Gosh, this is such an exciting subject and I do apologise profusely for boring you to death 😳

Have always paid for utilities by direct debit but in view of the current economic climate, am wondering whether it makes sense to pay a monthly bill not least because it gives me control (control freak, moi?).

Having been charged for two telephone lines (I am not a high-flyer btw) by BT and being made to wait until they decide to credit me, I am beginning to see little advantage to direct debits.

Too much of my time is being spent on sorting out this crap when I could be on here 24/7. What say the STW Massiv?

Generally I think it’s dearer not to pay by DD isn’t it? Not sure, all ours are DD.

mrsf – yes but what cost my time and my phone bill in dealing with these things? It’s supposed to make life easier but sadly it has the opposite effect.

Never had a problem with any of my DDs in years, they just tick away in the background

Aaaah but perhaps you haven’t moved house very often?

With a few exceptions I pay all of our utility/ phone bills etc by cheque. Mostly it’s the same price – in fact a number of the utilities offer prompt payment discount. I know too many people who through paying DD end up overpaying, or racking up credit and quite frankly I’d rather my money stayed in my account until I’ve received the service. There are good reasons for paying by DD, convenience/ budgeting etc and it suits lots of people, but I’ve always managed fine paying by cheque. Oh and I am very control freaky about his stuff if it helps at all… 😉

Having been charged for two telephone lines (I am not a high-flyer btw) by BT and being made to wait until they decide to credit me, I am beginning to see little advantage to direct debits.

The terms of the Direct Debit Guarantee mean that if you are incorrectly debited, your bank will refund you. You do not have to wait for a refund from the company.

I pay everything by DD. Having worked in a bank, there really are very few problems with it.

someone I’ve never heard of just bought themselves a nice 3g iphone by setting up a direct debit on my bank account.

My wife and I have our own personal accounts and we have monthly standing orders in place to transfer money from them into our joint account.

Then the mortgage and all the bills etc come off the joint account by direct debit.

I like it. It keeps our budgeting really clear and simple.
Plus most places give a discount for paying by DD.

We moved house last year and I didn’t have any problems setting up or cancelling the DDs.

wwaswas – Member

someone I’ve never heard of just bought themselves a nice 3g iphone by setting up a direct debit on my bank account.

Thanks 😉

We pay for pretty much everything by DD, although it does grate somewhat lending over £500 to BG and EDF, maybe I’ll phone them up and ask for it back.

ART – you’re on my wavelength!! I feel that I am not having any control when things go wrong.

Nettles – that’s not true. Refund has not appeared from BT. Out of the blue they started charging me for the line at my previous house!

I have unfortunately moved house twice within 5 months and have been absolutely astounded at the incompetence of telephone, gas, electricity, water, credit card companies etc. Was actually reduced to tears whilst dealing with a BT call centre.

Am trying very hard to simplify everything – with me being in control and not having large amounts of money taken from my bank account.

although it does grate somewhat lending over £500 to BG and EDF, maybe I’ll phone them up and ask for it back.

as soon as I have more than about £150 in credit I ask for it back.

Sometimes I do sometimes I don’t – what tends to happen is I build up a credit and then cancel the standing order ( never direct debit!) I wait until I owe them significant money then set up another standing order to pay it – this way they give you a free loan not you giving them one. Currently we pay nothing by direct debit or standing order – but we pay the bills from a specific household account that we pay into a monthly average of the bills and stuff.

Standing orders you control the amount and timings – Direct debit they do

Nettles – that’s not true. Refund has not appeared from BT. Out of the blue they started charging me for the line at my previous house!

Yes it is.

The Direct Debit Guarantee

– If the amounts to be paid or the payment dates change, the organisation collecting the payment will notify you normally 10 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed
– If an error is made by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid
– You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by contacting your bank or building society. We also recommend you notify the organisation concerned.

More Here

I gave up on paying anything by direct debit after we moved house twice in 6 months. On one of the utility bills, I think we were over £100 in credit in the space of that 6 months, and it took a further 6 months to get the money back. They had a nasty habit of either hugely over-estimating the amount you needed to pay, or claiming that you needed to increase the payments because your winter bill was higher than any of the others, so your consumption was clearly increasing. As for trying to get it back…

I got a bill recently where they tried to claim I would save £50 a year if I paid by direct debit. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather pay a bit extra (I very much doubt it will be anywhere near £50) and get the interest on the money myself. Maybe it has improved over the years, but it struck me as coming very close to a scam back then.

Standing orders you control the amount and timings – Direct debit they do

I disagree, I think you have control in both situations, it’s just that with DDs people don’t know their rights. Incidentally, a copy of the DDG is provided whenever you set up a DD, but then people don’t always read everything they’re given…

i pay everything by payment card or book.
on the same day of every month.
even managed to get a mnonthly paper bill off sky which i pay when i get a 2nd letter off them.

which i pay when i get a 2nd letter off them

I’d be interested to see your credit rating.

ihn, only thing i have ever, and i mean ever bought on credit is my mortgage.

When I used to pay utility bills by cheque, I’d just wait until around the third red letter and then pay up. I viewed it as extended credit terms.

Now I pay everything by DD, as the brinkmanship approach doesn’t work too well with credit card bills….

