Will my tariff increase if I cancel my direct debit?

Yes.  Check the DD amount and challenge it if necessary.  Other suppliers allow payment by DD on receipt of bill but OVO strangely don’t seem to allow this.  Paying other than via DD will cost the average dual fuel customer an additional £215 per annum @ Oct22 prices, more if you’re a big user.  Its not something I’d recommend.

Paying by DD gives you set payment of a known amount.  Actual Bills are lower in the summer and much higher in the winter if you pay on receipt of the bill.  So imagine a harsh winter, Christmas bills to pay an a massive energy bill too.  While superficially attractive paying after the event isn’t financially attractive to most.

Hi everyone,

This is a common discussion point on the forum and elsewhere I’m sure. I want to offer some help wherever I can.

Direct Debits for customers on the variable plan, Simpler, factor in October’s price rises but not any other. We use your future annual consumption figure and these prices to work out a payment amount. You can check your future annual consumption and prices here: https://account.ovoenergy.com/plan - it’s your choice when on Simpler to pay on receipt of the bills if you prefer. But due to slightly higher prices and the lack of automation and spiky winter payments, I’d only recommend this if you have no faith in our prediction and you think you’re over paying. Even then, you’ll have credit which you can have refunded, or you may even get interest on this.

OVO has created some fantastic resources so customers know what support is available to them. 

Top 13 ways to save electricity at home and reduce your bills

Price rises: we're here to support you

Here’s the latest information on rising energy prices, and how we can help 

Energy Bills Support Scheme

This page has all the information that we and our call centre team have on the Energy Bills Support Scheme right now. 

Ways to get financial support

If you’re struggling financially or you’re worried about your energy bills, we’re here to support you. Find out about the different ways we can help here.

Hope this helps,

Tim

Just a mention re contacting OVO on the telephone I did manage to get through to customer service via telephone the wait was a reasonable 10 minutes they have resolved my problem re automatic dd increases and were very helpful. It seems there has been some reorganisation in the call centres to reduce waiting times. I may have been lucky but fingers x````` ed others may get through to resolve issues.

There has indeed @trilleen , say hello to the new Account Management experience!

I can’t say for sure whether you’re on it yet, but the plan is that everyone will be on it soon. The idea makes it so that you have a dedicated account management squad assigned to you. It’s a bit like having a personal account manager, except rather than one account manager, you get 10+ account managers all looking out for you.

The result is way faster waiting times, more personal service, faster resolutions, more consistency… And that’s just the start. There’s more surprises in store as well, but I’ll let you discover them as you find them. Oh, and as they get to know you better, they can improve the service and your experience even more. :)

I’m told the new experience is aimed to be fully rolled out by the end of the year for absolutely everyone. In the meantime, some members are on the new experience while others are on the old one. That won’t be the case for much longer.

I’ve been on the new experience for quite a while now, as my account was selected to be part of the trials right from the start. I can definitely vouch from personal experience that it really does turbocharge customer service experience for me!

Watch this space as more surprises are on the way.

I called Ovo today and was told that if I cancelled my DD, then as my fixed rate has come to an end, then there won’t be any increase in my tariff.

However, I read on the website (Help Centre) “You’ll also notice that your prices will go up a little (you can check your new rates in your account). This is because you’ll be paying On Demand which costs us more to manage than Direct Debits.”

Does anyone know if there is any change to a tariff on a standard variable tariff if you cancel your DD? Thanks

Hey @Columbas ,

There is I’m afraid. It’s roughly £200 a year more on average to be on Simpler Energy On-Demand than Simpler Energy Direct Debit. Cancelling the DD will result in higher charges even on Simpler Energy.

I had a call from their complaints Department this morning as I'm sick and tired of threats to increase my DD. They have reduced the monthly figure, so that's good. I asked again about whether my tariff would increase if I cancelled the DD. Was told that as on a variable rate, absolutely not. So, that's something I might do if they say they want to increase my DD again.

I’d double-check that if I were you. @Blastoise186  is right - I pay in full on demand when my bill is produced and I definitely pay more than if I was paying by direct debit. It doesn’t look a lot on paper but over a full year it builds up to quite a significant difference.

I've just called Ovo again and received the same response. If I pay my bill on time, there is no additional tariff. 

Might be useful if @Blastoise186 and @Annie_H call Ovo and check why you're paying more.

Actually, I pay by Direct Debit and currently have no incentive to change that. In actual fact… It’d be a terrible idea for me to switch to the Simpler Energy tariff right now because of this…