[OT] Rant - Direct Debits

That's what I meant in, "Doesn't stop credit card companies taking the whole, variable balance by DD each month."

Which bit of CC account do you no understand?

The thing that made me start to switch electricity suppliers was when the original local supplier (PES as was) stopped offering a discount for payment by DD. I don't object to paying a regular amount by DD each month but I would like to have the a/c settled correctly once a year based on a meter reading.

To my knowledge, nobody have ever had a 1 year settlement period - did you mean quarterly?

I do not object so much to the monthly fixed payments, but rather how difficult they make it to set the amount - one site allowed you to increase the amount on the web, but not decrease!!!

I am sorry if I have misunderstood something but I really don't understand the question. I had thought all I was doing was agreeing with Max Demian. That is, to spell it out, that I have given my credit card providers direct debit mandates and instructions to take the total balances outstanding on my credit card accounts from the bank accounts in the mandates on or before the due dates, which they have invariably done (for more years than I care to remember).

I don't suppose it'd allow you to increase it by a negative amount? ;)

SteveW

No I mean that after paying x pounds per month for say 12 months there is a meter reading and either I then have to pay them a little bit more or they refund me the difference between 12x and the actual cost of the electricity consumed. IME rather than doing this they tend to want to alter the monthly payment to compensate.

It was worse than that - you entered an absolute amount and it rejected any decreases.

Ah - I see.

e.on allow[ed] you to increase or decrease the DD amount, perhaps it had some limits on how much you could vary it from what they decided? Also once a year they refunded any credit balance and reset the DD amount for the year ahead.

So who are you useing why not just switch to one that does DD on your supplied meter reading Like

Thanks - I'll remember that on the next CompareTheMArket cycle :)

Because I switched to the cheapest - The switch sites don't (or didn't) go int this level of detail.

But thanks for the tip - I'll make a note of them...

I think a lot of the cheapest suppliers do that so make money by overcharging you for part of the year Ebico is never the cheapest particularly if you are a heavy user as it has no standing charge but its a not for profit organization they also dont charge extra for the poor sods that have to use pre payment meters my nod to socialism ;(

Thought they'd moved away from the no standing charge model?

I think it was Paul Lewis (of R4 Moneybox) who admitted the other day he'd swapped energy provider and ended-up paying 25% more than his previous deal ...

It seems they now do three different Plans but one is still no standing charge and one is for pre payment so dont know how competitive that is now. I have been with them since 2006 elec only, nice easy people to deal with should you ever have the need.

Their 12 month fix is within £1 per fuel of my scottish power 12 month fix, so they seem competitive again, if you exclude the "who?" suppliers. They say they give additional discount for DD, but don't say how much.

Ah, this seems the reason for their changed plans

and 5.5% discount for DD, not worth changing given exit fees, but worth bearing in mind next time ...

aka Robin Hood Energy