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A topical questions I guess.
I logged on today to find I was £1500 in credit. This is for combined gas and electricity in a small, modern-ish, 3 bed semi.
This strikes me as being a lot, even though we're at the start of the winter.
Wondered what others credit was (if any) and how much (if any) of that credit I should be claiming back?
We usually end up about £200-£300 in credit after summer. Just moved so it will take a few months to settle.
About £1,000, we got rid of storage heaters and replaced with a thermal store for the heating just over a year ago but I got an electric car at the same time so we charge that now.
We are rural so electric only and on 16p per unit until the end of July so letting it build up to buffer the impact of the new prices after that.
About £600
I am £350 in credit. My energy supplier wanted to increase my DD to £350 (from £150) but I pointed out my reduced consumption and suggested £275 which they have agreed to.
I suspect it's relative though - I would probably aim for 1 month's winter bill as a suitable buffer to absorb any overly cold weeks/months so unless you spend £1500 a month I reckon that's too much and you should ask for some of it back...
£42 after the last 6 month bill, which was about £650, plus £400odd from when my last supplier went bump. EDF then put my DD up to £248 per month!
Nothing, because I stopped paying by DD about 20 years ago, for this very reason.
About £550 at the main place and £220 at the other place (but the monthly bill for that is normally only £25) - elecric only.
500L of oil in the tank, so about £400.
Zero
About £250, which feels about right ahead of winter.
As part of your bill it should give you a prediction of what your balance will be in 12 months.
I just keep chipping away at my DD to get me as close as zero as possible.
Probs about £200 to £300 but I see Octopus allow you to pay monthly on actual usage which I'm tempted to swap to as no council tax bill in Feb/March would iron out some of the winter gas bill hump.
Absolutely no idea, Mrs 678 deals with all that. I imagine not much now we've put the christmas lights up....
Isn't this a reason why Smart Meters are a way to go? Actually pay what you use ? I get that its an attempt to budget consistently across a year but the stories of trying to get the credit back if you change suppliers are interesting.
£1,139.23. Should probably get it back off them.
About £700
Zero. Got sick of always having to ask for £600 back annually whilst they increased the DD.
Now the DD is set to just pay the monthly balance.
I always try to owe them money, I think we were £300 in debt after last winter, which cleared during the summer.
i guess the energy companies have to take a pretty risk averse approach in these calculations*, but some of the numbers above are incredible
as said, surely your maximum credit should only be enough to cover the next DD payment?
its not a bank account and to blindly assume they will give it back when they go under is nuts, do you think their shareholders allow them to hold their dividends indefinately?
*anecdotally, they are quite happy to admit they got it wrong and the customer is accidentally, hugely, in debt
600 quid in mine, which based on future usage calcs I’ve done seems a bit high. Looking back at the previous two years bills with Octopus, I’ve never dropped below 350 credit with them.
So I’ve zeroed January’s direct debit (£270) to effectively get some of it back. It’s easier than trying to get a refund.
£900, but I expect that to reduce to zero by april next year, then build up again over the summer.
I'm not. I send a reading every 3 months, they send me a bill and then I pay it. I find the amount people are in credit with utilities companies scary. I don't have that much money!
Around £400. Currently paying £0 a month as the £66 government subsidy is just about covering my bill.
Nearly £700 after getting £400 back in July. Won't let me reduce the DD. November's gas and elec hit £290, DD was £310. Likely I'll still be over £500 in March so I'll withdraw it then.
I always try to owe them money, I think we were £300 in debt after last winter, which cleared during the summer.
Same. If you're going to switch then do it in autumn if you can, you'll be in debt all the way through to the following autumn where you reach zero again. This has caused the odd comical phone call with a couple of suppliers though 😀
6 monthly billing is a PITA and took a bit of digging to get a monthly breakdown but the November usage was £205 which is about 50% higher than in the summer. I dropped my DD to £198 which was as low as they'd let me go so I'll probably end the next billing period slightly in debt.
£880 in Credit
November usage was £300, DD £233 + Gov £66. so November balance stayed flat, but November was very mild
Gas usage is now running at £10/day so expected Dec bill will be more like £450+
I still expect to come out of winter with a little credit
Also spend £25-50/month on solid fuel
£424.97
More than I expected but TBF I see they've slashed my DD so cant complain too much.
So energy suppliers are sitting on GBP 10,856 from this thread alone up to this point from overpaid or overly high DD's.
