DD-hike of £11 p/m in early Nov '24, as I would "allegedly" be in debt by £165 in 1.5 years …

... I called the OVO team and explained:

"As long as my dual fuel credit remains at approx. £200+ (as it has done, and higher, for years) and does not dip lower than £100 this winter, energy providers should not increase DDs without the customer's agreement! I am perfectly able to 'up' my monthly DD on the app should I feel my safety buffer credit has decreased by too much!"

The friendly OVO customer service lady obliged and reset my DD to the current amount. Thanks!

I’m glad to hear this was resolved ​@Sanka14 

This happened to me at the beginning of the week, my direct debit was due to increase from £154 to £167 per month despite having a £255 credit balance. Not a problem I thought, I’d just deduct my credit balance to offset the rise. Not possible, one has to “apply” for a refund, with Ovo deciding if they’ll grant your request. How about switching to a cheaper tariff then? No. So I went on USWITCH and switched to a 1 year fixed rate, with OVO, for £120 per month based on my actual usage.

It didn’t end there though. OVO then decided to charge me an exit fee of £95 twice or £190 thereby reducing the credit balance to £60. Day light robbery if you ask me, but I’m a bit nervous now of this credit balance nonsense. It seems like a scam to me.

Look Before You Leap is a strong piece of advice there. You exited a Fixed Rate Tariff early, so I’m afraid you’re liable for any Early Exit Fees that apply to it.

Also, you must remember the idea of being on a Direct Debit of this type is you build up credit during the summer and burn it during the winter with the ultimate goal being to come out at around zero at the end of the yearly cycle. Taking a refund in this situation would have probably caused your monthly payments to increase further rather than stay as-is. Winter isn’t usually an ideal time to be taking refunds either tbh...

Gotta read the small print!

Additionally, the OVO Forum strongly recommends caution over switching between tariffs with the same Supplier via third-party tools while already on-supply with that Supplier - you risk creating a second account which can make things more messy than they need to be. You’re usually best talking to customer service to do that so that you keep the same account.

I accept the exit fees, but the t&c’s quote a £90 exit fee for the 2 year fixed rate that I was on, they’ve charged me £190. My actual usage, in the current months, is less than my direct debit hence the revised quote of £120 via a 3rd party. I guess it comes down to trust and I don’t trust OVO or any of these Utility companies for that matter.

It’s £95 per fuel. If you’re Dual-Fuel and exit on both (which it sounds like you did), £190 is correct.

I’ve checked the T&C for all of OVO’s plans just now - it’s pretty well written that this is the case.

Hey ​@Pumchdrunk 

I’m sorry for the issues you’ve had.

Blastoise is right here:
 

This topic gives a more in depth look at how OVO calculates direct debits:
 

You should be able to request a refund of credit if you’re on a fixed rate plan provided you keep one months direct debit amount as credit. These topics explain if further detail:

Before we allow a refund of any credit you’ve got in your OVO account, we first need to make sure that your account balance is accurate.

If you don’t have a smart meter, make sure you’ve submitted a meter reading in the last 28 days. If you’ve done this and are at least three month’s direct debit amount in credit, you can then ask for a refund via the ‘Payments’ page of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS):

You can apply for a refund of up to £500 online and the balance will return to your bank account in no more than 10 working days (in most cases it will be within 4 working days). Find out more about requesting a refund online here.

If you’d like more credit refunded you can contact our Support Team who can initiate refunds up to £2,000, however if the refund is over £599, we will need to check the account has been billed to smart or actual meter reads and request photos of the meter. 

If you’re on a fixed rate tariff, you’ll still be required to keep one month's worth of direct debit as credit in your account. If you’re on the Variable tariff you aren’t required to leave any credit on your account, although it is advisable.