Changes to electricity DD...can anyone advise best way to follow this up please?

[ibbydibby]

Letter 1 - dated 22/7/14 - informs us that electricity dd will increase from 5th Sep, to £84/m (from £61)

Letter 2 - dated 15/8/14 - informs us that electricity dd from 5th Sep will be £49/m. No ref to previous letter.

Rang up today to query, and customer advisor did what she called a "manual calculation". She came up with £64/m. Stated it was "up to you" how much to pay.

Feeling really rankled by this...how do they reach these figures? All seems a bit random. Am awaiting a call-back within 48 hours, but am assured that supervisor won't be able to give me any more info. Anyone else had this?

yup. regularly.
tell them to get it right or you go straight to the ombudsman

Ring them back up and ask for the companys bank details, then go to your bank and set up a standing order. Then you control how much they take out and they won't be able to help themselves to your bank account.

Energy companies do this all the time.Whatever they say you have control over what they can take by DDM from your account.They will try to tell you differently.They must tell you the exact figure they want to charge and you do not have to accept that and you can instruct your bank accordingly.In any event complain to the Regulator.You could cancel the DDM and pay by a different method

if it helps I used work bg . ( dont throw things at me) . They meant to use a meter read to predict what you use over nxt 9/12 month period but its only an accurate guess depending on your usage. which obv can fluctuate.
you can set your dd to whatever you want although they should do is inform you as to credit or debit at end of payment plan that they predict.
dunno that helps any

Firstly, are they working off actual meter readings? Either ones they have taken or ones you have provided?

I used to work for npower a very long time ago. The computer basically works off your last years consumption of units then calculates how much that will cost you this year in money. That figure is divided by 12 and gives you the monthly amount.

It is completely normal to build up a credit in the summer which will then be eaten into with your winter consumption as long as you are on dual fuel.

You have a "settlement quarter" ie at the end of one particular quarter in a year where any balance owed is payable or any credit is refunded. If the bill is out of kilter with your consumption the computer re-works your payment plan by either increasing or decreasing your monthly payments.

I believe (and I am going back over 10 years) that some governing body decided that it was irresponsible of fuel companies to allow a customer to possibly build a large debt hence why it now changes more often.

Personally if a lovely human has worked out your consumption and says its £64pm then I would pay that. I used to work out people's bills all the time and have to get very accurate daily consumption (when people are made bankrupt I used to have to apportion their bill back to their bankruptcy day) so I would trust the person on the phone rather than the person who wrote the computer program

If you ever get an estimated bill, even if the estimate is pretty accurate, please provide your own reading. It helps them to know they are guessing correctly.

You can change from DD to standing order and therefore have complete control over how much you pay every month.

npower by any chance?

I've been in a recent battle with them over their inability to get a direct debit right. Finally caught them on a day when the IT was working and was able to sort the issues. BUT their system instantly wanted to put up my direct debit!

I got the guy to manually over-ride it by having my annual consumption and tariff to hand, plus a calculator, so I could convince him that units x cost divided by 12 was the old figure, not the new one. All sorted.