Unexplained change to direct debits?

​@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