British Gas Refusing To Refund £2300 Credit.

marknic79

Has anyone else had the same issue with British gas? I called them asking for a refund on my gas account of £2300. They flat out refused to issue the refund saying I owe too much for the coming months. I don't get how that works because if I was paying too less why would I be so far in credit. They throw a load of numbers at you to try confuse you. I reminded them that they are a utility company and not a bank and they have no right to with hold my money. Anyone got any help on this for me to try and understand?

[Deleted User]

I struggle to understand - with energy prices so high - how anybody could build up a credit balance of £2300. Before any supplier will agree to a refund, it will need to raise a bill based on actual meter readings. When did you last receive a bill from BG and were actual meter readings used to calculate the credit balance?  How much have you paid BG since the last bill was raised?

marknic79

I last had a bill in January this year which stated that i was £220 in Debit. They obviously raised my DD to coincide with this. I now track my usage online via the app and i never exceed my monthly payment of £508 p/m. I just cant understand how they can keep that much of my money.

Clive_Woody

When is your next bill as it sounds like this could wipe out a large chunk of your current credit balance?

marknic79

December. I never go above my usage even In the middle of winter so I cant see much credit being used. 

Alnat1

The 'balance' you are seeing is the final figure from your previous bill, plus all the payments you have made since. No debits for energy use are applied until another bill is produced. 

If your last bill was in January, BG will probably issue the next bill sometime this month. You will most likely find a lot of the credit gets used up with 6 months energy charges.

fordyms

marknic79 said:

Has anyone else had the same issue with British gas? I called them asking for a refund on my gas account of £2300. They flat out refused to issue the refund saying I owe too much for the coming months. I don't get how that works because if I was paying too less why would I be so far in credit. They throw a load of numbers at you to try confuse you. I reminded them that they are a utility company and not a bank and they have no right to with hold my money. Anyone got any help on this for me to try and understand?

SWITCH

My recently widowed mother has a credit balance of over £1000, monthly DD of £98 - neither of which they will refund any of it, or reduce the DD.  Her last 6 x 6-monthly bills have all been under £350, so average max of £60 a month. Disgraceful. 

I will be switching her to Octopus very shortly.  

[Deleted User]

i never exceed my monthly payment of £508 p/m.

How much energy do you use in a year (in kWh)? There is no way that I would ever agree to an annual payment of £6096 a year without carrying out a detailed calculation of my own.

Jyana

marknic79 said:

I last had a bill in January this year which stated that i was £220 in Debit. They obviously raised my DD to coincide with this. I now track my usage online via the app and i never exceed my monthly payment of £508 p/m. I just cant understand how they can keep that much of my money.

That money is to cover the energy you have used since your bill in January. If you ask them to draw up a current bill for you - you may need to give them up to date readings if you don't have a smart meter - and then they will be able to work out what your actual balance is once they use the funds to pay towards that bill.

Then you can see where you are at credit/debit wise and if it's possible to get a refund, and if you need to up/lower your direct debit by any.

Gimli81

No energy company can refuse to refund a customers credit on there account and from my experience none ever do refuse but there are certain things that need to be done before a credit can be refunded. Ofgem have strict rules around credit balances on a customer account for energy suppliers to follow. Unfortunately not many people understand or know what these rules are and how this all works.

As you say you were last billed on your account in January which created a debit balance on your account so the DD was put up to compensate this. Since then you have used 6 months worth of energy and most of that has been through the colder months were we all is a lot more energy. As with a DD you pay for the energy you use up front creating the credit balances and your bills are them deducted from this balance. Any credit left goes towards your next bill and over the summer saves up money to pay for the extra you use in winter. Hence why you pay more than you use in summer and less that you use in winter typically.

When it comes to refunding credit balances energy suppliers have to work to a duty of care towards customers so not to put them in debt as well as not refusing to refund a credit balance. This is why energy suppliers will ask to take up to date meter readings before they will refund a credit balance in no meter reads have been provided in the last 28 days. If an energy supplier just refunded you £2300 without taking a meter reading I will certainly guarantee that this would put your account into debt once a bill is created and you will then end up with a very big increase in your DD payments to pay back the debt.

I would say the same as others when you do provide your meter readings a very large chuck of your balance will pay for the energy you have used in the last 6 months. If you get your current meter readings and call British Gas get the account billed up to date and once you have the balance on your account any credit will be refunded back to your bank account or it can stay on your account and potentially lower the DD payments you make every month. Unfortunately this can also go the other way as well you could have used more than what you have paid for and your account could be in debit which could push up your energy payments higher. 

The long and short of it is due to the duty of care an energy supplier has to follow no energy suppliers will refund an account unless it is billed to accurate meter readings at the time. Even if the account has been billed to an estimated reading it will need a correct reading before a credit balance will be refunded.

MattMattMattUK

Gimli81 said:

No energy company can refuse to refund a customers credit on there account and from my experience none ever do refuse but there are certain things that need to be done before a credit can be refunded. Ofgem have strict rules around credit balances on a customer account for energy suppliers to follow. Unfortunately not many people understand or know what these rules are and how this all works.

Yes they can, the Ofgem rules specifically allow it when a bill has not been issued for a certain period, which is not unusual with 6 month billing cycles that BG and EDF operate on, though they are then required to process a bill to account and then process and then process a refund if required, though they are allowed to retain up to one months estimated annualised usage. However this is further complicated by their obligations to stop customers falling into debt.