Chase Cashback and Energy Bills

Craig_1988

Hello,

I am fairly new posting here, so apologies if I'm in the wrong forum! I would like to get your views on the following:

I pay my Energy bill via Direct Debit but have the option to 'top up' via a credit/debit card payment. I have a bank account (not my main account and not the one that the Direct Debit comes out of) which pays 1% on card spending, including energy bills (I tested this by making a £5 payment and the 5p cashback was available immediately). Chase takes the cashback off of you if the transaction is later refunded. My energy provider has an easy way of requesting your 'in credit' balance to be refunded to you and it happens within a few days - it is refunded via the Direct Debit method of payment (NOT the debit card).

So the question is this:
Would there be any problem with just recycling the money? i.e. I'll just pay £500 to my energy provider via my Debit Card and then immediately request the £500 is refunded to me and it'll come back to the direct debit bank account - rinse & repeat and make £5 cashback anytime?

I don't see anything in either the energy provider or Chase's T&Cs that prohibit this.

Many thanks!

Daliah

You might get away with doing this once or twice, but you won't be popular (to put it mildly) if you are making a habit out of it. Very worst case it will earn you a refund fraud marker at CIFAS, and have all your banking facilities closed, like what seems to have happened to the poster in the link.

phillw

Daliah said:

You might get away with doing this once or twice, but you won't be popular (to put it mildly) if you are making a habit out of it. Very worst case it will earn you a refund fraud marker at CIFAS, and have all your banking facilities closed, like what seems to have happened to the poster in the link.

Refund fraud is where you buy something, claim it never arrived and demand a refund.

I'm not sure it would be correct to apply a fraud marker for making payments and then having them returned.

However if chase notice you're putting £500 a month through your energy provider then they might close your account.

Bigwheels1111

I stopped my DD with Octopus as they wanted to charge 2.5 X what I was paying.
Even though I was £350 in credit.
I now pay with chase card, £200 a month and £2 cashback from chase.
4 months in and no issues.
Your way looks a bit dodgy.

masonic

I've been paying my normal energy bills by card for almost a year. I wouldn't take the pee and try to recycle cash.

Vortigern

phillw said

However if chase notice you're putting £500 a month through your energy provider then they might close your account.

£500 per month could soon be the new normal