Page 4 | Another electricity one. Sse is going to tell the bank to increase my direct debit to £400.00 a month.

coodawoodashooda · 2022-08-29T22:56:18+00:00

Do I cancel the direct debit? Is there a penalty for not paying by direct debit. I can't possibly afford that.

mogtheexcellent · 02/09/2022 15:49

Im with SSE. I pay by bank transfer each quarter after receiving the bill. I set up a Standing order transfering enough to cover the bill each month. Used to pay by direct debit after getting the quarterly bill but their estimated bills are ridiculous (c900 quid when bill is 150ish, im on economy 11 but dont use the heating and they dont understand this) and the direct debit kept coming out during lockdown when I couldnt update the readings over the phone.

Hope that makes sense.

saraclara · 02/09/2022 15:54

Precipice · 02/09/2022 15:44

"It'll mean you manage fine from, say, May to September, but are absolutely crippled, in debt, or unable to eat from November to March."

This will only be true if you are very poor at cash management or spending every penny regardless of your outgoings. It is obvious that the cold month bills will be multiple times over the warm month bills. It's the same estimated 4k going on energy bills throughout the year, just split differently. If we have one person who could be paying 300 DD every month, but instead is paying 75 in the summer months, this person is not immediately rushing out to spend the 225 pounds difference just because it's currently in their bank account.

X per month all year round is by no means a universal international standard. There's also no reason to suppose Brits are all uniquely too stupid to manage money.

Given the misunderstandings about credit that have already been expressed on this thread, there are more people who would struggle to be able to budget with variable DDs than you think. I certainly wouldn't encourage someone to change to that system unless I knew for certain that they (and their partner if there is one) absolutely understood the need to ensure that they save enough to pay what will be terrifying winter month bills, rather than think they have extra spending money for their summer holiday.

MajesticElephant · 02/09/2022 16:09

A word of warning for those of you building up hundreds and hundreds in credit - when Avro went bust it took about 4 MONTHS to get that credit into our new provider and we still had to pay our energy in bill to new supplier the meantime. I don’t build up too much credit now as over the winter I couldn’t afford to pay a bill if that money is sitting with my old provider. There is nothing you can do to expedite the process either.

RedWingBoots · 02/09/2022 16:14

DmitriMendeleev · 30/08/2022 09:25

British Gas seem to want me to lower my DD 🤦‍♀️

I upped it to £300, they recommended I lower it to £112 (paid £200 from April). Thinking it might be sensible to ignore their recommendation and actually up it to £400 to try and build up more credit for when it is even more extortionate in a few months

British Gas are the only supplier I've ever been with who tried to align my DD to my usage and automatically paid me back when I was in credit. The only problem was they kept harassing me to get a smart meter by all communication methods and actually booked a date in for me. However I changed supplier before they could put one in.

All other suppliers - EDF was the absolute worst as they refused to accept my meter readings online so I had to phone them every single time - consistently over charge me. They just don't believe that some people are low users due to having an energy efficient boiler, energy efficient appliances, cooking on gas etc.

RedWingBoots · 02/09/2022 16:20

MajesticElephant · 02/09/2022 16:09

A word of warning for those of you building up hundreds and hundreds in credit - when Avro went bust it took about 4 MONTHS to get that credit into our new provider and we still had to pay our energy in bill to new supplier the meantime. I don’t build up too much credit now as over the winter I couldn’t afford to pay a bill if that money is sitting with my old provider. There is nothing you can do to expedite the process either.

Same happened to me when my supplier when bust.

I chased it up and got my credit after 4 months there as other people who didn't it took 6 months.

Anyway if you are loads in credit and your DD has gone up 80%, you are entitled to ask for your credit back. Do it in a way so it is clearly a complaint so if they refuse to give it back say you want a deadlock letter so you can take them to the Energy Ombudsman.

verdantverdure · 02/09/2022 18:17

MajesticElephant · 02/09/2022 16:09

A word of warning for those of you building up hundreds and hundreds in credit - when Avro went bust it took about 4 MONTHS to get that credit into our new provider and we still had to pay our energy in bill to new supplier the meantime. I don’t build up too much credit now as over the winter I couldn’t afford to pay a bill if that money is sitting with my old provider. There is nothing you can do to expedite the process either.

Oh goodness. I hadn't thought of that. I much prefer paying a steady amount across the year. I suppose I shall have to start an energy bill savings account instead.

Tellmewhatyoureallythink · 02/09/2022 19:28

BarbaraofSeville · 02/09/2022 15:35

Exactly @saraclara

Some of the people who are currently paying summer level 'I pay for what I use' DDs will face the double whammy of price increases and higher usage over winter and it will be a huge shock to some. Between January 2022 and 2023 there's a price increase of 54%, 80% and something else to add on, which will turn a £200 January 2022 into one that's likely to be £600+.

Your unit price won’t rise if you’re on a fixed tariff which is what I chose. I just put aside money in my savings account to cover what I know will be larger bills during winter.Those overpaying ahead of time are doing a similar sort of thing but they don’t have use of that money in the meantime, nor will they get easily and quickly get it back if the utility company goes bust.

Eeksteek · 03/09/2022 01:03

And you don’t get any interest. But they do. (Except one of the green ones. A friend gets a whacking great interest rate on her balance. Ten percent or something. I think it was peoples energy, or good energy)

Ariela · 03/09/2022 02:29

You can adjust your direct debit to reflect nearer your actual usage.
Work out the annual cost based on actual usage + current costs. Divide by 12. Your supplier should allow you to reduce your direct debit to that amount (SSE you can do it online). The supplier will automatically increase your direct debit to cover the next cap increase, but be aware they will adjust it also to take into account the amount of electricity you used for the same quarter last year. If you've drastically reduced usage, and estimate a significantly lower value - say you replaced all oven use with an air fryer - then you may find they won't permit you to lower the DD far enough, using their online tool as they still think you'll use more