What happens if I can’t afford my gas and electric direct debit

[TheOpalFox]

They are saying my gas and eleccy is going uoto nearly £309 and will be took out my bank on the 2nd october
i have explained to them I really can’t afford that much??? And they aren’t reallt
answering me lol just going round the question like? What would happen if I cancelled the direct debit and just paid
manually 180???
could I do that ? They are saying I have a big debt
thankyou in with eon

Have you spoken to the debt department, or just an adviser? How have you ran up syluch a big debt? Normally they'd do an, income and outgoings and try to work with you. You can cancel your DD, but it isn't a long term solution.

Unfortunately, if you keep on paying less than you owe, you will keep on getting a bigger debt.

Check your bills and your readings. If they're wanting you to overpay and build up credit then it's fair enough to cancel the direct debit and just pay what you owe (rather than an arbitrary amount.) if you're short and keep on falling short, they will seek to recover what you owe, though, and probably put you in a prepayment tariff with a smart meter if you don't have one yet.

They might insist you go onto a key meter if you can't be relied upon. I'd strongly advise against that having had one and being charged over double what you are charged on dd. You need to talk to them about what you can afford or they'll take it from your account, if it bounces they might try again in a couple of days (some companies do). You'll just roll over the debt longer term. It's not really something you can't prioritise, utilities.

Cancel the direct debit if youre going to not be able to afford food

Then pay what you can on payday, explaining that you are experiencing financial hardship

If its eon, they will say that you will have a higher standing charge but you'll just have to accept that so that you can pay when the bill comes in

Contact your local council - iirc they have discretionary housing payments and can sometimes wipe the debt off for you

Best of luck 💓

You haven't given enough information to answer the question as to whether you can 'just cancel the DD and manually pay £180 pm'.

Do you have a big debt? Is your billing accurate? Is £180 pm enough to cover your energy bills when averaged over the year?

But if they are trying to take more than you can afford, you need to engage with them to try and find a solution, but that will likely mean submitting details of your income and expenditure to show them you're a 'can't pay' rather than a 'won't pay'. Have you done this?

Have a look at: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/how-to-get-help-if-you-re-struggling-with-your-energy-bills-/

Look up the british gas energy support fund. If you meet the criteria you could get a grant to pay off your energy debt, and you don't have to be a british gas customer.

Leave eon so much more cheaper energy providers out there

There aren't really, prices don't vary that much, around 5-10% at most difference between the best tariffs offered across the suppliers. Plus leaving Eon won't help the OP as they'll expect the debt to be paid off in full.

The OP needs to check her billing and apply for any help she's entitled to.

Mine is the same OP, turns out they didn't charge accurately for gas for nearly 2 years (lots of credits and debits all over the place covering the same periods, almost impossible to understand BG bills). They then charged for 10000 units in one month and have estimated that my gas usage will be really high for the next 12 months. There is currently a debt on the account (all boils down to the smart meter not working). I have left it at £310 a month and will leave it until the debt is cleared, then will re-evaluate based on my actual monthly useage.

The cost of energy in this country is disgusting , for most of us it’s no longer an incidental cost but another mortgage , none of it helped by this governments rush to net zero. OP I would ring to let them know you cannot afford it , try and negotiate a payment and really keep your usage down .

Cancel the DD and tell them you will pay as you go.

That's what I did. I'm unusual in that I use more power in summer than winter (air con and fans) and they were putting my DD up because they thought I would need more power in the winter.

They wanted £300 similar to you but I just pay every month when I get the online bill. I now pay £70 - 80.

In theory if you cancel the direct debit, the whole debt becomes payable immediately.

Can you look at the latest bill, and take the predicted annual costs, divide by 12 to get a cost for what you are currently using, and see if you can pay that amount to stop the debt increasing?
Then separately contact them about repaying the debt.

Contact your local citizens advice- energy/debt advisers will be able to help you. Be patient the service is extremely busy nationwide (and getting a lot of unfair criticism as people forget it is majority volunteer staffed) Good luck 👍

You can change from Direct Debit where they take the money from your bank account to a Standing Order where your bank sends the money to them with your energy account number as the reference and you should still benefit from any discount offered to Direct Debit payers. The Standing Order is completely under your control they cannot change the amount only you can.

The problem you face is that you might not be paying enough for your energy. The company has a duty of care to not allow you to build debt because you are using more than you are paying for. Unfortunately we are coming into heavy usage months, you use less in summer (usually gas heating) and more in winter. The equal monthly payments cover building a credit over the summer to fund the winter bills which are higher. This is standard practice.

I would speak to Citizens Advice but you also need to look at your last bill with EON to see what your debt level is as well as your consumption. It would help if you had the last year's worth of bills for Citizens Advice who might also be able to help you reduce your consumption to reduce your bills.

You are not alone in struggling to pay for your energy but you do need to be mindful that they can force your hand in all of this with a prepayment meter. If you ever cannot make the full payment pay the most you can rather than nothing. And always contact them too even if they are unhelpful and ask for it to be logged onto the notes section of your account.

First of all go on your online account and check your actual balance. At this time of year lots of energy companies try to get people to overpay in order to build a credit for winter, EON tried this with me, their letter is carefully laid out to make it seem like you owe them money when in fact (as in my case) you could easily be in credit. In the end I left because they wouldn't accept that I knew exactly how much energy I would use over the winter.

They can stop you leaving as far as I’m aware if you owe a lot