Octopus changing its mind.

[Bam Bam]

We had it set up to clear the balance each month.

Since getting our solar system connected that has meant we don't pay anything (except that one time last February).

Currently have over £200 credit - will have to see if that gets us through the Winter.

Happy to leave it as credit because it is taxable income if taken out.

 

[securespark]

How does that work?

 

[Rolfe]

I would presume that one could take out payments made without it being taxable, though. I'm £286 in credit but I have actually paid in almost £250.

 

[securespark]

Yeah. I mean, you pay tax on the money you pay to Octopus, surely it's not taxed again if you get a refund?

 

[Rolfe]

I would imagine it's not. Come summer I have some hopes of extracting the payments I've made up till then and getting the DD down to about £1, and see where we go from there.

 

[Bam Bam]

I would presume that one could take out payments made without it being taxable, though. I'm £286 in credit but I have actually paid in almost £250.

Yeah, that is just a refund for an overpayment isn't it?

Just worth noting that if you generate a lot of solar, building credit for use over the winter doesn't count as income from the solar, but if you take the money it is income.

I doubt many people declare it and I doubt that HMRC have bothered to collect data given the small sums involved, but perhaps they will at some point.

 

[johnb80]

Yeah, that is just a refund for an overpayment isn't it?

Just worth noting that if you generate a lot of solar, building credit for use over the winter doesn't count as income from the solar, but if you take the money it is income.

I doubt many people declare it and I doubt that HMRC have bothered to collect data given the small sums involved, but perhaps they will at some point.

Well any refunds are from Overpayment LOL, the solar export was used to pay your bills LOL. If HMRC charged tax on revenue from export it would be a legitimate claim to set against tax the cost of the SEG equipment, installation and maintenance.

 

[Gomev]

...

We were paying £350 a month, but I have just now rung them and got it reduced to £200. We have an account balance of £500, so if there are some monthly shortfalls, they could be taken from that.

...

You can change how much your monthly DD is in the Octopus app whenever you want.

 

[securespark]

I wanted to ring them to check what the maximum monthly usage was. I didn't want to set it too low.

 

[Rolfe]

I wanted to ring them to check what the maximum monthly usage was. I didn't want to set it too low.

If the app thinks you're aiming too low, it tells you.

 

[Rolfe]

Well any refunds are from Overpayment LOL, the solar export was used to pay your bills LOL. If HMRC charged tax on revenue from export it would be a legitimate claim to set against tax the cost of the SEG equipment, installation and maintenance.

That's a very good point.

 

[securespark]

If the app thinks you're aiming too low, it tells you.

I didn't realise that, thanks.

 

[Rolfe]

I wanted to go for £25 but the lowest it would let me go first time of asking was £40. The following month it let me go down to £25.

 

[Rolfe]

Well, that seems to settle it. I decided to go for a smart charge this evening as Caliban was down to 8% and I have to go to Glasgow tomorrow. I could just have charged for six hours using the Zappi's schedule, but I thought it was a painless chance to get a <10% to 100% charge done if possible.

I got home at 9.58 pm and plugged in, having asked for 100% by 6 am. I was given 9.58 to 6 am which was the general idea, and I don't quite see how they can change that. However, there was a new note on the app when the schedule appeared.

"FYI: Your charging plan may change over night, but don't worry we will still make sure your car is ready for when you need it."

The last email I had from Octopus said that once a charging plan was set up it shouldn't change, so someone hasn't got the memo. It looks as if this is a new thing, and certainly I never saw it before. I don't imagine they added that note just because I was moaning at them, so I suspect they have had a number of complaints. Odd that nobody on the customer service side seems to have been properly briefed about how to answer them.

Now pace John, but there are lots of people who have their systems wired so that the inverter will take power from the home battery if the car is charging, unless you take steps to stop it. It's perfectly easy to take these steps, but only if you know when the car is going to charge. Just set the home battery to charge during the car's charging slots, simples. Unless someone is then going to play silly buggers with the charging slots.

I predict trouble for Octopus here, as a significant slice of their customers (including me) switch off smart charging and just charge in the off-peak period using their cars' or their chargers' scheduling. If they only want one smart charge a month to keep the tariff that's not so hard to organise, but the rest of the time, forget it.

I imagine the other issue is with setting other household appliances to run when the car is charging during what would otherwise be a full-price time slot. How can you plan anything around these slots if you can't be sure they'll actually happen?

It was particularly annoying for me the first time this happened. As I had been given 11.00 as the start time for my charge, I set the home battery to export, timing the finish for 11 pm (rather than 11.30 as usual) so as not to have the car suck up charge that would otherwise earn a few coppers in export credit. Then when the car didn't start to charge at 11 pm after all, I'm left with an empty home battery and half an hour of peak-rate electricity still to go.

I don't think they've thought this through at all.

 

[johnb80]

Just change to Tomato, 2p per unit cheaper, 23p per day cheaper standing charge, no daily circus of charging schedules and nobody on here grassing you up to suppliers (your advice may be reported to Octopus by a certain member).

 

[securespark]

your advice may be reported to Octopus by a certain member

WTH?

Shades of 1984....

 

[Jomarkh]

Is there a way in the future that Octopus can see 'smart charging' has been turned off and charge you at Go rates rather than IOG rates?

 

[Rolfe]

WTH?

Shades of 1984....

The details are in another thread. John was treated appallingly badly. Again it seems to me that people on the public-facing side of the company had no idea what they were doing or, much more worryingly, what "customer confidentiality" means.

I'm not in a huge rush to change, if I do I need to investigate a range of possible providers, but the more they go on like this, the more likely it is that I'll do that.

Is there a way in the future that Octopus can see 'smart charging' has been turned off and charge you at Go rates rather than IOG rates?

As I understand it they only require you to do one smart charge a month to keep IOG, and that's easy enough for me to arrange. Even last night was technically a smart charge, although I didn't give them any flexibility at all - I asked for a charge that would take eight hours and said I needed the car in eight hours, so that's what I got. Worked perfectly. Car charged from 8% to 100% and balanced, finishing just before six (although I had set a bit extra on the Zappi timer just in case it wanted a longer balance time).

I can very easily set up a small charge to finish at 5.30 am now and again, and make sure it doesn't start before 11.30. But they're making it ridiculously complicated and the easy way to play it is simply to charge in the normal off-peak period without using smart charging.

In another thread a member who is having a problem getting her Zappi to talk to Octopus was just using the Zappi's schedule to charge like this, and it was several months before they contacted her and said they'd move her to OG unless she complied with the IOG terms. I don't think they'd switch you without warning, and if they did they'd lose a customer right then and there. In particular, they surely couldn't switch you if you were actually doing their stipulated one smart charge per month.

But I might change anyway.

 

[johnb80]

WTH?

Shades of 1984....

Just be guarded what you say on here re Octopus. I was reported to them by a member, a warning was issued to me by Octopus, when I took them to task about it they agreed they had got it wrong, they had lied to me and that I was brought to their attention by a member of this form (you can see who if you do a little digging). They also confirmed that my operation of IOG was all within T&C's and they had no issues.
Following all of this I looked around, found Tomato and moved to them, to date I have now taken over 240 people with me away from Octopus. Tomato is substantially cheaper, doesn't have the flaky software changing charging schedules and doesn't have the resident grass from here.

 

[Rolfe]

What about the export tariff though?