SSE suprise refund

MoLatif

Anyone else had multiple payments returned from SSE? We left our old house over 18 months ago and my wife set up a payment arrangement as the meter reading put the account in debit. However today all of those payments came back (individually rather than in one amount) totalling nearly £400. Is this a system glitch. Has it happened to anyone else. No letters about it.
Thankyou. Mo

MWT

Set the money aside and wait a while just in case, don't rush out and spend it as it seems like you knew you owed money and were legitimately paying it.

Unexpected refunds should always be viewed as temporary until confirmed.

MoLatif

MWT said:

Set the money aside and wait a while just in case, don't rush out and spend it as it seems like you knew you owed money and were legitimately paying it.

Unexpected refunds should always be viewed as temporary until confirmed.

Yes, in anticipation of it being a potential mistake, we are not touching the money. We did query the excess bill originally but their workings out didnt seem outlandish so it could be that the next tenants supplied a reading higher than ours but why take their word for it? We are going to see if wr get a letter about it and contact them next week to see why theyve done it.

MWT

The final bill readings are often a little different from the one you supplied upon leaving as they are checked and altered by a 3rd party organisation to ensure they are 'reasonable' when compared to your previous consumption precisely to avoid people providing false high/low readings as you describe.

It is a bit late now perhaps, but if you still have the actual reading you took when you left and a copy of the final bill you received, feel free to post the details here if you want so others can see if there was scope for the bill to have been wrong...

MoLatif

I think your 1st paragraph would provide an answer had this come back sooner but its been nearly 20 months, and the tenants in that house now are the ones that followed us in, to my knowledge. 20 months is much longer than you would expect for them to notice an incorrect meter reading. All the bills are in the loft so would take a long time to find, but could dig them out if need be. Thanks for your reply.

MoLatif

Resolved: as MWT said, they discovered an error on their part so refunded us in full, with some compensation to cover lost interest.
Very satisfied with the outcome, albeit at a loss as to how it took so long for it to be flagged up...

niktheguru

MoLatif said:

Resolved: as MWT said, they discovered an error on their part so refunded us in full, with some compensation to cover lost interest.
Very satisfied with the outcome, albeit at a loss as to how it took so long for it to be flagged up...

That seems pretty honest and impressive from SSE that they admitted to it so far down the line and refunded. (Though they shouldn't be praised too much, as shouldn't have made the error in the first place!)