Energy bill credit - does this make sense?

[MsJuniper]

My energy bills have obviously gone up like most people's in the last couple of years. We were paying £120/m for gas and electricity (British Gas) in 2021 and now it's almost £400/m. It actually went over £400 at one point but then they recalculated and said I was overpaying, so I changed the DD to the amount suggested and then had a message saying I wasn't paying enough!

In this time I have built up credit of over £3000 with them which says it's because of using more in the winter months. However their estimate for the whole year was about £2000 at its highest point and has recently been revised to £1800.

Surely it doesn't make any sense for me to be paying £380 per month when I have more than a year's worth of credit? Am I missing something?

Could I ask them to take the payment from my credit for a few months or ask them to change my DD to a nominal amount?

The app says I cannot make any more changes to my DD at the moment but no idea why. I will have to ring them but I wondered what others have done.

I had this and just challenged them, said couldn't pay the amount they were now asking,.and queried the amount of credit, I've gone from them saying they want £280 a month and £900 in credit, to £123 a month and £700 in credit.

My app (Scottish power) is rubbish about adjusting DDs, they keep it in a narrow limit. You should ring them. You can also ask to just pay monthly what you've actually used, which is what I did for a bit when they wouldn't let me go down very much but I was about to install solar panels. You do have to pay it in full though each month if you choose this and obviously you don't build up credit for winter.

You definitely shouldn't be overpaying much any more with that much credit.

Make sure you're taking regular readings too and enter them. I set a reminder to do it at the end of each month otherwise they bill randomly on random dates and it's hard to gauge usage.

Am with sp too, always screenshot the app which shows how much I am in credit!

Ask for it to be repaid to you, it is your money! Leave a buffer of a month or two but get the rest back.

I dont understand how they say you have a credit because of using more in the winter, that doesn't make sense

That aside just ring up and ask for your money back. You know your annual fee so you can work out how much you need abck

Do you definitely have a whole year left on your Direct Debit plan? If so, they should have refunded the credit (Ofgem’s guidelines).

Thank you for your replies.

I do give gas readings and have a smart reader for electricity so the amounts should be accurate. I could move to paying in full each month but never minded the DD until it got so huge and stopped making sense.

The DD is supposed to build up some credit in the summer to balance out higher usage in the winter but this seems a huge amount more than could possibly be needed for this purpose and it seems so strange that their recommended amount keeps bouncing around.

I am not in contract but I meant that the amount I have in credit outweighs their estimate for the year.

I will give them a call and see if I can bring the DD down or even get a refund.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Do you know how much you've used for both gas and electric in terms of Kilowatts over the last year? If not your supplier will be able to tell you.

With that information and adding the standing charges you've a reasonable idea of what the next twelve months will cost at the current/post July cap figures.

Right now, in June, you might be building up money from your monthly DD for next winter. OTOH if you were already in credit, based on accurate meter readings in April you might ask for something back.

I’ve just had an email from British Gas saying that my bill will be reduced from July due to a reduction in global gas prices. I currently have credit of around £300 which is lower than it was this time last year but my dd is not increasing.

I would not expect you to have a problem in getting your dd greatly reduced with such a large credit balance.