So thats probably a sh*t ton across the utility paying public before the profit on the actual electricity used...
Its imho, the same cash in the bank scam hotels load on credit cards when you arrive and refund at some point after you leave...
Ofgem say you'll get your credit balance back if your energy provider goes bust. I imagine the funds are held in a "client" style account (that's probably oversimplified a bit) and presumably protected by the FSCS.
I've heard people have struggled to get refunds in the past but I managed to get a £450 refund from Shell approved in less than 2 mins via their website recently. Funds turned up a couple of days later. I've never had a problem with other providers in the past either.
I worked out my DD based on my last 12 months usage which was to within £10 of forecasted annual estimate from Shell themselves. I just divided the annual cost by 12 and set my monthly DD to that. I just treat my balance with Shell as I would do my own bank account balance.
I don't understand people who don't pay by DD as they only want to pay for what they use. Everyone pays for what they use and any residual amount is just left in your energy account that you have access too. By cancelling your DD you'll probably be missing out on the usual discount that you'd get for paying by DD.
What I get even less is these "Don't pay UK" people. I wonder how they're getting on!
£406 - yes I have often thought this verged on a scam - customers giving the energy companies interest free loans. I will ask for some back if it gets much higher. I have a wood-burner and don't really use the gas powered water filled radiators they are too much.
About £725. It was £775 before November so I'm considering turning the heating up to use a bit more, why suffer and end up with £500 of credit in April when its not needed!
Yes prices will go up in April but consumption will drop.
Currently sat at -£270.17.
It was sitting at -£440 a few months ago but the £67 government energy discount scheme is paying it off, I use approx 2.2 kWh electricity a day so about a £1, I pay £35 month electricity.
Switched my air source pump for heating/hot water and the Tesla power wall battery off last January as it was costing £120+ month trying to heat a 1 bedroom poorly constructed/insulated bungalow, I hate to think what it would cost now with costs tripled. I have a log burner/multi fuel stove for heat and it’s kept alight 24hrs day.
The £66/month is more than paying my bill (electric only, heating is with wood)
I suspect I'm in a small minority who are actually better off just now than before all this started
When I was with Ovo a few years ago they paid interest on credit balances which went up the longer you stayed with them. No idea if they still do.
Thought mine was a lot at £520. Projected use calculator shows that it probably about right and I’ll be at zero come the spring.
I’m not comfortable enough to pay what I use I’d Thayer smooth it out over the year. If I had spare cash then I’d risk being able to save more (see also me having a new car because I can’t afford the risk of something without a warranty which automatically makes me poorer)
The perils of being working class, and doing ‘ok’
Thanks to an dodgy borehole pump in April/May/June, we're very much not in credit 🙁
I'm not on DD, I pay what's due when I submit meter readings. Like I did today, only to discover afterwards that I was already in credit to the tune of £200 (Energy Bills Support Scheme payments over the past 3 months). So now I'm £400 in credit. I shall make a point of checking my balance BEFORE paying next time.
I was a jammy bugger and managed to get a 2 year fix with E.On last Oct, just days before everything went mental and prices shot up. So, along with the government scheme reducing my DD, I'm currently paying less for gas and electricity than I have done in years.
Sitting with about £900 credit. I didn't plan to but I think of it as a little savings account to either cover the cost of bills when they (inevitably) increase or for other utility expense like getting an EV charger when I get a new car. If I withdraw it and put it in the current account it will soon disappear on standard life stuff.
In a few days time it’ll be £1000, however we’ve cracked a bit in the last couple of weeks and have definitely used much more heating than we did in the previously mild winter, so I guess that will be dropping over the next 4 months. Last bill (g+e) was 134, but we were nearly ch free in that period.
I think we’ve been hampered by having lots of work done on the house, last winters bills were huge as for about 5 weeks we had the front door open quite a lot (so heating on a lot) and 2 blokes using power tools, then in May we had 7 weeks of power tools again, so I can see our estimates being a bit high.
Got £740 here, with a monthly direct debit of £190. We moved here in February so started at zero at that point and are really only now getting to the point where we're spending a bit more than £190 a month (mainly on heating, got a 3 month old so you can only go so low).
Just looked and we're £833 up. Probably due some meter readings though so that will take a chuck out of that and I imagine it'll be much less come spring.
