End of summer account credits.

Sea_Shell

Just thinking out loud here...

What processes do the individual suppliers have for dealing with "excess" credit?   Which ones allow you to reduce your DD, and which make an auto-payment back to you if your credit exceeds £XXX?

Are they going to amend their systems to allow bigger credits to build up this year, over summer, as due to the price hikes, balances are going to have to be substantially higher by the the end of summer, in preparation for Winter?

Personally, our credit will need to build up to c.£700 by October, to cover winter at the same DD level.    If this was to get paid back to people, automatically, if it reaches, say £500, it risks being spent on other things, causing even more of a problem come October. 

Do we think they'll be "on the ball" with this, and stop offering auto-credits?

MWT

Ofgem was talking about enforcing auto-refund of the credit balance once a year, but that didn't happen, do any of the suppliers actually refund without seeking approval from the customer?

Octopus will both let you manage your DD level and will nag if it thinks the balance is too high, but only refunds if the customer requests it.

MattMattMattUK

Sea_Shell said:

Just thinking out loud here...

What processes do the individual suppliers have for dealing with "excess" credit?   Which ones allow you to reduce your DD, and which make an auto-payment back to you if your credit exceeds £XXX?

Are they going to amend their systems to allow bigger credits to build up this year, over summer, as due to the price hikes, balances are going to have to be substantially higher by the the end of summer, in preparation for Winter?

Personally, our credit will need to build up to c.£700 by October, to cover winter at the same DD level.    If this was to get paid back to people, automatically, if it reaches, say £500, it risks being spent on other things, causing even more of a problem come October. 

Do we think they'll be "on the ball" with this, and stop offering auto-credits?

If someone gets an auto-credit they could just not spend it until it is needed again. Rather than building up £700 of credit with the energy provider between now and October, why not just put £100 pcm to one side and then pay it if/when needed?

Personally I have seen little point in building up credit to run it down again over a period of time, my Direct Debits are on a 6 month cycle, higher in colder months, lower in the warmer months. 

jimexbox

In the past Eon have refunded excess amount with me asking for it. 

GunJack

I have this happen with our water company - every bill (6-monthly) they say we're reducing your DD 'coz you have credit, and I have to phone them and tell them not to do that or refund my credit.... it's a right PITA but their take is that the Regulator says they should do this so they have their systems set up to do so.

If it was every month with an energy supplier I think I'd lose the will to live

northwalesd

MWT said:

do any of the suppliers actually refund without seeking approval from the customer?

Scottish Power do it to us every single year.

Sea_Shell

I wasn't really asking about my own situation, I was just thinking of the wider picture.

I guess I could ask for my £200 credit to be refunded...and then recycle it back in again.  More Santander cashback😉