What is the precise timing of a Direct Debit review?

I too have been wondering about a similar situation, which does/could also impact on the question that ​@Firedog asks.

If you take advantage of the ‘Reduce by 10% for 3-months” button then if there is a review during that 3-months then will the DD get increased again, or will it stay at the reduced amount?
(To put it technically - if/when you take the 10% reduction then does a 3-month ‘billing hold’ get applied in the DD calculator API?).

eg. If I took a 10% reduction today* then would the DD still get put back up at the start of October when the Ofgem cap changes and DD’s get reviewed?

*I can’t actually do that at the moment to try it, because I did the equivalent reduction a different way and currently don’t have a ‘recommended payment amount’ showing.
I started a new fix last month and set up a new DD with an amount to get me to zero balance on 31st March.
I did that because I will also get the WHD again this year which, if I keep paying the DD I have set now,  will put me a month and a half in credit anyway.

Good afternoon! 

I’m on the hunt for the answer to this! I’ll do my best to find out what I can for you. Stay tuned!

Hey ​@Firedog & ​@Nukecad,

I’ve managed to get hold of someone internally who can answer the questions. 

To answer Firedogs question - When does the clock start ticking for the three-month DD review?- It is 3 months from his last review. Not from when he updated his payment amount.
To answer Nukead's question - If I took a 10% reduction today* then would the DD still get put back up at the start of October when the Ofgem cap changes and DD’s get reviewed? No, we would hold any review 3 months from the time that the 10% reduction was added. Therefore the earliest a review 'could' take place is 3 months from today.

I hope this helps! 

Is it just me? Those two answers contradict each other.

The only real difference between Firedog’s question and mine is that I brough in the case of an Ofgen cap review.

In each scenario each of us of us takes a 10% DD reduction on a certain date.
However the team are saying above that when the next review is due will be different in each case.

They are saying that although we both did the same thing:
Firedogs next review would still be due 3 months after his last review.
My next review would not be due until 3 months after the day I took the reduction.

Have the team misunderstood one or both of the questions?

​@Nukecad You asked whether taking a reduction on September 9th would result in an increase in your direct debit in October when the OFGEM cap changes are implemented. The teams responded that no, the direct debit is reviewed for the entire duration of the three-month period.

Unless i’m reading your question wrong? 

Thanks for investigating, ​@Chris_OVO 
 

OK. This can only mean that my DD is reviewed towards the end of January, April, July and October each year. All I’m told in the email I received on 31 July is that it was ‘recently’:
  

The 38% increase took place the same day, so no period of grace. Anyway, this means that the next review and automatic increase will take place two weeks earlier than I feared, sometime before 31 October, when my account will be almost at rock bottom in anticipation of the WHD boost within a few weeks. 

I’ll be watching closely …

​@Firedog You’re welcome! Had to knock on a couple of doors till I found the right friendly face to ask. Review periods can also result in no action being taken, either if the account in question is on track to meet the requirements in “how your Direct Debit is worked out above”, so there’s every chance that it could land on a pathway where the account needs no further action. 

As always, keep us updated closer to the time, and we can always come back to this thread and continue the conversation 😃

That’s what I asked, but a rewording of what you said that the team had responded.

However their response to Firedog is at odds with that statement, to him they say that it is not the “entire duration of the three-month period” after the DD reduction is made, but only for the remainder of his already ongoing 3-month period.

To quote from your own reply above:

To Firedog:
“It is 3 months from his last review. Not from when he updated his payment amount. “

To myself:
“No, we would hold any review 3 months from the time that the 10% reduction was added.”

The two replies are contradictory.

Thanks ​@Chris_OVO 

So as ​@Firedog  clearly said at the start of his OP that he had  used the 10% reduction then the reply above should stand, and the reply originally given to him was incorrect.

I do now see what has happened here:
The team only answered the last line of his question.
Presumably because they hadn’t been given the tl;dr details and only asked the short question, (ie. a form of chinese whispers).

To answer Firedogs question - When does the clock start ticking for the three-month DD review?- It is 3 months from his last review. Not from when he updated his payment amount.

Whilst that is correct for the question in bold, that is not what was actually asked in the tl;dr.