Which energy companies set the DD amount themselves and don't let you change it? That sounds like an enormous scam in itself, given how rubbish they all seem to be at doing it properly.
I don't think we've been with a company that didn't let you change it yourself in years, Octopus recommend a value but let you change it yourself whenever you want to.
We're about £350 in credit which I think should be okay to smooth out the winter.
£53, most of that is from the gov. They are not a savings bank
My DD is set at £40, I'll adjust it when bills come in, I did ask to go onto variable DD but they are still dragging to get that implemented
£442 here.
£1260.26 as of today.
We whacked our direct debit up way back in March when the writing was on the wall. The mild autumn has meant thart usage hasn't been high, but heating has been on most of today to keep it at 17°.
Eldest will be back from uni at the weekend and mooching round the house all day after that, so costs will go up for the next month or so, but hopefully we'll still be in credit before the next price cap increase.
I know we are fortunate to have been able to fo this.
Nothing, because I stopped paying by DD about 20 years ago, for this very reason.
We cancelled our DD about 6 months ago as recommended by Martin Lewis. He correctly pointed out that the energy companies are using this as an opportunity to ratchet up peoples DD's way more than they need to do to cover the price rises. As the figures on this thread seem to back up. We are actually still in credit even after that many months.
We'll pay our bills as soon as we get them, but I'm not playing ball with the profiteering of the energy companies through artificially inflated DD's. They must have billions sat in their accounts with everyone this much in credit.
I remember a few years ago being a couple of grand in credit - which is ridiculous in itself - so I requested it back. They did it eventually but I had to hassle them repeatedly and it took absolutely ages
Just shy of £300 for me.
With the cash from the energy rebate sitting nicely in my bank account for when the winter bill inevitably chews through what I am paying. Overall I reckon by April I'll be about even again.
Zero - I pay as per meter readings.
I'm not in the business of providing interest free loans to energy companies.
What would happen if everyone demanded their credit back at the same time?
Would any of the remaining energy companies go bust?
£300 ish IIRC, probably get used up in the next few months.
Did this at the weekend. Credit of 460 has been paid back.
Had solar PV & battery fitted last month and they have cut the DD to 120 from 260.
Once I have the paperwork for the install I'll be moving to octopus.
I always try to owe them money, I think we were £300 in debt after last winter, which cleared during the summer.
Bingo... That's where I'm at at least!
how much (if any) of that credit I should be claiming back?
All of it! Otherwise you've paid for something in advance that you might not necessarily need any time soon... You're not earning interest on it either!
Better off in your bank than theirs...
Better off in your bank than theirs…
Yip, just by the replies on this thread alone we can see that a lot of cusomers are serveral hundred pounds in credit and getting no interest payments.
Times that serveral hundred quid by several million customers and the energy companies have a massive, vast pot of money to toy around with, with no benefit to the customer.
This is fundamentally wrong.
When I was with Ovo a few years ago they paid interest on credit balances which went up the longer you stayed with them. No idea if they still do.
Ovo currently pays me 5%, so...
I’m not in the business of providing interest free loans to energy companies.
...it's not necessarily necessary to do so. It's earning as much as it would in easy-access savings.
I’m not in the business of providing interest free loans to energy companies.
Another happy Ovo customer here....
We are in a 70s 3 bed semi. Octopus credit currently £574 and they just emailed me to say my £170 a month DD (before govt help) isn't high enough. They want £200. Wouldn't let me cut it below about £190 without phoning them.
I'm not sure they have caught up with my reduced usage yet. Oct- Nov bill this year was 60% of last year due to new boiler, better controls, and (a minimal amount) better loft insulation.
Last year Jan Feb were huge bills. I'll go wit £190 and review in March after seeing gas use for a few cold months.
At what point does an entity cease to be an energy retailer and become an investment bank? are they subject to the same regulations as banks?
For example, does this apply to OVO? https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/
Earning 5% on a £600 credit balance is all well and good, but that 5% won't mean much if they go bust and your £800 dissapears.
At what point does an entity cease to be an energy retailer and become a bank? are they subject to the same regulations as banks?
No, but there is a system in place to manage ones which fail and it has been used an awful lot over the last few years...
No residential customer has lost money as a result of them folding.
I'm the winner....just logged onto my OVO account and its £1138, although my usage has gone up considerably lately.
Times that serveral hundred quid by several million customers and the energy companies have a massive, vast pot of money to toy around with, with no benefit to the customer.
