Octopus not returning credit balance - what to do?

TraySelect

I emailed Octopus 8 days ago to ask for a refund of a 160 credit balance on my duel fuel account. I heard nothing from them and emailed again 3 days ago. Still nothing.

My monthly DD and the 66pm government bill reduction for Oct22-March23 will be more than enough to cover the winter costs.

I'm on a fix until June 2023, and know how much energy is used here, and its cost.

How do I get this 160 credit balance back from Octopus? I can make more use of it in an interest-bearing account, than I can leaving it with Octopus.

Ultrasonic

TraySelect said:

My monthly DD and the 66pm government bill reduction for Oct22-March23 will be more than enough to cover the winter costs.

Unless Octopus are doing something odd, you won't be seeing £66/£67 added to your current DD amount, but rather you'll be getting this amount either not taken in the first place, or quickly refunded to you.

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

Octopus are really behind at the moment, i have heard of people waiting 2-3 weeks for a reply. You can call them tomorrow and request a refund over the phone, or send them a DM on Twitter, as those are the quick ways to contact them atm, also take a upto date meter reading as they will need that to bill the account upto date in order to issue the refund.

Also £160 credit is not very much at this time of year as we head into the colder months. if i was you i would only request this back if i really needed it, as there is a very high chance the Direct Debit will go up as the credit you built up over summer is then gone!

Chrysalis

They deffo are treating emails as the lowest of low priority, which seems counter productive if they want to get people of the phones.

I would ring them.  I only use emails now if either I dont mind waiting a couple of weeks or want a email trail of what I am asking.

Also if the email request is complex it seems its not unusual for it not get answered at all, seems to be some cherry picking going on.

MWT

TraySelect said:

My monthly DD and the 66pm government bill reduction for Oct22-March23 will be more than enough to cover the winter costs.

Based on what you've said, you are going to need to increase your DD to cover the winter bills as the £66 will be deducted from your DD, not put into the account in addition to the DD.

Re the email, there are some long backlogs right now, so the lack of response is not a refusal, just your email stuck in a long queue.

As others have suggested, you can phone, or just wait a while longer, or decide to leave the money there and let it come back to you £66 at a time over the next 6 months...

TraySelect

Thanks for all the help. My bad not realising the 66 is decucted not added.

Octopus have just responded, they will be refunding the balance.

vienly

Chrysalis said:

They deffo are treating emails as the lowest of low priority, which seems counter productive if they want to get people of the phones.

I would ring them.  I only use emails now if either I dont mind waiting a couple of weeks or want a email trail of what I am asking.

Also if the email request is complex it seems its not unusual for it not get answered at all, seems to be some cherry picking going on.

they say 1 day 14 hours, for me it's always 2 weeks or more lol
always call them if you need something, majority of the things gets sorted over the phone

dunstonh

I emailed Octopus 8 days ago to ask for a refund of a 160 credit balance on my duel fuel account. I heard nothing from them and emailed again 3 days ago. Still nothing.

£160 is not a lot to have in summer credit on a £66 monthly payment.  Are you sure your figures add up?

born_again

I would now expect a post saying they want to increase DD to XXX. 

Op sent email 3 days ago.
So that covers Sat, Sun & bank holiday.. So reduced staff over weekend & super reduced staff for bank holiday. As someone working in customer services. I always find it interesting that people expect us to work fully staffed 7 days a week.🤦‍♀️👀🤣
Would have been so nice to actually have a bank holiday off & not have to work 😢

bristolleedsfan

born_again said:

Op sent email 3 days ago.
So that covers Sat, Sun & bank holiday.. So reduced staff over weekend & super reduced staff for bank holiday. As someone working in customer services. I always find it interesting that people expect us to work fully staffed 7 days a week.🤦‍♀️👀🤣
Would have been so nice to actually have a bank holiday off & not have to work 😢

O/P emailed originally 8 days ago, Octopus claim to be usually pretty speedy replying to emails every time someone tweets to say not had a reply after xxx days

https://twitter.com/OctopusEnergy/status/1572133994208317442

"we're usually pretty speedy with our email responses"

vienly

I sent them an email on the 31 Aug 2022, didn't get reply until 12/09/2022, I replied to their email and didn't get a response until today.

So initial email took them 12 days to respond.
2nd email took 8 days for them to respond

No where near their estimated time scale of 1 day 14 hours (picture above)

Always quicker to call and talk to someone despite what they say about email response times