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Monthly direct debit reduced drastically - is that usual?

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I am not complaining as I know it will probably resolve over time. Just curious. 

I am a ‘new’ OVO customer having been switched less than 2 weeks ago. I have a healthy (by which I mean too high) balance which I was intending to address in a couple of months (the time after which OVO say they will review my monthly payment). We are all electric by the way. 

Today I received an email from OVO that said my monthly payment would reduce to £90 from the current. Currently we are running on minimal power - central heating is off, it has been very sunny, my solar panels have been working hard and we have switched off all unnecessary equipment. Even at that level a weekly payment of £90 wouldn’t be enough but this house will eat power when it starts to get cooler. 

As I said I am happy to let things flow as I have a good balance that will absorb the next bill or two but I wonder if this is a problem that has been encountered before.  

 

 

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Best answer by Emmanuelle_OVO 13 July 2023, 11:03

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Blastoise186
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Hey @paulgarb ,

I’m one of the forum volunteers here, welcome!

OVO is currently doing a massive Direct Debit Review across basically every account. It sounds like yours is one that has been identified as being eligible for a DD reduction. If you want to accept, simply do nothing, but you can manually override and bump it up if you want to. If you do that, it’ll override the system.

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BPLightlog
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Yea @paulgarb , you can monitor this over the next few weeks or so but all supply companies are looking at account balances currently to see if there’s anything needing to be adjusted to level their plan

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EllieElectro
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Hey @paulgarb ,

I’m one of the forum volunteers here, welcome!

OVO is currently doing a massive Direct Debit Review across basically every account. It sounds like yours is one that has been identified as being eligible for a DD reduction. If you want to accept, simply do nothing, but you can manually override and bump it up if you want to. If you do that, it’ll override the system.

Is it bad to override the system? I feel like you should do nothing in this situation. 

Blastoise186
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Hey @EllieElectro ,

Just a heads up that every reply on any thread generates email notifications to other users. Please bear in mind that this can flood forum volunteers so it’s best not to just post to absolutely every thread you can find.

Our inboxes are our to-do lists, please help us keep them that way!

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
BPLightlog
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Is it bad to override the system? I feel like you should do nothing in this situation. 

Not really .. it all works through on the account. 

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Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @paulgarb,

 

I can see our Community Members have already given some really helpful advice here,

 

Just wanted to add that the following topics may be helpful to you:

 

 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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Thanks to those who have responded so far. I am reassured that my ‘tactic’ of ‘wait & see’ seems to be the right one.  I am sure the links will be useful in due course. It still seems a bit daft to calculate my DD amount on just 2 weeks data but since I am ‘in transition’ to OVO I can wait & watch

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @paulgarb,

 

Your surplus credit would have been used to calculate your direct debit amount, any surplus usage will come out of this amount each month. Your direct debit would be based on your estimated annual consumption, you can find out more about this topic here:

 

 

How do we update an EAC?

 

Whenever a new reading is submitted to the energy industry, a new EAC is calculated for us to use.

 

If your EAC is incorrect, you should keep sending us regular readings. As the EAC is calculated based on the entire reading history of an electricity supply (MPAN), submitting regular readings over a period of time will gradually change the EAC until it matches the member's usage. The better alternative is to get a smart meter!

 

There are some exceptions where we may amend the EAC in other ways (e.g. when there has been a sudden and large increase/decrease in the EAC that doesn't match the most recent readings) but these wouldn't be applied without supporting readings.

 

We can't contact the industry to say we want the EAC amended, so all we can do is ensure the readings are correct on an account. If you’re not sure about how we’ve calculated your Direct Debit, the best thing to do is ensure we have accurate meter readings, and book a smart meter exchange. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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Thanks for this explanation - I am happy for the issue to resolve itself & I do already have a smart meter so, in theory anyway, it won’t require any extra actions from me other than keeping my eye on it. 

BPLightlog
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Thanks for this explanation - I am happy for the issue to resolve itself & I do already have a smart meter so, in theory anyway, it won’t require any extra actions from me other than keeping my eye on it. 

I think that’s what I’d do too. It is worth keeping an eye on your meter readings every now and then as the connection back to the data hub can be missing on occasions. If it’s out for too long, I pop a manual reading in to stop any estimates 

https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings

Independent volunteer - Sitting in a Faraday cage, waiting for a signal
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I monitor the smart meter quite closely as that is still relatively new to us. I use the supplier app as a primary check but also the Loop & Hugo apps (iOS) as backup. As I have said it will resolve itself or I will sort it ;-) 

BPLightlog
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Sounds good @paulgarb , just be aware that the third party apps use a different data set and so are not necessarily a good indicator that OVO have your reading 

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I know - the reason for using the 3 apps is to cross compare. If all three are in line then I know I’m reasonably OK 

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