Why do I need to have a direct debit to sign up to Power Move?

I think this conversation misses the main point @Royp made. He agreed to pay more when he deliberately chosen not to use DD. I assume the cost difference is explained that the company needs more resources to process that kind payment. There is no question with that. The question is why he has to pay twice for his choice? The point of the Power Move is how consumers use the energy, so, why he cannot participate in that? 

Hey @costeek, 

Power Move has been combined into OVO Beyond for this challenge and the terms for the challenge are aligned with the eligibility criteria for OVO Beyond. I’ll link the criteria below and the specific section that covers what’s needed to participate. Under the third point it does say that a Direct Debit is required.

OVO Beyond app user terms

3. Eligibility Criteria

3.1 To be eligible for OVO Beyond you must:

1. be an OVO customer; 
2. be the primary account holder and bill payer of a registered account with OVO (please note that customers of other OVO group brands such as Boost will not be eligible for OVO Beyond);
3. pay your bills by Direct Debit;
4. have a credit meter, Pay As You Go customers are not currently eligible for OVO Beyond;
5. have a working smart meter;
6. have either both your gas and electricity or just your electricity supplied by OVO (customers of other OVO Group brands such as Boost will not be eligible); 
7. opt in to half-hourly meter readings. If your meter does not currently submit readings every half hour, we will change this to collect readings on a half-hourly basis. You can always change this later, though if you do, you won’t be eligible for OVO Beyond; 
8. not be in debt to us, be subject to a debt repayment plan with us or otherwise have a prepayment meter with outstanding debt; and
9. not be in the process of switching your energy supply away from OVO to another provider 

3.2 You won’t be eligible for OVO Beyond if you do not meet all of the eligibility criteria as set out in section 3.1 above.

I hope this helps! 

My question was why the point 3? What was the reason to include point 3?

Point 3 is something I’d say is probably a business decision. You can pay however you want but you have to accept that using certain payment methods means you can’t have certain products.

Same goes for Smart Meters - refusing them means you lock yourself out of the best deals on the market.

That’s how it’s always been across the entire market.

As I said earlier:
Originally Power Move was simply a carrot to move power consumption away from peak times - very laudable.
Now it takes on a secondary (or primary) role to “persuade” customer to move to Direct Debit. This leaves a bitter taste - give us Pay On Demand customers a sweetener, then take it away again...   

The reason behind Power Move and other schemes of that sort, is to persuade people to use less electricity during the ‘dirtiest’ generation periods. We could just do that anyway and not get paid, just get a warm feeling that we’ve helped a tiny bit.

I’m sorry for the long read here (double apology to those who have already suffered from my long replies).

I’ve had a bit of research into why people do or don’t like direct debits and what I have found is there are a lot of grey areas where the system can catch you out and you end up with a DD payment when you were not expecting it and the consequences of that. Again, the link is from Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert forum where the subject is discussed in quite considerable depth and I learnt quite a lot from that. T&Cs change all the time (I get about one email a month on this subject) and not everyone reads and fully understands them. One which I was sort of aware of, but hadn’t read about in the T&C changes notice, is that a DD can be taken on a range of dates (to avoid ‘difficult’ transaction dates) before or after the date that you specify with your supplier.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/874715/why-dont-people-use-direct-debit

I suspect that OVO, in restricting certain products and Add-ons to those who choose to pay by DD, was coming into line with other energy suppliers rather than being the first one to do this. @Blastoise186  pointed out that certain tariffs are not available if you don’t pay by DD and this is in common with other energy suppliers. Martin Lewis implies this in the previous link I gave when he said that those who choose not to pay by DD can expect to pay about 6% more for their energy than those who do. In my case, as a heavy user with an EV and a yearly bill of around £1,500, that would amount to about £90 a year. I can understand that some people don’t like the fundamental concept of a company being able to withdraw funds from their account without the specific and individual permission to do so. On the other hand there are advantages of not using DD, as was stated by someone on the forum. By forcing yourself to deal with each and every transaction you have to be closely involved with your accounts all the time so you are acutely aware of your financial situation at all times. If you hold a minimal amount of funds in your current account at any one time then that is probably a prerequisite to avoid becoming overdrawn.

Anyway, us volunteers have a meeting coming up soon and I’ve tabled a question about where OVO is, relative to other energy suppliers, regarding the restriction of products and Add-Ons (like Power Move and others) if you don’t pay by DD. Because of Martin’s comment earlier I’m not expecting OVO to be out of line with the others. If it’s widespread and you still consider this to be unfair then you can always write to Ofgem to say this is an unfair practice and get them to make a comment on that.

However, there is a similar situation amongst High Street retailers at the moment where you can’t get discounts on selected products unless you have a discount/points card linked to an online account and sometimes an App. You could call this a form of discrimination as it affects people who don’t have an online presence or have a smart phone to run the app. In the link below MSE talk about it but don’t give an answer which is unusual so I think it implies that there is no way to formally complain about this but it does show there are alternative places to shop that don’t require an online presence to get discounts.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/elderly-and-vulnerable-are-being--left-out--on-supermarket-deals/

I’ll come back here regarding what I find out in the meeting, assuming that they will want to talk about it then as the meeting is for another reason.

Peter

I’ve never known a DD be taken earlier than expected, and I don’t think it can happen, for fairly obvious reasons. After the due date, yes, because DDs can only be taken on a banking day. My own is due today Sunday, but it won’t actually be taken until tomorrow Monday.

@Firedog I’ve never known them take them early but apparently they can. But they have to give you sufficient notice in advance. Nothing appears to be specified as to how much they can vary the date or the notice they have to give you. The last paragraph doesn’t exclude bringing the date forward.

The DD Guarantee prohibits early collection, but permits late collection.