How long after transfer to new supplier does it take for British Gas to issue refund?

chubsta

Following on from my long saga of getting away from British Gas' clutches to go to Octopus, how long does it normally take for a refund of my credit balance with BG to be issued? Octopus' email says it can be between 8 weeks and 8 months which to me seems a bit extreme given everything is computerised these days but as I had a very difficult time actually leaving BG I wouldn't be surprised if they did a Norbert Colon on my money.

The balance is approximately £450 so would come in handy to credit to my Octopus account at the start of Winter...

MultiFuelBurner

You have moved from a dinosaur of an energy company to a leading edge one. 

How long is a piece of string, you might get lucky.

I would have sorted out a credit before the switch but again BG are apparently in a bit of a mess going from an old to a new system.

QrizB

IIRC, BG have six weeks to issue you with a "final" bill, and then six weeks to refund any credit balance.

Failing to meet those dates should result in an automatic £30 penalty credit to you.

Note that BG can continue to issue revised final bills for at least the next 12 months, and potentially for 6 years.

ArbitraryRandom

QrizB said:

IIRC, BG have six weeks to issue you with a "final" bill, and then six weeks to refund any credit balance.

Failing to meet those dates should result in an automatic £30 penalty credit to you.

Note that BG can continue to issue revised final bills for at least the next 12 months, and potentially for 6 years.

And if they don't pay the compensation for either of the above within 10 days then that's a further breach of the standards and earns you another £30... 

franksidebottom

I’m not familiar with your saga but have you initiated the transfer? I recently switched away from BG to EON but immediately prior to that I requested a refund of £500 credit from BG leaving just enough + small surplus to cover final bill. It took a couple of days to get the £500 back. I thought it was that or wait several weeks after switching.

chubsta

franksidebottom said:

I’m not familiar with your saga but have you initiated the transfer? I recently switched away from BG to EON but immediately prior to that I requested a refund of £500 credit from BG leaving just enough + small surplus to cover final bill. It took a couple of days to get the £500 back. I thought it was that or wait several weeks after switching.

Unfortunately it was all I could do to stop them increasing my dd from £75 to £520, trying to get my credit refunded was the last thing on my mind at the time…

vic_sf49

Took a couple of days for my gas bill, another couple for my electric bill, then a few days for the refund. 

Think it was about a week in total for BG to wrap up my account.