That's not true at all (the last bit).
From a budgetary perspective, having the winter peak usage spread over the whole year, so you pay the same per month regardless of how much you use, will help many people. Not everyone has spare cash at hand after Xmas to stump up for the largest fuel bill of the year.
No, but there is a system in place to manage ones which fail and it has been used an awful lot over the last few years…
No residential customer has lost money as a result of them folding.
Yet.
Yet.
It coped with Bulb at a cost of over £6bn so far - unlikely anyone bigger is going to fold.
Earning 5% on a £600 credit balance is all well and good, but that 5% won’t mean much if they go bust and your £800 dissapears.
Just as well there is a tried and tested scheme in place to prevent that scenario ever occuring!
£400 in credit and £145 per month direct debit. Lowest temperature I’ve ever seen the house drop to is 16 Celsius.
Regularly 25-30 Celsius in Summer with £15 a month gas usage.
Electric is £50 in summer and £70 in winter.
I’m the winner….just logged onto my OVO account and its £1138, although my usage has gone up considerably lately.
*cough* look a few posts further up. Loser!
No residential customer has lost money as a result of them folding.
We all have. The lost Bulb balances are passed on to higher standing charges to all customers this year.
"But a far bigger part of the increase is from the “supplier of last resort” scheme – every household is expected to pay the billions that have gone into rescuing customers from failed companies."
From a budgetary perspective, having the winter peak usage spread over the whole year, so you pay the same per month regardless of how much you use, will help many people. Not everyone has spare cash at hand after Xmas to stump up for the largest fuel bill of the year.
This is the rub of it. For every one who will stash some money aside to pay the big winter bills, I’d hazard there’s many more who will budget based on non-existent summer use and then complain about evil energy companies when they can’t pay the winter bill. Enforced savings by means of a regular direct debit helps more people than it hinders, I reckon.
We all have. The lost Bulb balances are passed on to higher standing charges to all customers this year.
The same with any bailout scheme, be it FSCS, Bank of Scotland nationalisation, Covid, Foot and Mouth - we all end up lumbered with cost and and pay for it one way or another.
In the case of Bulb, by far the biggest cost is the cost of energy whilst it's been held in a special entity by the government - something like £5bn...
£1629 as of today with Ovo (gas & electric)....most so far i think having skimmed this thread. Probably should claim some back but if i do get interest its likely more than in the bank
Enforced savings by means of a regular direct debit helps more people than it hinders, I reckon.
I would agree. It's those with the least who need the most help. Those who can just pay of a £500 extra bill in Januray, don't need any consideration....
My ovo balance gets 4% because it is in the second year. I don’t think it will be available when I renew in July
£550 with a £145 DD and a winter usage of around £100.
We also have around 600l of oil, so about £500.
By the time we get to March, we’ll be £700 in credit and using almost zero.
Isn’t this a reason why SmartMeters are a way to go? Actually pay what you use ?
Not really IME. All they do is mean they don't have to send a person to your house/rely on estimates. They still use some algorithm to work out your DD, which always seems to overestimate so you are quite a bit in credit.
I'm about £300, I keep my DD set to the lowest their algorithm will let me, every year they tell me my DD will rise dramatically just before winter 'because our model shows you'll use more'. Our usage is completely flat all year, wood and oil for heat.
£68.77 with Ovo. Who are predicting we'll be £61 in credit when our tarrif ends (Oct 23).
I'm OK with the principle of paying 'more' in summer to balance out greater use in winter.
A lot, which is strange because they haven't actually charged us for any of the electricity we have used since we signed up in November (Octopus)
£528.39
Due a bill next week and my electric meter has stopped sending its readings so it’s a bit higher than usual.
£350.
I don't know, as my supplier (EDF) no longer reveals or updates balances when you provide meter readings of your own accord.
Zero. I pay the bill when it turns up. I’m not here to provide an interest free loan to the energy companies. Last checked 2 months ago that we are on the best deal so sticking without that
£150 and I've reduced my direct debit to £1 so they have to use some of my unofficial octopus savings account.
As of yesterday I had £1774.52 credit on my electric bill account. So naturally I thought I'll ask for that back. Email was sent and got a reply back within 24 hours saying my account was actually in debit of £39. Even though it clearly said I was in credit(even took a photo) for a few days. Where would I stand with this?