They never did with me. They did, however, limit the amount I could easily withdraw in one hit. I understand because it was February and there was uncertainty around how much more heating a household would need, as well as the April changes not yet being announced. I went back in last month and withdrew the majority of it with no issue.
Octopus have reduced my monthly payment
- Thread starter colasblue
- Start date
I've been with them for a couple of years, no real issues apart from being on their FP tariff since last September which has a £150 penalty for going on their new cheaper tariff but they've been bugging me to change me electricity meter, they're saying that it's out of calibration cause of it's age which is bollocks cause it's less than ten years old and I refuse point blank to have smart meters installed which is what this crap is all about.
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
If you do switch, don’t forget that existing customers can provide a referral code which means you both get a credit to your account (£50 each IIRC).
Not unique to any particular supplier I don’t think, but worth bearing in mind whenever switching in case family/friends/other pfm users (for example) can provide a code. As this thread shows, there’s plenty of us here if you don’t know anyone personally who’s already with them.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Think they may still be doing the £50 credit payment to current customer proposer and new customer; not to be sneezed at !
PS Dave above has just mentioned it.
garyi
leave blank
Smart meter and water meter has been a success in this household at least.
colasblue
pfm Member
Can't see any issue with smart meters per se. All they really do is make meter readers redundant. I found it incredibly irritating to have to submit readings again after I switched to Avro due to the unbelievable incompetence of the government in not making MK1 smart meters supplier transferrable from the get go. Fortunately the meter has now gone smart again!
As it happens I also copped a completely free new water supply pipe when smart water meters were imposed on us because my existing one was leaking.
As it happens I also copped a completely free new water supply pipe when smart water meters were imposed on us because my existing one was leaking.
venton
pfm Member
WTF. You set the direct debit amount easily on Octopus website. Takes ten seconds. If you were that hard up you'd surely have worked that out pretty quickly. I've kept my balance bang on the money with practically no credit at all for 2 years and assumed everyone else was doing similar. Of course if you want to build up credit that's your choice.
robs
should know how this works by no
I'm not with Octopus but YOU control how much the direct debit is...not the supplier. If they have several hundreds (or thousands) of pounds in credit at this time of year then something is very wrong and you are overpaying. I try to keep it such that I owe them a few hundred all the time..,,
colasblue
pfm Member
I'm sure for the tech savvy and impoverished there's absolutely no problem being more proactive than Octopus have been. What about the not very tech savvy geriatric though! My parents don't have smart 'phones and couldn't use an app if their lives depended on it. The issue isn't about YOU it's about people who aren't like you!
robs
should know how this works by no
Well, I manage my parent's energy supplier ...and many other things, for exactly that reason...so I guess you're right.,.. maybe.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
Or, everyone on pfm is perfectly able to use the internet, and it's pfm members posting here.
It would be rude of me to speak on behalf of people who can't use the internet, are deaf, are blind, or just have an aversion to the modern world.
Bob McC
Living the life of Riley
Don’t need an app or smartphone to manage your account.
colasblue
pfm Member
No but you do need to be proactive!
The issue here is that the default absolutely STINKS.
I suppose it's a bit like a lot of the modern world. If you don't continually switch supplier of everything to get the best deal, be it savings accounts, ISP's, the latest offer from Sky or even supermarkets you can get fleeced.
Should a REGULATED infrastructure industry be ALLOWED to adopt those sorts of practices.
No doubt at 5% pa gross they will have made a shed load on peoples' overpayments.
It could never have happened on the old pay up to three months in arears system.
The issue here is that the default absolutely STINKS.
I suppose it's a bit like a lot of the modern world. If you don't continually switch supplier of everything to get the best deal, be it savings accounts, ISP's, the latest offer from Sky or even supermarkets you can get fleeced.
Should a REGULATED infrastructure industry be ALLOWED to adopt those sorts of practices.
No doubt at 5% pa gross they will have made a shed load on peoples' overpayments.
It could never have happened on the old pay up to three months in arears system.
Richard Lines
pfm Member
I think there is a part of the population that are quite happy with a fixed amount going out each month - it gives them a known figure to work to.
I have been with Octopus a while now and, as they bought out Shell, we have them at both properties.
We recently went into slightly negative figures i.e. -£20 at the flat and we received notification that our direct debit was being increased.
I have a surplus for the house account i.e. £800+ yet Octopus haven't contacted me about that...........
Regards
Richard
Which would be great if that's how it has been. Countless tales of suppliers just putting the DD back up and dragging their heels or simply not refunding large amounts of credit. It happened to my Mum and she is tech savvy.
In the end she ended up emptying her bank account whilst trying to switch to another supplier because they just kept taking the money, she'd tried changing the DD many times but they just kept putting it back, they had also increased it several times even though her usage was below the previous level and she had built up £700 credit.
It was all over the news for like 2 years so I'm not sure why some are so deaf to it.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
I’m not deaf to it at all, just reasonably careful about which service providers I choose. Why people choose to go to providers with extremely poor customer service ratings is beyond me, and it has been extremely easy to change provider for years.
Paul L
coffee lounge for me
I picked your post Tony not as a personal one but because it’s representative of how a lot of people feel. My take on it is that the companies all do it and it’s the failure of the regulator who isn’t there for us consumers no matter what they might suggest. There are other examples such as the simplification of tariffs which are bewildering to a consumer, the click-bait headlines of how much we can save a year which don’t show assumed consumption together with standing charge and amount per kWh so that we can’t easily do some napkin maths to see if the claims are true. It really annoys me and that’s down to the regulator.
Oh, also how when a supplier of last resort ‘steps in to rescue us’ we would get put onto their standard tariff whilst they pick up the MPAN and only then offer a good deal. Why? Well in my view because the regulator did not mandate that we go onto the cheapest tariff as a default which would incentivise the new provider to move fast.
On the building up of credit I believe this is due to the back billing rules they are limited by but that doesn’t excuse unnecessarily large amounts in the way we see.
Except when yours went bust and you got moved to a supplier not of your choice without the ability to change it.