I tried posting to uk.legal.moderated already and no answers yet, so...
Assuming an energy company become insolvent and there customers are picked up by another company, how long can the credit you had in the company be retained, before it has to be refunded?
Who is responsible for refunding the amount and who does one complain to if it is not refunded in a timely manner?
What is the law around this?
My Symbio credit was passed over to EON_Next the new supplier. There seems to be some protection.
It usually takes around 6 weeks, your credit is guaranteed by other means.
I've no idea if Ofgem have got the law right but they might reasonably be expected to be there or thereabouts with:
Robin wrote on 01/06/2022 :
It seems to suggests six weeks, or compensation is due.
I have chased the receivers, I have chased the supplier I was transferred to, each says it is the others problem.
I have been chasing BG over this, as Bristol Energy first announced they were going into receivership at around Christmas time, though the actual transfer of me as a customer didn't happen until the end of January. So someone has been hanging onto my money ever since then and the transfer to BG has been a total mess up. BG have sent out wrong bills, retracted them. Then they forgot they were supplying me with both E&G sending me bills for just G.
I have even referred my credit not being refunded to the Energy Watchdog and got almost nowhere, other than BG have eventually just agreed to reduce the direct debit amount to take into consideration the amount I was in credit with BE. I was unable to get any sense or proper contact to discuss the credit with BG, until I refered the matter to the Watchdog.
If you've already followed BG's complaints procedure and gone on to Ofgem I suggest you ask Ofgem to tell you what your options (up to an including legal action) are from here. They will know both your circumstances and the precise status of the transfer to BG.
Given Bristol Energy was FUBAR (and liquidators were appointed in *July* last year, not around Xmas) I expect British Gas inherited a mess and faced a mountain of work to sort who owed or was owed what. I don't doubt that your credit will be protected but it'll be at a high cost to those of us with firms that haven't gone bust.
Sadly there's no chance politicians will consider that just possibly "caveat emptor" should have a role in the energy market.
Don't forget that energy companies (including all the remaining ones in the marketplace) paid large amounts of commission to the "switch " web sites. The remaining companies also hold vast amounts of money in customer credit and probably would also go bust if every customer insisted in only paying monthly for the energy actually used in that month.
You mean guaranteed by everyone else because the compo for *lost* credit is the reason why daily standing charges have doubled.
I disagree. That's why there's a row already going on between suppliers about Ofgem's idea of ring-fenced accounts for client balances. The smaller, less well capitalised suppliers say they need the credit balances for working capital. The bigger, better capitalised ones don't. And British Gas customers' money is now already in a "client account".
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