You clearly don’t understand your contracts.
When you take out a DD and sign that agreement there are clauses in there about terminating the contract/DD.
Yes sure you can always instruct your bank to stop paying a DD but if you fail to inform the energy company via the pre-agreed process (phone/email etc) then YOU are breaching the contract and are then liable
It is true that, if you stop your bank from paying the d/d and money is still owing, it does not release you from paying what you owe… it just means that the bank no longer pays it via d/d.
However I am sure that Cee Cee would not be cancelling the payment to avoid paying what she owes… maybe she had just found a more convenient way to pay, or even cancelled her contract with the supplier, because she would still have to cancel the d/d with her bank if she had!
The contract is between Cee Cee and her gas/electrical supplier who don’t care how she pays, as long as she does. As an ex banker I am aware that, if the bank pays a d/d from your account, after cancellation, they are obliged to refund her the amount paid… so, without all the info on why the d/d has been cancelled I don’t agree with your post.
Cee Cee has a contract with the bank to pay d/d’s and another contract with the power company, to pay for the power she uses… so it she cancels one contract, yet pays for fuel by a different means then she breaks no law, just makes it less convenient for the bank and the power company:!:
Thank you Twink. I always keep my energy account in credit anyway, but of course I would naturally inform Scottish Power that I would be terminating my contract with them at the same time as I stopped the DD. I might add, that I owe no-one a penny. Having been married to someone who lived his life with huge debts, I swore on my divorce that bills would be paid before I get to eat. Even when on Benefit, I remained debt free.
If it’s possible I pay by direct debit for everything. I think it’s a good easy way to pay.
It certainly is and you sometimes get a small discount for paying that way.
I just thought Realists post was a bit OTT and wanted to reassure Cee Cee that she was doing nothing wrong ( seeing as I worked in banking for many years and understand how the payments are made). Certainly sounds like she knows what she is doing! 
Twink, my daughter worked for Barclays for years until she was head hunted two years ago. Coincidentally, my dil also works for Barclays - but I dont bank with them.
Nice . . . but this is not what you said earlier. Another poster expressed how much hassle he’d had trying to contact the company to cancel his DD and you replied saying all you do is just tell your bank.
That was patently not right which is why I made the post I did.
When you take out a DD with an energy company you are effectively creating a second contract with them regarding how you will pay your bills. There are likely terms and conditions surrounding that separate agreement. An obvious one is that you might be getting a Direct Debit Discount. If you cancel your DD straight with the bank then you are effectively breaching that contract (a contract between you and the energy company not the bank). Your DD discount will be removed and you will likely be charged on a higher tariff. You may even have to pay back some of that former discount.
So yes, absolutely it is NOT as simple as just cancelling the DD with your bank. In many, if not most, cases you are also required to contact your energy supplier, either emailing, or calling.
A further downside of these DD agreements is that it can give the energy company additional powers to take money from you. If say you had 2 properties both using British Gas, both on DD and you failed to pay the bill for one of those properties, then BG can and will take the money from the bank account of the other property and may also levy additional admin charges for doing so.
Bottom line is simply that cancelling a DD is usually NOT as simple as just instructing your bank. You have a duty to tell the energy company and they can thereby establish a new payment method (contract) with you.
Paying anything by DD is simply loaning your money to other people for little or no interest. When people whinge about how little interest a bank account pays, it’s mind-numbing to see the same people giving away their money in advance to energy companies for NO INTEREST at all save for a paltry token offering from them in the form of a payment discount.
Beggars belief TBH.
At the time of cancelling my DD, I would also email SP to cancel my supplies. As I will do, when I leave this rented property. Simple, no hanging on the telephone two minutes to send an email.
The reason I run my power account in credit is so that I do not have to worry, (given my health problems), that I can have the heating on in the day. With COPD and RA, I cant risk being cold. Nothing whatsoever to do with interest or discount.
Maybe to you Realist, but surely you respect other people’s right to choose what is best for them!
I prefer to pay the same amount every month, because it stops higher bills in the winter.
Paying a bill at the bank may not be so easy as bank branches are reducing.
Some don’t like to do banking online, for fear of security risks… so don’t use that method.
Posting a cheque to the power supplier costs a stamp and there is no guarantee the post will reach the destination!
