Economy Energy refusing Refund of Credit Balance

System

Firms06 wrote: »

Have chased up my refund today as am owed around £250 from my accounts (gas and electricity) being in credit when I switched provider 29 September. Whilst I should have chased sooner, can't believe (well actually I can, EE are terrible) i'm not the only person in this situation. They are clearly a very dodgy outfit.

Hi - welcome to the forum. When you say switched, are you talking about the actual day on which your supply transferred to your new supplier? I ask because suppliers have up to 6 weeks from the day of transfer to raise a Final Bill. To do this, they require industry-verified readings from your new supplier.

Mr.Everready

Good morning all,


I've been with EE since May this year and I'm about £500 in credit ! I contacted them yesterday and requested a refund. I know that will go un answered or fobbed off.
I've read the ofgem site about if they go down the pan that my credit balance is safe.


So, my question is....can I cancel my DD, and if I do will this affect anything if they go bust and I (we) get moved to another energy supplier ?

System

Mr.Everready wrote: »

Good morning all,


I've been with EE since May this year and I'm about £500 in credit ! I contacted them yesterday and requested a refund. I know that will go un answered or fobbed off.
I've read the ofgem site about if they go down the pan that my credit balance is safe.


So, my question is....can I cancel my DD, and if I do will this affect anything if they go bust and I (we) get moved to another energy supplier ?

Read your contract terms and conditions before doing anything. Some suppliers charge a DD default fee and others will treat it as a breach of contract and they will switch you to their standard variable tariff.

Edit: this may apply to you.

If you pay by Direct Debit, you must continue to use that payment method to pay the charges unless you or we have made a change. If you fail to do so, we will write to you, explaining what has happened and giving you a date when you need to re-start your Direct Debit.

9.10 If we are unable to collect your Direct Debit and having tried up to three times and failed, we reserve the right to move you on to our default tariff (Evergreen) and/ or onto a cash/ cheque payment method or we may decide to install a Prepayment meter or Smart Meter that we will operate it in the prepayment mode.

Mr.Everready

Thanks Hengus.


unless you or we have made a change - that seems quite an ambiguous statement.


I've just done my calculations, as of 2 days ago I'm £549 in credit with another £158 being paid next week !

Mr.Everready

I've just had a web chat.


They will only refund ( yeah I know ) me if my credit balance is over 4 times my DD. Funnily enough, its a few pounds under that. I requested that my DD be reduced, I won't hold my breath.

Firms06

Thank you. Yes, that was the transfer date to new supplier, so 6 weeks would have been 10 October! I called and after much pain verifying my security, spoke to a lady who referred me to the 'refund team', which turned out to actually mean she was routing me back to the same switchboard (cue more tedious verifying steps). I eventually spoke to someone who mentioned they would need to have received the information from the new provider in terms of readings, and issued a final statement before processing. No explanation as to why that hadn't been done other than some rather fake cheerful banter. I asked her to check whether they had that information and could issue the final statement, which she was able to. I have since received by email my final statements and a note my refund was being "processed" but was told on their phone they could not say when that would be as it "goes to another team to process". How ridiculous I have had to chase and will, at the earliest, get my refund over 12 weeks AFTER the transfer date. Surely they owe me some form of compensation for withholding my money? Not sure if my email and comments that I would be contacting the Ombudsman if they were withholding the money made any difference (I had to go down that route a few years ago when changed provider and was compensated by two rather shoddy providers either end). How outrageous that I should have to chase the £330+ I was owed.

webbit

EE attacked my bank account for £496 using estimated reading. I called EE, they could not guarantee IMMEDIATE RETURN.

THE DD GUARANTEE IS MY SAFETY NET.

I DO NOT OWE THE AMOUNT TAKEN.

I TELEPHONE BANK.

HELLO BANK HERE.

GOOD MORNING.

EE HAVE TAKEN £496 FROM MY ACCOUNT WHICH I AM CLAIMING BACK. PLEASE REFUND MY MONEY DD GUARANTEE. THANK YOU.

£496 WILL BE IN YOUR ACCOUNT WITHIN THE DAY. THANKS FOR CONTACTING THIS BANK.

DO YOU WANT TO CANCEL THE DD? YES PLEASE.

THANK YOU.

END OF CALL.

EE ATTEMPTED AGAIN TO REMOVE £496 WITHOUT SUCCESS.

DD refund EXAMPLE below.

INACCURATE ESTIMATED READINGS.

DD TAKEN AFTER LEAVING. (UNLESS MY ACCOUNT IS IN DEBT).

ANY UNJUSTIFIED DD.

THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT FOR MAKING A CLAIM.

I AWAIT EE ANNOUNCEMENT THIS WEEK.

webbit

read trust pilot ive also posted this on here about direct debit guarantee, i do fear EE are on the brink of going bust

onepoundtwopence

To say you can't have a refund unless over 4 times or whatever is no longer a policy that they do anymore. I'd go back and request it again, better still make a complaint. Even if they don't resolve it, it at least puts you in a position that you can take it to the Ombudsman which you can't do unless you put a complaint in.

onepoundtwopence

The company as a whole are downsizing and they can no longer install smart meters. If you speak to National Grid Smart they will longer be installing them for Economy Energy as of the 5th Dec 2018. Refunds are taking too long and they're increasing DD payments all over the place. I think they're going under too.