Energy refund not issued

Snowdrop_75

I requested a refund from British Gas on 5th July £250 for my electricity and £350 for my gas.  I have received the £250 for the electricity however they keep telling me they are waiting on the back office authorising the £350 for my gas - how do I get my money back from them.  They will not let me speak to the case handler "Simon" and I am about to blow a gasket!  They are making interest from my money and I would like it back - any tips?

MattMattMattUK

Snowdrop_75 said:

I requested a refund from British Gas on 5th July £250 for my electricity and £350 for my gas.  I have received the £250 for the electricity however they keep telling me they are waiting on the back office authorising the £350 for my gas - how do I get my money back from them.  They will not let me speak to the case handler "Simon" and I am about to blow a gasket!

There is no point in "blowing a gasket".

Snowdrop_75 said:

They are making interest from my money and I would like it back

They are not making interest on the money you have in your account.

Snowdrop_75 said:

any tips?

Clarify if the account is actually in credit first, BG do not normally hold separate pots for gas and electricity, it is normally a single account with two cost lines against it. Check when you last submitted meter readings if you are not on a smart meter and if you are not on a smart meter then submit a reading. What is your current monthly Direct Debit and how much energy do you use in a year? In general they will not let you take your account down to less than one month's usage as a credit. Finally, if you get nowhere after checking that then you could raise a formal complaint, but you need to make sure you have your ducks in a row first or it will be rejected outright. 

Snowdrop_75

It is through Scottish Gas and I have two separate energy accounts and two separate direct debits and they have refunded the electricity amount I asked.  I currently have £500 in credit, don't have a smart meter and put in a meter reading once a month - my direct debit for my gas was at £195 a month, funnily enough they tried to change it to £29 when I asked for the refund and I upped it as I do not want to owe them money in winter.  Taking the £350 was still leaving my account with enough credit for one month's payment too

Swipe

If you are struggling with refunds, the only guaranteed method is to switch supplier.

Qyburn

MattMattMattUK said:

They are not making interest on the money you have in your account.

Why not, just purely out of curiosity? In any case by hanging onto the money they're stopping the customer earning interest, even if they're not managing do do so themselves.

CSI_Yorkshire

Qyburn said:

MattMattMattUK said:

They are not making interest on the money you have in your account.

Why not, just purely out of curiosity? In any case by hanging onto the money they're stopping the customer earning interest, even if they're not managing do do so themselves.

Likely because it isn't ring-fenced (and the decision not to ring-fence appears to have been re-confirmed), so the customer credit isn't just sat in an account somewhere.  The credit has probably already been spent (at least in part) on forward purchasing energy.

Energy suppliers don't tend to be sat on large cash balances.

MattMattMattUK

Qyburn said:

MattMattMattUK said:

They are not making interest on the money you have in your account.

Why not, just purely out of curiosity? In any case by hanging onto the money they're stopping the customer earning interest, even if they're not managing do do so themselves.

Likely because of what Yorkshire said, there is not a bank account and/or investment filled with the customers deposits, it is used to purchase future supply contracts for energy, in a lot of cases on a one year fix the energy to supply a batch of fixes to cover one and two week intervals is bought at the point the contract is fixed, to guarantee the price, in other cases the contract is signed and then paid monthly by the supplier to the generator etc.

Energy suppliers do not sit on large balances, they use the customer balances to pre-purchase energy for those customers, and use flexible finance to cover the difference in combination with capital within the businesses. 

It was pointed out that if customer funds were ringfenced then bills would need to rise by the cost of finance, it was projected before the current interest rate rises that would end up adding around 5% to bills. Alternatively customers pay the spot rate for energy and pay on consumption, or they pay upfront to get an upfront rate. 

Qyburn

Irrespective I can't see how the customer credit doesn't either increase the supplier's credit balance somewhere, or reduce their debt somewhere else. Same if they spend it, if they didn't have it then they need to raise money elsewhere. I'm quite sure that their "flexible finance" has a cost.

In any case as I say, if they do manage their finances in a strange way that means they are no better off by holding credit balances, there's no doubt that the customer is worse off as a result.