I find it hilarious that OVO advises me to increase my direct debit from £85 to £160+. A month on a two up two down townhouse when I switched because they were cheaper than my previous supplier. 
. Don’t they realise I will simply switch back 
. Lol
Best answer by Transparent
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+2
Hi
You may already have tried this
At any time if you are are on the variable rate tariff you can call collections and ask for up to 100% of any credit to be returned. Obviously this will impact DD payments but it might help you.
0800 0699 831
Collections usually have more leeway in freezing DD at at a lower level as well.
There was no way they would refund 100% of my credit balance. I was told they had to retain at least one month's payment. I asked them to show me where it said that was a requirement for monthly direct debit customers. I still haven't had a reply.
If you are on a fixed rate they keep one month.
Are you on a fixed or variable?
+2
Interesting, thanks
That’s that I’ve used £1782 in the last twelve months, and that the estimate currently is for £200 a month.
Add in the £150.12 debit (£12.51 a month) and the most should be £213.
Exactly as I’ve worked out and explained to OVO, but they just weren’t listening. Their calculators that work out DD on a daily basis and sets them are clearly broken.
Check this page on the website not the app
https://account.ovoenergy.com/plan
You should see Future Annual Consumption. This is what is used to calculate your DDs.
It automatically updates. Check it looks reasonable.
I have given up in despair.
This is where I’m getting to, and the lack of willingness to understand and them sharing fake calculations with me, despite me proving with their own figures has been very frustrating!
This month my usage has dropped considerably. The last week of billing I was still faced with daily proposed increases to my direct debit despite the cost of my usage being less than the direct debit amount. Since the end of the billing period, there have been daily reductions in their recommendations! As you rightly say it makes no sense whatsoever.
Yup, exactly what I’ve seen!
However, if usage is still reduced I will make the change as I no longer want to contribute to them holding customer funds. All I ever wanted was to be allowed to pay what I considered a fair monthly amount which I could top up in high usage months with an additional payment. If I find a supplier that allows this I will be off at the earliest opportunity.
Exactly where I’m at. I’d got well over £400 in credit at one point, and then after seeing it jump around before I removed what they’d let me. I have used a little more in the past few months in cold snaps than in the past (after getting diagnosed with Raynaud’s) - but we’re still using a lot less than we used to in the past. I accept that prices have risen.
But based on their own figures and estimated use - even their renewal calculations as Jeffus put me on to… They’re trying to way overcharge.
I’m probably just going to pay the £150.12 debit, then pay on a monthly bases. I’ll put a reasonable amount more into my savings account to build up for winter, but it’s better sitting in my account than theirs if they’re going to behave like this.
Also concerned that it’s a sign OVO are struggling and trying to improve their own cashflow situation, given the number of other suppliers that went under in the last little while.
https://account.ovoenergy.com/plan
You should see Future Annual Consumption. This is what is used to calculate your DDs.
It automatically updates. Check it looks reasonable.
Yup, this is what I used to look at my calculations first - but then I based it on actual usage for the next twelve months. Very similar figures, but mine were slightly higher so I used them:
That’s clearly what’s being used for the renewal pages:
But not the setting pages in the portal!
+2
Yup, this is what I used to look at my calculations first - but then I based it on actual usage for the next twelve months. Very similar figures, but mine were slightly higher so I used them:
If you click on Tariff Information Label it will have those Future Annual Consumption Figures for the quote. You may have already spotted that.
Further info. When I go into My Account it shows this:
When I click to adjust, it acknowledges I’m paying too much and recommends £214:
When I try to change it, it puts me to this page, saying minimum is £295:
And it won’t let me put anything less than £295… In fact, it even seems to think that setting it to up to £2,000 a month is okay!!!
Very, very broken! At a massive and unfair cost to me (and maybe other customers, too?)...
Hi
You may already have tried this
At any time if you are are on the variable rate tariff you can call collections and ask for up to 100% of any credit to be returned. Obviously this will impact DD payments but it might help you.
0800 0699 831
Collections usually have more leeway in freezing DD at at a lower level as well.
There was no way they would refund 100% of my credit balance. I was told they had to retain at least one month's payment. I asked them to show me where it said that was a requirement for monthly direct debit customers. I still haven't had a reply.
