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I'm a new customer - when do you take my first Direct Debit?

W
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Can any one tell me how long after you get your initial email as a new customer does your first direct debit get charged. The amount that will be direct debiting me is some £55 too much so I need to reduce it before it is taken from my account

The help line did not know the answer to this question. The only thing they could tell me is that they need 10 days to process any amendment to a direct debit which of course does not answer the question.
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Best answer by Tim_OVO 18 May 2017, 17:30

Can any one tell me how long after you get your initial email as a new customer does your first direct debit get charged. The amount that will be direct debiting me is some £55 too much so I need to reduce it before it is taken from my account



The help line did not know the answer to this question. The only thing they could tell me is that they need 10 days to process any amendment to a direct debit which of course does not answer the question.



Hi @wmeads001



There's some great info from @Mattj3135 about this Direct Debit payment. As for how to find out when the payment is due, this will be confirmed in the same letter/email (depending on preference) that confirmed what the payment amount would be. If you haven't got this yet, it tends to be sent out in the weeks following the sign up.



As a rule of thumb, the first payment is set up to be on the nearest payment date after your supply start date. As this is confirmed to you long before, there's plenty of time to change the amount and date before it's paid. We just need to make sure it isn't reduced too low. This explains how we work it out: https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-answers/topics/payments-and-statements/payments/how-do-you-work-out-my-direct-debit-amount.html.



Hope this helps,

Tim
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11 replies

Mattj3135
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Userlevel 6
Can any one tell me how long after you get your initial email as a new customer does your first direct debit get charged. The amount that will be direct debiting me is some £55 too much so I need to reduce it before it is taken from my account

The help line did not know the answer to this question. The only thing they could tell me is that they need 10 days to process any amendment to a direct debit which of course does not answer the question.

Hi @wmeads001 welcome to the forum and thanks for posting.

I'm sorry to learn you've not been able to sort this just yet however fear not, we will help you in the right direction here!

The first step is to check out this handy info section on the ovo website: https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-answers/topics/payments-and-statements/payments/how-do-i-change-direct-debit-details.html - it gives you the number to phone to change the amount!

Please do let us know how you get on, please feel free to have a look round at other forum posts too 🙂
W
Rank
HI @Mattj3135 Thanks for the links on the basic information which I guess you realise that does not answer my question. Do you think you will be able to discover some one in OVO that will be able to answer the question I have posed? What I am trying to avoid is building up a massive credit balance that will have to be refunded by OVO as soon as we get our first tenant. At the moment no energy is being used at all so the Direct debit amount that was proposed was far too high and I suspect based on the previous owners usage. I do not have a customer number at the moment and thus unable to phone and ask that the DD be reduced and I fear that once we get that we will not have the required 10 days to make the alteration to the FIRST direct debit amount. If the first DD date is 15 days after the initial letter is sent out then I know I will have 5 days to alter the DD but if the DD is only 9 days after the date of the email then I know I have to try and get it altered before the email is sent to us.

If the date of the FIRST DD is determined by the system and it is variable and there is no standard time period from the date of the account being created then please say so.
Mattj3135
Rank
Userlevel 6
Ah, I get where you're coming from with this one. I take it you're a landlord and will be renting the property out shortly. Does anyone currently live in the property?

In this case my suggestion would be reach out to the ovo customer care team and advise them you are a landlord, and will be renting the property shortly - at which point the tenant will be required to become the account holder. If no one is living in the property at the moment I advise you explain this too.

You have a limited options here, do you get a prepayment meter fitted to avoid having to have mass credit on the account.

My concern is that your future tenants could migrate away from ovo to another supplier as they please and that would cause you more problems should this be the case when taking control of the property again inbetween tenants.

Please let us know how you get on with the customer care team, hopefully one of the lovely folks can help you out with this.
W
Rank
All I really want is my question to be answered. Any one out there know the answer?
Mattj3135
Rank
Userlevel 6
As your a PAY monthly customer you are required to have a months worth of credit on the account. Therefore a reduction of the first DD is highly unlikely.

