British Gas response to Ofgem's announcement on customer credit
Ian Peters, Managing Director of Residential Energy at British Gas, said:
“British Gas will always provide a full and immediate refund to customers for any sum owing to them, whenever we can contact them. Even if they are owed as little as a pound, we will always give them their money back, no matter how long ago they left us. We go well beyond our legal obligations to actively seek out customers owed money in order to return it, contacting them by phone, letter, and after multiple attempts we also use specialist agencies to help trace customers to refund the credit. Since 2012, we have sent more than 32,000 letters, made 18,000 outbound calls and received over 16,000 calls, successfully returning money to 10,000 customers.
“However any credit owed to customers is significantly outweighed by the value of customer debt. At September 2013, the amount owed to household customers was £40 million, with customer debt 5 times that amount, at almost £200 million. We take our responsibilities to our customers extremely seriously and would urge customers to contact us if they feel they are owed money after switching supplier. Tracing customers to return credit affects a wide range of services companies, such as water, telecoms or banking. We are constantly working hard to keep bills down, and we manage the balance of any credit or debt to help keep prices as low as possible for all.”
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