Concerns re credit balance transfer - supplier ceased trading

Dianec49

My previous supplier - Igloo - has ceased trading and my account moved to E-on next.  In line with advice received I continued to pay my direct debit and now have a sizeable credit balance with Igloo. E-on next have emailed today to advise that they are working with the administrators to TRY and transfer my credit balance.  Is there a possibility I might lose this money?  

[Deleted User]

Three years ago, you would have been an unsecured creditor of a failed supplier with little chance of getting any of your money back. Today, your credit balance is 100% protected by what is known as the Ofgem Consumer Levy. It will be managed by the SoLR who, in turn, will make a claim for all credit balances that it has had to honour. This claim will be added to future energy bills paid for by all energy consumers.

Curiousgirl1

Dianec49 said:

My previous supplier - Igloo - has ceased trading and my account moved to E-on next.  In line with advice received I continued to pay my direct debit and now have a sizeable credit balance with Igloo. E-on next have emailed today to advise that they are working with the administrators to TRY and transfer my credit balance.  Is there a possibility I might lose this money?  

Think all they mean is they will try to transfer the balance as that’s their preferred option but if they can’t you’ll get a cheque once your account has been finalised 

dbks

Dolor said:

Three years ago, you would have been an unsecured creditor of a failed supplier with little chance of getting any of your money back. Today, your credit balance is 100% protected by what is known as the Ofgem Consumer Levy. It will be managed by the SoLR who, in turn, will make a claim for all credit balances that it has had to honour. This claim will be added to future energy bills paid for by all energy consumers.

Nonsense.

The Ofgem safety net, which protects the credit balances for domestic customers of failed suppliers,  has been in place for over 5 years now!

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-safety-net-protects-consumers-cash

Who funds that repayment depends. Obviously the appointed SoLR will first try to recover those funds from the failed supplier (perhaps that is what the OP has been informed?), the chances of success usually being extremely small.

Then it depends upon the terms of the competitive bid the supplier appointed by Ofgem as the SoLR originally submitted to Ofgem.
Sometimes the supplier agrees to cover the cost themselves in full, although as they have discovered that can be extremely costly they have more recently agreed to cover the cost to a certain level, and then look to Ofgem (the Consumer Levy) for the difference if the final cost proves higher.

Whilst it is correct that there is no requirement for a supplier to agree to cover any of the cost themselves, that will of course be taken into consideration when Ofgem choose who to elect as the SoLR.

EssexHebridean

OP - your credit is safe, it just may take a while to get it to where it needs to be - ie either your new EOn account or back with you in the form of a cheque. If it gets paid back to young cheque a I would suggest ring fencing it in a savings account ready to pay against your future energy bills, too. 

matelodave

I've been with three failed suppliers so far with the fourth in process as we speak (Symbio) and we've always got our credit back or transferred to the new supplier.

I did have to prod whoever took over from Eversmart after around four months to motivate them to put a bit more effort into sorting it out but as I'd already left them a couple of days before their demise it takes a bit longer as there's an administrator in the way.

Eversmart's accounts probably weren't everso good either, that's why it's a really good idea to make sure you'd been sending in meter readings, checking that your bills were correct and keeping all your bills so you can sort out any problems in the future.