If you are on a fixed rate they keep one month.
Are you on a fixed or variable?
I'm variable.
If you click on Tariff Information Label it will have those Future Annual Consumption Figures for the quote. You may have already spotted that.
Yup - and it comes in at a little less than my calculations (about £30 for the year):
So everything’s lining up except what they’re setting my DD to. My calculations, their numbers. But they just wouldn’t listen, which is a shame.
I shouldn’t have needed to raise a formal complaint (and insist on that happening) - in the meantime, they’ll still be overcharging me.
+2
Further info. When I go into My Account it shows this:
When I click to adjust, it acknowledges I’m paying too much and recommends £214:
When I try to change it, it puts me to this page, saying minimum is £295:
And it won’t let me put anything less than £295… In fact, it even seems to think that setting it to up to £2,000 a month is okay!!!
Very, very broken! At a massive and unfair cost to me (and maybe other customers, too?).
It certainly looks wrong to me. I don't have any other suggestions. I do wonder if your current negative balance is impacting the calculator and the system is trying to clear that quickly, then the DD will drop. I don't know enough about the calculator to be sure unfortunately.
There may be an increase in rates coming on 1st April depending on what the government do, but as far as i know OVO have yet to alter DDs and we will be told via email. Even then the current price cap increase penciled in wouldn't increase your DD that much, and there may be no increase at all.You can include a link to this thread in your complaint given it has some useful screenshots if you think it would help.
https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-account-140/dd-calculations-completely-wrong-14371
Good luck
+2
Hi
You may already have tried this
At any time if you are are on the variable rate tariff you can call collections and ask for up to 100% of any credit to be returned. Obviously this will impact DD payments but it might help you.
0800 0699 831
Collections usually have more leeway in freezing DD at at a lower level as well.
There was no way they would refund 100% of my credit balance. I was told they had to retain at least one month's payment. I asked them to show me where it said that was a requirement for monthly direct debit customers. I still haven't had a reply.
If you are on a fixed rate they keep one month.
Are you on a fixed or variable?
I'm variable.
Certainly that is not in line with what the OVO moderators have said in the past including
But this is simply a customer forum with no access to your accounts and obviously i am just an OVO customer. You should be able to do it via Collections but not the normal Support number.
All i can suggest is you take it up with Collections again.
Good luck
It certainly looks wrong to me. I don't have any other suggestions. I do wonder if your current negative balance is impacting the calculator and the system is trying to clear that quickly, then the DD will drop. I don't know enough about the calculator to be sure unfortunately.
There may be an increase in rates coming on 1st April depending on what the government do, but as far as i know OVO have yet to alter DDs and we will be told via email.
Thanks,
I did wonder about the negative balance - but my understanding is that this is allowed for in winter, and the monthly amount is supposed to even out. Indeed, OVOs own charts and other calculations show this to be true as per my screenshots.
Likewise, I understand that there’s likely to be a rise in April, but my understanding is that they’re not supposed to try to second guess that at this stage, certainly not before notification as nobody knows for sure what will happen there?
+5
Unless challenged
After the first few months where I challenged my dd level, it has settled down to a reasonable level
UPDATE:
I don’t know if someone from OVO has seen this post, or they’ve looked at the complaint, or something else has happened… But I just tried to logon and I couldn’t - apparently I was giving the wrong password.
I know I wasn’t, because I used. password manager.
However, I went through the reset password process and then logged in… And then it estimated that I should have a DD of £214 - and it actually let me set it!
Thank-you to whoever at OVO Towers took this on (not sure if they’ll even see this), found and resolved the problem. Hopefully it was some quirk or bug affecting me, and perhaps overs, and that it’s now been resolved!
If someone perchance from OVO does look over this, please also look at how things get escalated - the calculations I made in this thread were also given via chat, and when something doesn’t add up and it can be proven and is broken down with working out shown, please allow your agents a path to get it raised to the right team immediately.
I understand things sometimes go wrong - but it’s what happens when they do that matters more than the going wrong itself!
