Energy Ombudsman agrees with supplier, I don't !

[Deleted User]

Hi,

knight5 said:

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

what tariff applies to your garage?

Was it once a repair shop?

You say you're now in debt, but the £400 is in your bank account, pay it back take the £120 and accept it was a mistake.

Basic variable tariff.
Never been a repair shop, just a single garage.
My electricity account is in debit.
EBSS payments go monthly into that account, not into a bank account.

ok, reread earlier post, so the £400 was transferred to your house account, so just ask to get it transferred back to garage account and clear debit.

lohr500

Frankly I have no sympathy for your situation. 

The fact that it took some time for the system checks and balances to realise that you had been incorrectly paid £400 is hardly surprising. The whole process was put together at very short notice and in my opinion rolled out as well as it could have been, given the complexity of determining who would qualify automatically and who would need to apply manually. As a result some payments would have been made that shouldn't have been.

The call centre person you spoke to in March regarding transferring the £400 across would presumably have had no idea at that time that the £400 would be recalled due to it being an erroneous payment. She was helping with an administrative transfer.

What we don't know after the March transfer event  is if the energy supplier decided the garage account payment was in error, or if this was as a result of some post payment checking activity by the EBSS scheme department.

But either way, it can't be right for you to receive £400 EBSS payment on a disused garage.

The only failure as I see it, is that nobody notified you to advise you that the £400 payment on the garage account had been made in error as that account wasn't eligible for support. And for that, the EO has awarded you £120 which seems very generous.

Surely the thought must have crossed your mind that it wasn't right to be receiving £400 support to help with your energy costs fin a garage where you use no energy.

molerat

The only failure as I see it, is that nobody notified you to advise you that the £400 payment on the garage account had been made in error as that account wasn't eligible for support.

SIL got the £400 EBSS plus the £200 AFP for an empty property that pays electric SC only and does not have alternative fuel heating anyway.

Spoonie_Turtle

molerat said:

The only failure as I see it, is that nobody notified you to advise you that the £400 payment on the garage account had been made in error as that account wasn't eligible for support.

SIL got the £400 EBSS plus the £200 AFP for an empty property that pays electric SC only and does not have alternative fuel heating anyway.

The explanation there is it's a domestic/residential property with its own account with a supplier (I can't remember what the exact wording of the EBSS was) and with the AFP, if the area itself automatically qualified then everyone within it did regardless of whether they actually used alternative fuels or not.

In the OP's situation presumably the garage isn't a residential property / a household, so it didn't count.  

molerat

Spoonie_Turtle said:

molerat said:

The only failure as I see it, is that nobody notified you to advise you that the £400 payment on the garage account had been made in error as that account wasn't eligible for support.

SIL got the £400 EBSS plus the £200 AFP for an empty property that pays electric SC only and does not have alternative fuel heating anyway.

The explanation there is it's a domestic/residential property with its own account with a supplier (I can't remember what the exact wording of the EBSS was) and with the AFP, if the area itself automatically qualified then everyone within it did regardless of whether they actually used alternative fuels or not.

In the OP's situation presumably the garage isn't a residential property / a household, so it didn't count.  

I wonder how the supply to a domestic garage is designated or recorded on the national database.  I suspect there were many that received the payment.

ArbitraryRandom

knight5 said:

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

what tariff applies to your garage?

Was it once a repair shop?

You say you're now in debt, but the £400 is in your bank account, pay it back take the £120 and accept it was a mistake.

Basic variable tariff.
Never been a repair shop, just a single garage.
My electricity account is in debit.
EBSS payments go monthly into that account, not into a bank account.

One of your two accounts is in debt - because you transferred £400 credit from one to the other. 

Hopefully either your household account is at least £400 in credit (we're entering the winter heating period so having a decent amount of credit is sensible for anyone) or you have 'saved' £400 of your income by reducing your regular energy payments?

If neither are the case then you have spent £400 more than you otherwise would have done - hopefully on something worth while, and can now consider that a £400 interest free loan from the energy company. 

I'm struggling to understand what you actually want from this thread/the ombudsman case... well... I'm assuming you want the £400 plus the £120 compensation - but why do you think it's justified?

To put it another way, what harm do you think you have actually experienced as a result of this mistake that means you should be entitled to keep the money that was mistakenly paid?

Would you feel the same way if you were mistakenly paid £2000 rather than £400?  

deano2099

Bendo said:

I can see your supplier revisiting it's kind decision to not charge you a standing charge over this.

You have it good, paying nothing when arguably you should be and are £120 up. I'd stop poking.

This bears repeating.
As far as I'm aware (though some others more informed may be able to clarify), the OP's situation where they get the standing charge on the garage refunded without having the supply disconnected is a discretionary choice on behalf of the supplier, rather than something they're obliged to offer, and isn't particularly normal?
Regardless of who is right or wrong in the case of the EBSS payment, my thinking would be that escalating it further would be a bad idea - this feels like a situation where you actually want to avoid anyone with greater authority examining the accounts in any great detail.