Energy Direct Debit

My experience with EDF electricity is that they like to keep it permanently in credit but not so much that I get tempted to pay in arrears.

If they have a million customers all on credit 50 quid in credit, its a nice little earner.

eh? Don't they do that as a public service (tm) to avoid folks going suddenly broke in the winter? Payments will usually be based on an estimate of the amount of energy you'll use over a year, and divided.

Allegedly.

Its strange how they always end up in credit...

Possibly because prices are going down in July and although it's predicted that they go up again but not to last winter's level. This assumes that Trump and Netanyahu don't start yet another major Middle East war.

Last Winter didn't really eat up my accumulated credit, I'm about two months in credit at the moment.

Do you know what your balance is? Scottish Power say that they do not like the balance to get too high in either direction. Their definition of too high is different to mine so my DD pays less in summer, more in winter, to mirror my usage.

Given that they now alter the price cap every quarter, does it still make sense to talk in terms of "per year" costs?

Yes, estimated costs. I don't know about other companies, but Bulb are cheats, they overcharge and getting a refund is like getting blood out of a stone.

My mother died, it took 2.5 months after they closed the account to get the £400 refunded. They pretend they are incompetent, and normally it goes in their favour. But... to be fair they did send me two similar £400 refund cheques, being honest I have only cashed one.

It didn't use to be too difficult to get a refund from E.on Previous.

We were with OVO, but have just moved to Octopus as OVO have made changes that mean that our Ohme EV charger will no longer function with their EV tariffs.

We had credit built up with OVO and I had recently looked at getting it refunded, but their online system won't let you go below a credit level of 3 months payments! I could have phoned up and organised it that way, but then the charger change happened.

Years ago BG worked out the useage over 5 quarters (the duplicated one being a winter one) and then divided by 12. Have they changed?

Two years ago EDF reduced my direct debit but I thought they'd got it wrong so I increased it. Six months later they reimbursed the amount I'd overpaid, because they hadn't got it wrong.

Do you prefer to have it averaged over the year and let the energy company keep your account in credit all the time?

I pay by DD every month but I pay off the total amount of that month's bill. That way at the end of the transaction nobody owes nobody else nuffink for nuffink.

Nick

Of course too high in their favour and you find another supplier. too high in yours and you might not pay.

That suggests you have a smart meter and/or provide self readings every month.

Many people resist the smart meter, or it doesn't work, so energy companies may only get a reading every 12 to 18 months.

Er... Nope/not quite.

Smart meter refusnik here. It was all going very well before Covid and the energy crisis hit and I'd just have to phone in once or twice a year to keep the numbers on track. Although I normally spend a lot of time out of the country, Covid saw me unexpectedly locked down overseas for nearly nine months and there was an awful lot of hysteresis in the energy estimations to take account of this until they got it right again. Now the prices are being reset every three months I just phone in (0800 free number) at changeover time to keep the figures from drifting too far off.

Nick

Same here, as long as you have the savings to fund the higher winter payments seems a lot simpler. Was simple with 1 email to arrange on Octopus

They will have already calculated on that basis. Most people would be glad for a reduction in DD, in most cases suppliers want an increase!

I don't want a sudden increase in winter which seems inevitable if they do this.