SSE Refund

Deenport

Hi, my elderly parents are currently £1472 in Credit with SSE and calculated DD is £181 per month, previously £210. They obviously don’t need the DD so high so they reduced it to the minimum required, £181 recently. 

They have requested a partial refund from SSE numerous times over the past 6 weeks and each time they call a meter reading is taken, they are told the amount of refund (which has ranged from approximately £500 to £1050, within the same billing period) and that it will be credited to their bank within 5-7 days. When no money appears, they call SSE back and are told that the previous agent did not complete the reading correctly and that the Finance department rejected the request. 

They go through the same process again with the same 7 day wait with the same result. 

They have escalated a complaint, this has been acknowledged, but then radio silence. 

I know they will soon be able to contact the ombudsman, but they will take another several weeks or months and they could be done with the money now. I have 2 questions really, 
1 - does anyone have advice on how to get their refund

2- they want to switch suppler but I am concerned that because they have to keep DD live for any refund, SSE will continue to take monthly DD, so what can they do about that?

thanks in advance 

molerat

Unfortunately par for the course with SSE.  My SIL had exactly the same     - meter reads, photos, more meter reads, promises, more meter reads then a complaint.  Took about 6 weeks from complaint to receiving money in her bank.  About 3 months overall.

pseudodox

I cannot advise re the refund but having had issues myself with SSE I decided to jump ship a couple of weeks ago.  I have gone to EDF.  You can only switch by phoning them and when the arrange it they say it will be done within 28 days.  However they do have to give you a cooling off period of 14 days before they start the process.  BUT you can request to switch within this period which is done in around 5 working days.  This is on the understanding you can still change your mind but then will be liable for any cost of energy since they took over your account.  They will inform SSE they are taking you on and then SSE have no choice but to take payment from your pot built up with them for any usage from them up to the switch day then they HAVE to stop taking DDs and return any balance you have with them.  Do not be tempted to stop your DD as that is the account they will use to repay you.

The only other supplier that the forum here could suggest a move to was Octopus, but they are very busy absorbing Bulb customers so I am not sure how long it takes to get through to them as they also will only take phone contact.  I had no long wait issues with contacting EDF as soon as their lines opened at 8am.

ariarnia

if they can escalate to the ombusman soon then they should sort it quickly enough.

hopefully you have had at least one of the promised refunds in writing (by email) and can send that with pictures of the account balance and meter readings or pictures of the meters.

Deenport

pseudodox said:

I cannot advise re the refund but having had issues myself with SSE I decided to jump ship a couple of weeks ago.  I have gone to EDF.  You can only switch by phoning them and when the arrange it they say it will be done within 28 days.  However they do have to give you a cooling off period of 14 days before they start the process.  BUT you can request to switch within this period which is done in around 5 working days.  This is on the understanding you can still change your mind but then will be liable for any cost of energy since they took over your account.  They will inform SSE they are taking you on and then SSE have no choice but to take payment from your pot built up with them for any usage from them up to the switch day then they HAVE to stop taking DDs and return any balance you have with them.  Do not be tempted to stop your DD as that is the account they will use to repay you.

The only other supplier that the forum here could suggest a move to was Octopus, but they are very busy absorbing Bulb customers so I am not sure how long it takes to get through to them as they also will only take phone contact.  I had no long wait issues with contacting SSE as soon as their lines opened at 8am.

Thank you, I’m with OctopusEnergy and have only good things to say about them. It’s so frustrating, it seems that SSE simply do not want to refund any money. I understand about not cancelling the DD but am worried that although they should not take out any more money after account switch, they will continue to do so and there’s nothing they can do to stop them. But thank you for your suggestions 

Deenport

ariarnia said:

if they can escalate to the ombusman soon then they should sort it quickly enough.

hopefully you have had at least one of the promised refunds in writing (by email) and can send that with pictures of the account balance and meter readings or pictures of the meters. 

All communications by WhatsApp and she does still have the conversation trail. Each time they call, SSE do a meter reading and calculate the amount, and each time it differs, initially she only wanted a part refund of £300, but as the debacle escalated, and they said the amount to refund was higher, I suggested to her that she gets as much out as possible, and banks it in case it’s needed for higher energy bills in future, but that she leaves as little in account as possible so SSE don’t have all her money. 

It’s shocking how they are treating customers, you only get through to a call centre in the Philippines and the staff there really don’t care as they have no incentive to do a good job, no come back or responsibility is taken. They give lip service, then hang up and move on. 

ariarnia

Deenport said:

ariarnia said:

if they can escalate to the ombusman soon then they should sort it quickly enough.

hopefully you have had at least one of the promised refunds in writing (by email) and can send that with pictures of the account balance and meter readings or pictures of the meters. 

All communications by WhatsApp and she does still have the conversation trail. Each time they call, SSE do a meter reading and calculate the amount, and each time it differs, initially she only wanted a part refund of £300, but as the debacle escalated, and they said the amount to refund was higher, I suggested to her that she gets as much out as possible, and banks it in case it’s needed for higher energy bills in future, but that she leaves as little in account as possible so SSE don’t have all her money.

it sounds like the cs person is putting the request in but the finance department are pushing it back for some reason. unfortunately it could be the cs person you are talking to can't even see on the system what the problem is and it will be when someone looks at the complaint file for the ombudsman that you might learn more (or the money might just land in her account. then you might want to push through with the complaint for token compensation or give up because it is actually a bit of hasle).

i have no idea why in this case but i can kinda remember someone on here had a similar problem a while back and i think it was because they had given a wrong opening reading when moving to that supplier so the finance department were saying they were actually being asked to refund more money to the customer than they had ever received from the customer. i think in that case they had to go back to the previous supplier to confirm what the closing reading should have been then the 2 suppliers worked out between them who should refund who how much if you see what i mean?