Refund of credit on direct debit payments

mags4743

I have a credit with British Gas for gas and electricity totalling £530. I have now stopped my d.d's and tried to reclaim the money I have in credit. They said it would take 28 days to do this. As I am overdrawn in my bank account I needed this money. The only way I could get it was to give them my current gas/electricity readings over the phone and they will deduct the cost of these two bills from my money and send me the balance even though a bill wasn't due until March. This can't be right can it? It says on their bills that the direct debits will be reviewed - they knew I was accumulating credit but nobody got in touch. Can anyone help?

tripled

They do send you a statement every quarter, didn't you notice you were in credit?

I'm not sure why you think it's wrong they can bill you up to date before refunding the credit. After all, you have actually used the gas already, they simply don't want to send you money only for you to send it back again in a few weeks.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

How do you calculate you are £530 in credit? from your last bill or by looking at your on-line account?

You can have up to 3 months DDs credited to your account after your last bill so it gives a false reading.

I have to agree with tripled above - what is wrong with BG wanting to know how much gas and electricity you have used before giving a refund.

If you run your account paying by DD there is responsibility on you to check your account. If you were £530 in debt(instead of credit) would you have written a cheque to BG for that amount?

mags4743

mags4743 wrote:

I have a credit with British Gas for gas and electricity totalling £530. I have now stopped my d.d's and tried to reclaim the money I have in credit. They said it would take 28 days to do this. As I am overdrawn in my bank account I needed this money. The only way I could get it was to give them my current gas/electricity readings over the phone and they will deduct the cost of these two bills from my money and send me the balance even though a bill wasn't due until March. This can't be right can it? It says on their bills that the direct debits will be reviewed - they knew I was accumulating credit but nobody got in touch. Can anyone help?

The point I was trying to make is I couldn't have "my" money back until I had paid for gas/elec. which wasn't due to be billed until March. It's like someone ringing you (not on DD) and asking for money up front before your billing date.
Thanx for response.

margaretclare

Npower have been really good about this, I was surprised. We've always had to reclaim overpayments but Npower sent us a statement and then automatically did the refund back into our account, without delay, smoothly and without fuss!

Margaret

mags4743

Cardew wrote:

Welcome to the forum.

How do you calculate you are £530 in credit? from your last bill or by looking at your on-line account?

You can have up to 3 months DDs credited to your account after your last bill so it gives a false reading.

I have to agree with tripled above - what is wrong with BG wanting to know how much gas and electricity you have used before giving a refund.

If you run your account paying by DD there is responsibility on you to check your account. If you were £530 in debt(instead of credit) would you have written a cheque to BG for that amount?

Thanks for your response - please see my reply to tripled.

mags4743

margaretclare wrote:

Npower have been really good about this, I was surprised. We've always had to reclaim overpayments but Npower sent us a statement and then automatically did the refund back into our account, without delay, smoothly and without fuss!

Margaret

Thanks for that info. It's nice to know that at least one organisation treats their customers fairly and does't purport to be a bank!!

BBB

Right okay, say the bill you had was estimated, BG then send you back the money, a month later they ask for £400+ or whatever, you'd be mightily angry, dammed if we do and dammed if we don't

Cardew

mags4743 wrote:

Thanks for your response - please see my reply to tripled.

You haven't said how you calculate you are £530 in credit across both accounts! - is that a false reading?

The whole point of any company having a DD scheme(and thus a cheaper tariff) is to reduce the administration effort and have a regular cash flow.

It therefore makes no sense to be refunding/demanding money during the accounting year as it will be reviewed at the end of the year.

Whilst £530 is high, it is spread across 2 accounts and the highest quarter is yet to come; and as said above that might not be the true picture.

Most of us go into credit at some point in the annual billing cycle; its the way the system is designed to work!

I note you have stopped your DD payments; what will you do if you are in debit?

Perhaps you would be better simply paying your bill quarterly.

mags4743

It therefore makes no sense to be refunding/demanding money during the accounting year as it will be reviewed at the end of the year.
Whilst £530 is high, it is spread across 2 accounts and the highest quarter is yet to come; and as said above that might not be the true picture.
Most of us go into credit at some point in the annual billing cycle; its the way the system is designed to work!
I note you have stopped your DD payments; what will you do if you are in debit?
"]Perhaps you would be better simply paying your bill quarterly

The credit is shown on both utility company bills( for December). £300+ on one and £200 +on another. As explained I have now paid both accounts up-to-date and there is over £280 to be returned to me which will pay the next quarters bill (thereabouts) and they would have still taken direct debits for Jan/Feb/March. (which obviously have been in excess of my usage)
I am now obviously going to pay the bill quarterly and keep my money in the bank so I can have the interest not them. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

masonic

mags4743 wrote:

I am now obviously going to pay the bill quarterly and keep my money in the bank so I can have the interest not them. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

So you would be happy to lose out on a discount of about 10% so that you could earn, say 4.5% net interest on a bit of extra money in the bank?