However, @Tim_OVO will confirm for you shortly
Tim_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 7
Can any one tell me how long after you get your initial email as a new customer does your first direct debit get charged. The amount that will be direct debiting me is some £55 too much so I need to reduce it before it is taken from my account

The help line did not know the answer to this question. The only thing they could tell me is that they need 10 days to process any amendment to a direct debit which of course does not answer the question.

Hi @wmeads001

There's some great info from @Mattj3135 about this Direct Debit payment. As for how to find out when the payment is due, this will be confirmed in the same letter/email (depending on preference) that confirmed what the payment amount would be. If you haven't got this yet, it tends to be sent out in the weeks following the sign up.

As a rule of thumb, the first payment is set up to be on the nearest payment date after your supply start date. As this is confirmed to you long before, there's plenty of time to change the amount and date before it's paid. We just need to make sure it isn't reduced too low. This explains how we work it out: https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-answers/topics/payments-and-statements/payments/how-do-you-work-out-my-direct-debit-amount.html.

Hope this helps,
Tim
Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
W
Rank
Great reply from @Tim_OVO This will be helpful to some one. As mentioned in one of the above posts our supply date from you is aligned to when we took over from the previous owner and this is a couple of weeks ago so clearly the direct debit is not going to happen 2 weeks ago. It has now been a week since we put our details into the OVO web site regarding the property that was purchased and still no email giving us our account number so we can go online and enquire into the specific facts on the account and get the amount reduced
Tim_OVO
Rank
Userlevel 7
Great reply from @Tim_OVO This will be helpful to some one. As mentioned in one of the above posts our supply date from you is aligned to when we took over from the previous owner and this is a couple of weeks ago so clearly the direct debit is not going to happen 2 weeks ago. It has now been a week since we put our details into the OVO web site regarding the property that was purchased and still no email giving us our account number so we can go online and enquire into the specific facts on the account and get the amount reduced

Thanks for the reply, @wmeads001

As you've moved into a property supplied by OVO (instead of starting a new switch to us), the time frames in my earlier reply won't be valid. The property had its supply start date before you even moved in.

As long as we've been informed of the move in, we would have set up an account for you. The account will have a customer facing My OVO page, and any active Direct Debit can be seen on the My Payments section of this page here: http://ovoener.gy/myovo. You can change the amount yourself via that My Payments section, but to change the date, we'll need to do it for you. This is because changing the payment date at short notice might mean the bank isn't advised in time. I've sent you a PM to ask for some account details so I can check this for you.

Hope this helps,
Tim
Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
W
Rank
Just an update for those that have been following this thread. I have been having a private conversation with @Tim_OVO. This is a very slow process as you only get one response a day.

I assume that @Tim_OVO is quite correct in his suggestion that I go onto the My OVO to look at the information

In order to do this of course I need an account number I have now I think on five occasions asked for my account number to be sent by email and for some unexplained reason OVO are unable to do this simple task. They have also chosen not to explain why they can not email the account number

Please OVO customer service send that email!!!
W
Rank
All sorted now.

It appears that the web site can not handle changes of a customer when you move into a property and the confusion this caused when I first phoned the help desk asking about the direct debit amount we had been advised by email about and the help desk assuming I was trying to access the previous owners account and with me assuming that my account had been set up.

Lessons on both sides I think. First listen to the customer and assume they are correct and on my side do not assume that when dealing with a supplier with rapid growth that they will have everything right on the system side.
A
All sorted now.

It appears that the web site can not handle changes of a customer when you move into a property and the confusion this caused when I first phoned the help desk asking about the direct debit amount we had been advised by email about and the help desk assuming I was trying to access the previous owners account and with me assuming that my account had been set up.

Lessons on both sides I think. First listen to the customer and assume they are correct and on my side do not assume that when dealing with a supplier with rapid growth that they will have everything right on the system side.

Hey wmeads001,

Good to hear this is now sorted, thanks for letting us know.

We deal with people moving in and out of properties we supply every day, so I'm not sure why this wasn't a simple process for you.

Still, a learning point as you say. Onwards and upwards from here I hope!

Max

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