Credit balance

skyeblue

Our electricty supplier credited all the money we were due for the cost of living payments, including the one for having oil for central heating, to our electricity account. Therefore we are several hundred pounds in credit.
If we were to switch suppliers, would that credit balance move with us, would it be refunded, or would we lose it?

Netexporter

It will be refunded.

If you currently pay by direct debit, don't cancel it as they can then make the refund direct to your account. Otherwise you'll have a cheque to pay in.

Rodders53

Ask them to refund the credit (most not all) to your bank account asap. 
No need to switch supplier.

(Mind EonNext made it as hard as they could when I asked the same. Same reasons for the credit (oil etc,)!  Eventually got it. Now on Variable DD and had a £30 apology credit).

Why on earth have you waited this long?

born_again

skyeblue said:

Our electricty supplier credited all the money we were due for the cost of living payments, including the one for having oil for central heating, to our electricity account. Therefore we are several hundred pounds in credit.
If we were to switch suppliers, would that credit balance move with us, would it be refunded, or would we lose it?

Depends on just how big your credit is. How much you use a month etc.


If you switch.
Old supplier would issue a final bill & then refund the balance after you switch. (Eon Next took 6 weeks for me)
So make sure that they have not been estimating your bills so you get a shock when you send closing reading in, only to find that your credit balance disappears as they have under estimated.
Also remember that your DD will be higher @ new supplier than you were paying as you are starting from a zero balance with the biggest bills incoming over the next few months.

If you stay.
Then they will not refund all the credit, as with colder months approaching & higher bills as a norm. You would end up with a very high DD to cover the colder months.

Scot_39

EOnNext were offering me the option to ask for a refund online last month.

Have you looked or talked to the supplier or are you just wanting to switch anyway ?

As several others have had offering and taken back cash too.

They werent offering me 100% of my credit back - but around 2/3rds of it.

Took 9 workings days to reach bank account.

Due I suspect to time of year - keeping roughly 2 summer months - but less than 1 cold winters month of that in credit for coming months - and also to increase my DD.

Hardly surprising given DD already set artificially low as lowered in Apr and again in Jul as rates dropped to clear over £300 in credit over next 12 months.

skyeblue

Thanks for the responses. It is with British/Scottish Gas which we were put on when a previous company no longer existed. We have not done anything about it before now as there was no urgency, and we wanted to see what the different companies would be offering in the way of charges. We still have not decided what to do, whether to stay with Scottish Gas or swap to something with a lower standing charge, as we do not use much electricity. I thought I would find out what might happen.

ArbitraryRandom

If you are staying on the variable rate then the price will be much the same wherever - octopus I think have a slightly (5%?) lower standing charge and someone mentioned a discount with EDF for those on low income that you might qualify for if you were eligible for the cost of living payments.

If you are open to a fix or time of use tariff, such as agile, then you can save money depending on when you tend to use your energy. It sounds a faff but it's really just thinking about things like  if you need to put the washing machine on now vs in a couple of hours/at the weekend - and there are times fairly regularly when electric is pence or they end up paying you to use energy. A bit more complicated than flat rate but if you're interested then there's a long thread where you can ask questions. 

Also remember that if you stay with your current supplier you don't have to request your full balance (and they might insist on keeping the equivalent of a couple of months payments) - if you switch they will take a final reading and pay you everything over that back (it might take 6 weeks for a final bill). 

One thing you might find if you move supplier is that they want to put your DD up (you would be joining them at the start of winter and without any credit balance) - so I would recommend that either way you have a look at your bills for the last 12 months (make sure they're not estimates) and try to work out what your expected spend will be.