if I pay by credit card will my direct debit still be taken

[tracy_thomas]

I want to pay my bill via credit card but can't cancel my direct debit online. If I make a payment via credit card as soon as I receive the bill will my direct debit still be taken approximately a week later? I don't really want to have wait on the phone to cancel my direct debit. Or if I cancel the direct debit online with my bank and ensure I make the credit card payments on time will there be an issue that I haven't informed EE that I have cancelled my direct debit, provided payments are made on time?

[bristolian]

The presence of a direct debit means you don't need to make manual payments. Once your monthly bill is produced, the DD collection process is started.

If you make manual payments in advance of your bill date, then the bill will take account of those.

[XRaySpeX]

If you have a DD in operation you shouldn't make a manual payment on or soon after your billing date. It is then too late to stop the DD being auto taken in full. Even if the DD fails the 1st time of asking it will be auto attempted again about 7 days later. Now the extra will be used as credit against your next bill. It won't show on your a/c until the next bill.

[Ali_A · Accepted solution]

Hi @tracy_thomas 

As @XRaySpeX & @bristolian mentioned, if you have a Direct Debit in place, it's best to allow that to be taken rather than a manual card payment. 

However, the direct debit request is sent to your bank around 4 working days before it is taken, so there's a small window of a couple days after the the bill is generated when you can do this-
 
If you make a card payment and the direct debit is still pending (i.e. not yet sent to your bank), we’ll adjust the amount collected based on your payment. 
If the direct debit request has already been sent to the bank, your manual card payment won’t affect the amount collected, and you might find yourself in credit, which will be used towards your next bill. 

Hope this helps! 

Ali