Energy Renewals

rulefan said:
Isn't the difference that when you 'underspend' in the winter you will be paying less than you owe?
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Not always. They're supposed to adjust your monthly payment so that it's anticipated annual cost divided by 12. But they don't.
I just dug out the email I sent to them in August to sort it out...

"My current balance is £860 in credit. This time last year it was £631 in credit. The lowest balance last winter was £535 in credit. I have obviously been paying more than is necessary to maintain my balance through the winter. Please can you refund £500 to my bank account?"

Personally, I think that their allowing that to happen takes the p. Their algorithm would upwardly adjust your monthly payment quickly enough if it thought you might go into the red.
 
RichA said:
Not always. They're supposed to adjust your monthly payment so that it's anticipated annual cost divided by 12. But they don't.
I just dug out the email I sent to them in August to sort it out...

"My current balance is £860 in credit. This time last year it was £631 in credit. The lowest balance last winter was £535 in credit. I have obviously been paying more than is necessary to maintain my balance through the winter. Please can you refund £500 to my bank account?"

Personally, I think that their allowing that to happen takes the p. Their algorithm would upwardly adjust your monthly payment quickly enough if it thought you might go into the red.
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Blimey there is some really bad calculations they are doing

Think the most I have been in credit is around £100 which then balanced out the next bill
 
RichA said:
Personally, I think that their allowing that to happen takes the p. Their algorithm would upwardly adjust your monthly payment quickly enough if it thought you might go into the red.
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And if they have millions of customers in credit, that can add up to a tidy sum
 
RichA said:
£27 in my case but that's beside the point.
Are you comfortable with companies having your cash in their accounts artificially inflating their value? I'm not.
Imagine a supermarket keeping nearly £700 of your money as some kind of security advance on potential future debt.
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Customer credits are shown as creditors on the balance sheet so they have no affect on the companies value.
 
Missis T said yesterday when looking into a new contract with we are £860 in credit. We will cash that in when we need to pay for a weeks Holiday in December. The second thing I noted. The KW cost during the day is 30 odd pence. I get 70p per kw from the solar panels.
 
RichA said:
Any idea why they do it then? There must be a motive to keep the balance so strongly in their favour.
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Guessing its two fold, firstly reducing their exposure to bad debts, secondly managing their cash flow. It also provides a service for some customers in helping them manage their outgoings.
 
I expect my monthly energy bill to be at least £100 more than my DD over the winter months. It won’t take like for my £5-600 credit to disappear but at least my payments will remain the same.
 
bobmac said:
I am with Octopus and I've just switched to.....
Octopus Flexible Diect Debit
I only pay for what I use. I will pay more in the winter but will pay less in the summer but my balance every month will be £0. Unit costs the same, standing charges the same, no exit fees. So the days of being £300 in credit are gone.

Do other companies offer this choice?
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I originally went with OVO because they offered interest on credit balances at a better rate than Building Societies. Really annoying when they stopped it. Now with Octopus mainly because of the EV for leccy but went with British Gas for gas as it was cheaper.
 
Neilds said:
I expect my monthly energy bill to be at least £100 more than my DD over the winter months. It won’t take like for my £5-600 credit to disappear but at least my payments will remain the same.
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My payments will stay the same too, I'm just paying my DD into my account.
At the end of the day, I'd rather the excess be in my account than theirs.
 
Isn't Bob's set up just a throw back to how we all did it, with quarterly bills you paid in full? My mum had a tin in a kitchen cupboard she put money aside into for the gas a leccy, I used to put the moeny from one account into another till it was time to pay the bills?

As for increasing your DD, you can say "no, I wan't to leave it as it is". They cannot make you increase the DD. If you are relatively savy, if they say your account is in negative equity at the end of the billing year, you just pay a top up.
 
On our bill on the top right is says our gas bill is £1200 for the year, electricity is £1100. Just add them together and divide by 12, that’s the DD I would need.
But it isn’t taking solar export into account, so we reduced that by a lot.
Currently we have a £350 surplus in our account, that’s about peak. It will come down, and if we match LY then by February we will be in deficit and by May we are back to £0.

Also, we used to be with Bulb and had a surplus there. When they have gone bust as nd we were moved we got our money and meter readings taken over no issues.
 
bobmac said:
No coins in metres required, all DD, just pay for what you use, it's not much to ask
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Blimey Bob, he's reminiscing.

I remember my mum doing her washing (on a Monday) using the gas fired copper in the back yard, and a manual mangle in the kitchen. Am I saying thats how it should be? Of course not.
 
Bunkermagnet said:
Blimey Bob, he's reminiscing.
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And you suggested I wanted to go back to those days

Bunkermagnet said:
Isn't Bob's set up just a throw back to how we all did it, with quarterly bills you paid in full? My mum had a tin in a kitchen cupboard she put money aside into for the gas a leccy, I used to put the moeny from one account into another till it was time to pay the bills?
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I'll try once more for the hard of understanding...
If your DD is £150pm, you still pay the same every month but your DD goes into your utility account not theirs and if it's too much and is too high, at least your 'extra' is in your bank account and you can reduce your DD any time. You can also withdraw any extra credit at any time without anyone's permission.
Anyway, my post was a question that not many answered.
Painfull that everything spirals down into a pathetic argument
 
bobmac said:
And you suggested I wanted to go back to those days
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I don’t think that’s what he suggested at all
bobmac said:
I'll try once more for the hard of understanding...
If your DD is £150pm, you still pay the same every month but your DD goes into your utility account not theirs and if it's too much and is too high, at least your 'extra' is in your bank account and you can reduce your DD any time. You can also withdraw any extra credit at any time without anyone's permission.
Anyway, my post was a question that not many answered.
Painfull that everything spirals down into a pathetic argument
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Don’t think there has been any arguing - just people posting how they pay their leccy bill and what works best for then
 
bobmac said:
And you suggested I wanted to go back to those days


I'll try once more for the hard of understanding...
If your DD is £150pm, you still pay the same every month but your DD goes into your utility account not theirs and if it's too much and is too high, at least your 'extra' is in your bank account and you can reduce your DD any time. You can also withdraw any extra credit at any time without anyone's permission.
Anyway, my post was a question that not many answered.
Painfull that everything spirals down into a pathetic argument
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The only person arguing is yourself.
Back when my mum had tins for utility bills in the kitchen cupboards, there weren't direct debits. If you think thats suggesting how you should do it, let me just be clear...its a memory of what she did.
 
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