Electricity budget plans/direct debit issue

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TL:DR elec company seem to have been carrying all debit balances into next bills but not carrying all credit balances over (esp larger amount at annual review times)

Got notice of an annual review & uplift in my d/d but am in currently in credit so was confused as to why.

Rang to find out and got fobbed off a bit so I asked for a further review and hope to be called back tomorrow.

So meantime decided to check all bills for last year - and discovered that last annual review my credit from the previous year had not been brought forward

I’ve downloaded all bills for last 3years and found the same has happened before

So now I’m having to manually check each bill

It seems (to me) that having been on a ‘pay each bill in full every month which leaves zero balance before the next bill’ set up, when I’ve moved to budgeting plan/direct debit they have not carried forward any payment over usage into the next bill

i.e. £30 d/d but £26 usage should mean £4 credit carries over to next bill (so £30 d/d+£4cr = balance £34 towards next bill)

They’ve carried over debits (when I’ve paid £30 d/d but used £36 in elec the £6 not covered runs on to next bill so next £30-£6=£24 credit to come off next bill)

Essentially if I use on the dot £30 all well and good, if I use more than £30 the debit excess carries on to next bill (as it should) BUT when I’ve used less elec than £30 the company have just pocketed the credit excess instead of carrying it over to come off the next bill.

Anyways I’m hoping to get it sorted (& all money/credit acknowledged or refunded) but with rising costs I thought I’d post to remind anyone who hasn’t checked recently to have a look over your d/d payments Vs actual usage on your bills and check that any credit is being rolled on to next bill.

I used to be right on top of checking (after a previous company balls up!) but I had a terrible couple years when I was incapable of checking - now wishing I had asked my support worker to help and I might have caught this issue sooner - and worried less than I have about money.

At least I’m lucky in that I am owed money rather than owing them! but I suspect they might have put a bit more effort into identifying the problem if it had been the other way about.

Anyone else had good (or bad!) shock at reviewing their d/d bills?

Are you sure they didn't return your credit balance to your bank account at your annual review as some of the utility companies do that to bring your balance back to £0. I was with one that did that - returned my credit balance but then increased my monthly direct debit!

Thanks Pixie I hadn’t thought of that but when I rang my bank to get exact dates of d/d changes they suggested checking to see if any payments had been reversed etc so I know that no payments came back in during 3months either side of two of the credit retentions.

I will have to check bank statements for the other times though as I felt bad getting bank to check through tho they are brilliant and told me they’ll check for me if it’s too much which is good of them or prudent as a rebate/fix would mean less chance of me dipping into arranged overdraft

I’m on a fixed income too so pretty sure even during the ‘lost’ years when I wasn’t on top of admin that I would have noticed additional income coming in because at times it was hunt the back of the sofa/car/purse/pockets to get by