Octopus energy - refunds

[Floofydawg]

Does anyone remember that you used to be able to instantly return credit to their bank account, or did I imagine that?

Have just chased up a refund having already waited a week for it and they've said it could be another 10 days due to a large number of requests. How can they keep people from getting their money back for so long? For all they know I need that money to buy food!

There used to be a link you could use. Is it a large credit you have? Mine has been run down a lot by usage so is hovering around £180. Might be less by the time I do my readings on the 1st!

I have nearly £600 and I've requested £200 back. Feels like they're intentionally sitting on the money for the interest.

You didn’t imagine it. It’s still an option on mine. I use the app on iPhone - click on the bills icon at the bottom and it allows you to return money to your bank or make a one off payment.

I've just checked and there's a link to request money is returned to your bank account now. The link wasn't there for a while and you had to phone them. It says to allow 15 working days so that's basically 3 weeks.

The other option is to reduce your direct debit which is easy to do online too. Or do a mix of both

Just got mine, a week to respond to requests and then 3 days til in the bank. Not ideal.

It's definitely not there on mine. I wonder if it's to do with tarrif - very odd. But I think it's completely unacceptable to make a customer wait 3 weeks for their money 😡

If you have the app the link is under your account balance

Although the refund has never been instant as it has to be processed first

@dementedpixie I honestly don't have that link - I just checked, and the app is up to date and everything. I recently switched to their tracker tarrif - i wonder if that's why.

I've done this twice as our DD is higher than it needs to be now that we're making attempts to reduce what we use, plus it was set before the £66 pm credits were announced.

In both cases I just clicked the link in my account and took the suggested amount back and received it within under a week.

I've always thought their returns are really good. I usually get the money in my bank account within 2 week of requesting it and requesting it is as simple as pushing a couple of buttons on the app. Most other energy suppliers make you call them and tend to reject requests.

It's never been an instant thing. They have always reviewed a request and then it does take time to process. A bacs transfer takes 3 days in my place of work. These things are never instant.

You only get that link if they think you have excess money in your account to withdraw. Sometimes I have it, sometimes I don't.

Hmmm would be interested to see how they define excess money then, given I've just paid a bill and still have nearly £600!

Look at the balance forecast in your account. It gives information about how they expect your balance to vary over the next year and your target balance. This feeds into your excess, which is the amount you can get back.

But unless your usage is very high, I would have thought that you don't need to be £600 credit at this time of year as hopefully we're over the worst of winter.

Maybe call them about it as they're usually very fair.

I'm with Bulb, so part of Octopus, and have been requesting a partial refund for months. I'm fed up of all my emails and phone calls chasing them. They assured me a couple of days ago that it was now sorted so fingers crossed. But yes, so reluctant to act it looks deliberate

I just did this on octupus. On my account summary page it said my balance and there was a link to request a refund. Couldn't really have been simpler and the money came through within a week. Sorry you had problems.

I've just requested a return as I had £105 credit and their algorithm said I should have £40 at this point. Just a couple of clicks then a long wait. I don't know why it needs reviewing as their computer had already calculated the amount and it's my money anyway

sorry no practical advice but it used to be that we paid in arrears for what energy we had used, by quarterly bill. Only key meter customers and those who hadn’t submitted a recent meter reading paid upfront. Now interest rates are going up the energy companies will be making a tidy profit from all of these advance deposits. Martin Lewis should start a campaign.

I've just switched over to a variable direct debit with them to avoid any excess credit scenarios (and not due to make any payments til April now, thanks to the govt support and a couple of weeks worth of credit left on). They've been good at issuing refunds in the past pretty quickly when I've phoned them.

Martin Lewis has campaigned for fair direct debits and if they're set right you should spend equal amounts of time ahead and behind.

However he also recognises the value of paying an equal amount each month and how much some people will struggle if they have to pay for all their winter heating in winter instead of spreading the cost across the entire year.

He's also said that if standard direct debit didn't exist, he would have to campaign for that.

@ChungusBoi well that's exactly my point. It's my money, why should I have to wait so long for it? Imagine your bank telling you that you have to wait 7-10 working days to access your own money.

I’m with you. It’s our money at the end of the day. And in theory direct debits should be set fairly but in practice a lot of people have had to challenge them.

They must have millions of pounds of people's money. Making a huge amount of interest. It takes the piss.

Admittedly it's a while back, but when I worked for British Gas we were told payments were held in an escrow account and could not earn interest.