We used to pay utility bills by DD, until we owed BG £150 and had paid £100 by DD, the balance was due for payment 2 days after the statement, so they said, in their infinite wisdom they were increasing our monthly payment to the bill’s total not the amount we owed. Rang them up and explained what was happening and the helpful assistant said they had the right to charge whatever they wanted, so we cancelled the DD and put the money in a separate account and now pay it when the bill arrives.

You can set up a DD (or Standing order) to pay a fixed amount each month, with most companies I think.

Nettles – thanks very much for that info, I will study it later.

One thing that does concern me is ending up on a credit blacklist due to not being able to sort things out involving, usually, an overseas call centre. Hence by paying monthly it seems a bit safer.

Thanks again folks, some interesting replies and experiences.

Aren’t cheques just a total faff? And payment books?? Is this back in the 70s or now?

I can understand some peoples reservations with DirectDebits (though as I say I’ve never had any real problems) but surely just paying online is a lot easier than mailing off cheques and faffing about with books?

I just pay on card when the bill comes, you get the same discount for prompt payment (10days i think) as you do with a DD.

Unless we have to pay by DD we always request a paper bill.Utilities we pay 1/4ly. I’m not bothered but my wife feels more in control of the bills if they aren’t on DD

Nope don’t find cheques a faff at all – old skool me.. although not payment books – I don’t even have any memory of those!! I do think it’s worth looking at the options, cause a blanket approach isn’t always the best strategy. Certainly paying by cheque made moving house tonnes easier.

It may be 2009 with technology but customer service has not moved on from the 70’s with certain large organisations.

As an example, I have cancelled a contract (which I’m within my rights to do as the 12 months is up), have written to the company by recorded delivery informing them of this. Have received a letter telling me to telephone their “Customer Care Department” to discuss this, all at my expense and you can never get through to them anyway. WTF?

As regards cheques and payment books, some people do genuinely have to do that because of living a day-by-day existence. Perhaps it’s easier than having the wrong amount taken out of a bank account?

As regards cheques and payment books, some people do genuinely have to do that because of living a day-by-day existence. Perhaps it’s easier than having the wrong amount taken out of a bank account?

But isn’t sending cheques worse? They could hang onto your cheques for a couple of months and then spring it on you when you’ve forgotten about it. At least if you just pay it on-line then the money is straight out of your account and dealt with.

DD for everything for me cos i’m lazy. I don’t if have to get out of the armchair to cancel them, just log onto my bank account and untick the relevant DD.

Well done on not giving up! But you shouldn’t have had to go through that in the first place. It really isn’t good enough.

I had a battle with BT and instigated the procedure to take them to the Small Claims Court. They reimbursed me, I did not ask for compensation more fool me!

Reckon the best thing is to pay online every month, as it’s possible I may move again in the not too distant future.

i havnt read all the comments but if you dont like DD then internet banking is good as you can setup payment tansfers, then just add the amount you owe every month
i use DD as its cheaper and theres often a paperless bill option, so theres less crap to anoy you through the post, also i forget my bills if i dont…
you also seem to be able to cancel all direct debits with online banking but this just sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

a lot of the trouble with gas and electric bills stem from the monthly DD option, where they essentially guess how much you’re about to use, and appear to charge you a random amount. usually if you go for the quarterly billing option, which they don’t often volunteer as an option, they DD you for the amount on your bill, the amount you actually used.

yes, i know this is often confused by the fact they also estimate how much you used, rather than paying a guy to come read your meter, but you can substantially mitigate this by updating you meter reading, often online.

the large overpayment scenario seems to stem from the level they set for your monthly payments.

as far as the DD guarantee, nettles is right, as far as the small print. could the difference be down the the fact that the DD has been correctly paid, but that the amount that was asked for (and subsequently paid correctly) was wrong. the mistake lies with the billing/estimation rather than in the DD sphere of things.

[goes off to smugly continue to pay by quarterly DD…]

[smugness ruined by realiation of boredom cause by this post]

[stomps off to bed, after posting today’s onephotoaday]

sockpuppuet – agree with what you say but I seem to owe a lot of money due to fairly recent move/estimated reading etc, coupled with the huge supplier increases.

I need to get back in control! Monthly bills, paid online.

Apologies for such a boring thread, I do normally have more excitement in my life 😆

yeah, moves or supplier changes also upset the apple cart a bit.

hurrah for the ease of internet banking and the like…

Aaaah but perhaps you haven’t moved house very often?

yes twice since 2002, and I realise that other things, eg: like my wife going off on maternity affect consumption so I change the payments myself, or know what increase to anticipate.

Working for a utility supplier has that affect on me I suppose, but most other people don’t monitor usage at all, but you should, its a pretty expensive comodity we are talking about.

but you can substantially mitigate this by updating you meter reading, often online.

But you can do this when you pay by DD as well. I read my meters about every 2 months and put my readings through online.

Yep, agree with MrsF. I often submit my own meter readings online and use the website to see the pretty graphs of our consumption trends.

Only pat by DD if they charge you if you don’t. I’m with you Cinnamon, I like the control. Pay a bill manually and you have the record of payment in front of you. I used to lose track of all the DDs going out and every now and then saw one that I had no idea about. I try to pay cash for everything now aswell – ever since my card was copied at a petrol station.