Your ideas may be the best for you, but millions of people have found that the D/D system works very well for them, so I don’t think most need your advice.
The point of this thread was to make sure that their power suppliers were not expecting them to pay a higher D/D than they needed to!
You could just as easily put that money into a piggy bank so it’s there for those winter periods. It’s no different. You’re just giving your money to others to gamble and speculate with, which is just foolish.
DD’s are just pure laziness.
When people can’t be @rsed to manage money properly then they thoroughly deserve to be ripped off.
I prefer to call it efficiency… after all some of us don’t waste time exploring the internet for ridiculous conspiracy theories… mainly because we have something important to do.
Don’t forget I am an ex banker who knows how to manage money and has never been ripped off!
Did you know that bankers want you to put money into savings or current accounts, and then lend it to other customers at much higher interest rates? :shock:
Surely this means that every body, with a bank account, is being ripped off?:surprised:
I have scrimped and saved all my life; for someone like you to turn around and say that someone like me "cant be @rsed " to manage my money, is just you talking out of your @rse.
Cee Cee don’t let comments like that upset you, especially from somebody who knows nothing about you but seems to think he always knows best… which he rarely does:!:-
From what you have told us, it sounds like you deal with things in a way that suits your circumstances best. Any opinion, from somebody who hasn’t been asked, just demonstrates that their opinions are rarely based on fact!:roll:
As it happens today I received my first quarterly water bill since I put it on direct debit. On the plus side they don’t take the money until the due date whereas paying by Bpay you had to allow a few days for the money transfer and because it is a credit card I have until the end of the following month to pay before I incur interest (I pay my credit card off each month to avoid this).
On the down side you will see that the sods have charged me 26c (13p) for using my credit card - we have discussed this in another thread.
http://www.over50sforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4888&d=1515578639
You will also notice that in NSW the bastards charge the service fee and sewage for the next three months in advance. Of course they can’t do that for your usage charge - no incentive to save water there.
During the last drought water was 98c a kilolitre the cost has more doubled since then - paying for their useless de-salination plant
@Twink. I am not the least upset, certainly not by idiotic posts (from some people). It just annoys me when someone, who has absolutely no clue, thinks they know better than me when managing my affairs.
That’s patently untrue as if you support DD, paying in advance, giving your hard-earned to someone else to look after, then you ARE being ripped off. That you fail to see that doesn’t speak volumes for your banking skills TBH.
Yes of course. Centralised banking and Fractional Reserve Banking are understood by anyone who has woken up and sought to understand the fraudulent world they are enslaved in.
It’s a shocking practice, totally unethical and will, one day, be outlawed. It’s been going on for centuries back and forth but its age old name is of course USURY.
The problem is that people assume, wrongly, that the money in their bank accounts actually exists somewhere. Unfortunately it doesn’t. If everyone walked into the bank today to withdraw their money the banks would quickly shut and the entire system would collapse. Therein lies the problem with this corrupt fraudulent practice of lending money that does not exist and charging interest on it.
The world needs to kick the greedy bankers into touch and regain control of the money printing from the likes of the Federal Reserve. If they did, the awful national debts would quickly evaporate.
Back on point, as a banker you ought to know that you can invest your money in many different places. Personally I don’t invest in crappy bank savings accounts for the measly pittance they offer. They can go take a hike. I put my money in companies, stocks and shares.
No way would I be stupid enough to give my hard-earned money to energy companies to look after so that they can make lots of nice money from my money. They should coco !
I will make my own profits from it thank you.
You do whatever you like Realist, but please stop trying to advise me. I get advice from people who are qualified to give it, should I ever need it!
I don’t have gas out in the countryside but my electricity is paid by DD.
I read my own meter so there are no ‘estimates’ and pay the same amount each month which allow me to build up a nice surplus to carry me through the winter when the bills are much higher.
I actually pay slightly more than the monthly recommended amount , I can apply for a refund on my surplus at any time and it is in my bank within days.
I am happy to have a surplus on which I get paid 3% interest 5% after 3 years, more than I get on my small amount savings 
I also save £30 a year (£30 per fuel) by going paperless.
Well said Meg. I am exactly the same, pay a little more each month than their stipulated amount, and have in the past requested a refund of the surplus balance. Every account/bill I have is paperless.
All our bills are paid by direct debit.
