Member Article

Energy firms tackled over £400 million owed to customers

The “big six” energy firms are being tackled by the regulator Ofgem over £400 million still owed to customers.

The regulator estimates around £202 million is owed from closed accounts of former domestic customers and £204 million to former non-domestic customers.

It suggests around 3.5 million household accounts and around 300,000 business accounts are affected.

Andrew Wright, interim chief executive of Ofgem, said: “When many people are struggling to make ends meet, it is vital that energy companies do the right thing and do all they can to return this money and restore consumer trust.”

“We want to see decisive action by suppliers, individually and collectively, to address this issue and, wherever possible, to ensure that the balances they currently hold are returned to consumers.

“Where this can’t be done any remaining sums should be used to benefit consumers more generally, and suppliers need to be very clear with consumers about what they will be doing with this money.”

The regulator stopped short of outlining action it would take against supplies who failed to return the money, but said it would examine whether there have been breaches of its newly installed enforceable Standards of Conduct.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .