British Gas - in credit by 4 months payments

[Mackerz]

I’m fuming with British Gas. They insisted on setting my direct debit for dual fuel at a high amount, almost twice what we were paying in our last similarly sized place. Unsurprisingly we ran up a credit quickly, numerous calls to try and get them to give us a refund which they kept promising but not delivering. They eventually reduced our direct debit but it’s still slightly higher than our average monthly usage and they haven’t given us the £400 overpayments back. This is ridiculous, the amount of customer money they must hold is like them having an unsecured and interest free loan. I’ve just cancelled my direct debit to them and they can just take each monthly payment out of the credit we have accrued with them, until the credit runs out when I’ll either set it up again, or change supplier.

Are all energy companies this shit to customers? Can anyone recommend a better one?

@DiploCat1

How did you do that? I can’t do much via the app, it won’t let me change my dd or claim money back. I’ve phoned them three times now, kept in a queue for ages and they still haven’t given me a refund.

There's an option under payments to change DD amount x

I haven’t got access to the direct debit manager on the app.

Is it apple or Android? I know the two have different apps. Does it give you the option via their website?

Apple.

I’ll have a look on their website too.

Well my email to them last week and cancellation of my direct debit have prompted a letter from their customer service team - my account is under review. They shouldn’t make it this hard to get your own money back though!

You can request a refund and change your direct debit amount online. I've just done a refund on Friday and it's in my account today.

Didn’t work on the Apple app. I only had access to bills (showing my usage and direct debit). Wouldn’t let me access my direct debit.

To be fair, I have phoned them 3 times and asked for a refund and to change my direct debit.

You can manually change a DD and request a refund at any time?

Tonik pay you interest on anything they owe you.
It seems to incentive them to adjust your bill quite promptly.

For some reason, whenever I clicked on the direct debit button, it came up with a message saying “sorry we can’t access this information at this time, please try again later”. It did this for 6 months.

I have to admit British Gas were always good with me. They would automatically refund me whenever I had credit of over £150 without me ever having to prompt them.

My water board on the other hand, was like getting blood from a fucking stone to get my money back.

Back in May this year, British gas automatically refunded extra credit into my bank account and reduced our monthly direct debit. The first I heard of it was seeing the money in my bank balance. Three months later a letter was received informing us of this. I called them straight away to find out why they credited my account so I didn't need to wait that long for the explanation letter.

Hmm, experiences seem to vary. I could do with my £400 back before Christmas!

You don't need a direct debit. Ring them up and ask for their bank details and set a standing order up. They can't help themselves to your bank account then.