British Gas asking for refund to be repaid

GingerTim

To be fair, I don't see where it says they can't do that, either!

Ectophile

The legalities here are unclear and murky.  There is a common law of Restitution which would allow British Gas to claim the money back, and a defence of "change of position" or "unjust disenrichment".

But as it's common law, you can't go to the government web site and read the law.  It's entirely a collection of case law.

BobT36

If you've been sending readings in and they've still only been billing on estimates, you may be able to push for a goodwill gesture at least because, aren't they in breach of their licensing conditions? At least they used to be: 

commytommy

Regarding the meter reading history.

I have just checked my account and all meter readings I submitted over the last 2 year have been removed and only 4 meter reading remain. 3 estimates and 1 smart meter reading.

Last month when I checked this there was loads of meter readings.

Perhaps there has been some kind of software glitch

MWT

Sailbad said:

MWT said:

Back-billing is unlikely to help, the Ombudsman has ruled that the supplier is entitled to use any direct debit payments made at the time to cover use beyond the 12 month period and to reverse refunds of those amounts if any were given..

I have searched the internet looking for confirmation of this but the only source I can find is this forum.
If this loophole exists then surely in must be defined on Ofgem's or some other official website.
Can you point me to the source please?

Pretty sure this has been asked and answered before.

The confirmation of this is in the reports of the Ombudsman's decisions, not directly in Ofgem regulations as it depends on the normal interpretation of the Direct Debit payments being just that, payments to the supplier, and the interpretation of 'bill shock' which is what Ofgem were trying to avoid with the back-billing rules.

The Ombudsman has been consistent in the view that a customer cannot suffer bill-shock when payments they have made to the supplier are used to pay for energy consumed by the customer.

Similarly errors in refunds in general, do not create a right for the recipient to retain the refund, this is not specific to the energy industry but is a general principle, tried and tested over the years, often in relation to bank errors...

Plip21

British gas did this to me - I noticed a day or so prior to the email going out! 

Checked my account one day and a fair wack of money had been added. I rang through and said I believed they had got it wrong - and they agreed, and re-ran the figures.  

I wonder how many people have been affected with this, and then different information being given out - I think I would be in the same position as you if they insisted the credit was correct. 

commytommy

Hi,

Just an update for this.

Went to the financial ombudsman. They basically agreed with everything I said and had the emails etc to back it up.

However I was told that because the energy had been used at that price there was technically nothing they could do.

They were instructed to pay £150 goodwill, apology etc but basically need to repay the rest.

Cheers