british gas took 2 payments of me!!

catsonic

I paid my normal electric bill over the phone for £120. Went on my banking just now and I have also had £98.48 taken out as well!

I rang them up and they said it must've been a billing error and they will send me my money back.

I never thought at the time to ask how long or how they will send it back (cheque, bank transfer?). £98 is a lot of money to be without for a few weeks and i know i wont have enough money to cover other bills if it takes a while.

Should i ring back and ask how and when it will be sent?

Do they have a policy for this sort of thing?

tripled

It'll probably be by cheque, which can take up to 14 days.

anniecave

I'm a bit unclear here - do you normally pay by direct debit, or not?
If you normally pay by DD, why were you paying over the phone?
If you don't pay by DD, how on earth did they get your details? Are you sure they weren't taking for something else (your gas for example)?
If they are doing a refund via DD it should only take a few days
However this all sounds a bit suspect to me ...
(maybe i am too picky, having worked in the industry I always want to know exactly what is going on with my accounts and they can make mistakes as long as I understand how it happened...)