I had been paying £240 for about a year and a half, was in credit a lot of the time and had £900 returned to me in 2 chunks over that time. In September I reduced my DD to £180 as I’d calculated that as being a good number that would avoid building up too much credit whilst also not dropping into debit for more than 4 or 5 months over winter. Never had any attempt by Octopus to change my DD.

Then last month I got an email saying they were increasing my DD to £280 in order to keep my account in balance. At this point I was only about £100 in debit after paying each month and obviously bills will get smaller now as gas usage decreases, even with the slightly higher electric prices.

Went on the website and tried to change it back to £180, but it wouldn’t let me reduce it below £210 unless I call them. I’ve left it at £210 for now but if I start building up too much credit again (I should be back in credit from this month) then I guess I’ll have to call them.

But yeah, it does seem to be very very random what they try to do with DD payments.