Unless challenged
After the first few months where I challenged my dd level, it has settled down to a reasonable level
That’s really interesting. Because they’re supposed to aim for £0 according to their own articles. Originally it was at the end of the contract - now that we’re pretty much all on a variable rate, it changed to “in 12 months time”
Even by their own graphs and renewals quotes, it shows that they’re aiming for the right amount to be paid
I could understand what you’re saying if they had behaved that way earlier - instead of going through winter aiming for the £0 in twelve months time, and everything being good - and then as we’re about to exit winter and get better weather, putting it up to an amount that would be almost a grand in credit!
In fact, the government rebate should probably just have been applied to bills - that would have meant that I was in credit anyway. I know that that’s not all necessarily just `OVO’s fault though. It’s been a rubbish way of doing it.
Then there’s also the small fact that they’ll let me put the monthly DD up to £2000 a month… I mean, that’s just ridiculous!
But, the main thing is, that this is sorted for me! :)
+2
Unless challenged
After the first few months where I challenged my dd level, it has settled down to a reasonable level
That’s really interesting. Because they’re supposed to aim for £0 according to their own articles. Originally it was at the end of the contract - now that we’re pretty much all on a variable rate, it changed to “in 12 months time”
Even by their own graphs and renewals quotes, it shows that they’re aiming for the right amount to be paid
I could understand what you’re saying if they had behaved that way earlier - instead of going through winter aiming for the £0 in twelve months time, and everything being good - and then as we’re about to exit winter and get better weather, putting it up to an amount that would be almost a grand in credit!
In fact, the government rebate should probably just have been applied to bills - that would have meant that I was in credit anyway. I know that that’s not all necessarily just `OVO’s fault though. It’s been a rubbish way of doing it.
Then there’s also the small fact that they’ll let me put the monthly DD up to £2000 a month… I mean, that’s just ridiculous!
But, the main thing is, that this is sorted for me! :)
Do keep an eye on it and let us know if you spot anything else strange in case it helps others.
Glad it is all sorted. Certainly a strange one.
It’s a valid point that they don’t figure, but they totalled £7 a month, or £78 for the entire year so wouldn’t justify over £900 extra taken for the year.
+2
I can't remember, did you check both the website and app at the same time when you saw the issue?
I think your screen shots were from the app from memory.
I can't remember, did you check both the website and app at the same time when you saw the issue?
I think your screen shots were from the app from memory.
I did check both - same issue, and the screenshots are from the website.
Following a recent email from ovo energy to advise me of a further increase to my DD I have gone through the monthly bills from July last year to date.. the account was in credit and is now £455 in debit!!
I appreciate the £226 a month I pay isn’t covering the monthly usage which is approx £330 a month. This has risen to this amount since January and February. How am I £455 in debit? The bills are not adding up? The amount in debit increases drastically even though the amount is no where near?
tried talking to customer services but the language barrier and sheer rudeness of the advisor frustrates me!!
Hey
Sorry for the issues you’re having,
If you’ve recently submitted a meter reading, your account balance would update accordingly within 24-48 hours. I’d advise checking the meter readings page of your Online Account, this will give you more clues as to why your account balance has changed suddenly. Please come back to the Forum if you have any further questions, you can also upload screenshots to this thread but please don’t include any personal information. The following topics might be helpful to you:
Hope this helps.
Hi, yes I’m happy to upload pics.. as shown below the amounts of the account in debit do not correspond with the monthly bill charge minus the DD amount paid.. can you explain why?
Hi, yes I’m happy to upload pics.. as shown above the amounts of the account in debit do not correspond with the monthly bill charge minus the DD amount paid.. can you explain why?
+2
Hi
Each month your charges have been reduced by the £66 or £67 government scheme, but because you pay by direct debit OVO have been refunding that money back into your bank account. You can see this on the Balance section of the app or Online account, and you should see the payments going into your own bank, just after your dd comes out. You should have £400 in total, which you can pay back in to balance the OVO account (or increase the dd).
@iwb sorry bout what ure going thru they're really frustrate you. I went through exactly the same thing and till now noone can justify why my DD has to increase. No basis for it at all and they'll still do it. I just feel they use all these credit to run the company without thinking of the effect on customers.
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