I’m owed £8k by my energy company but they won’t give it back – what can I do

I’VE been trying to get a refund from Shell Energy since September.

My account was £8,000 in credit and I have been struggling to get this back after switching suppliers.

Can you help?

Julie Cole, Middlesbrough

A) TERRIFIED of how you’d afford to pay for your energy bill just before the October price hikes, you rang Shell Energy in September asking them not to increase your payments.

You were already paying £521 a month, and didn’t know how you’d find the cash to cover further increases.

That’s when you discovered your account was in credit by £8,000.

It turns out Shell was sending you estimated bills that were not accurate.

That’s because the last meter reading you took, which was three and a half years ago, was wrong.

As this was the figure that Shell used to calculate your estimated energy usage for years, you ended up with bigger bills than you should have.

You submitted a meter reading in September, which was when this came to light.

It turns out you were overpaying by an average of £162 a month.

Shocked at the big balance, you reques-ted a refund, but said Shell refused to do this.

Instead, they offered to lower your bills to just £20 a month.

You weren’t happy with this, so you decided to switch energy providers to EDF in October.

You kept chasing Shell for your refund, but after a month you got nowhere, which is why you asked me for help in November.

Shell investigated your issue, and said the meter reading that you sent in September was wrong as well.

It went through your accounts to calculate how much energy you have actually used over three and a half years.

You’ve overpaid by a total of £7,300, and Shell has since refunded you.

Although it’s your responsibility to submit regular meter readings, it should not have been so much of a struggle getting your money back.

Ofgem says suppliers must refund customers promptly – unless there are “reasonable grounds” for not doing so.

If you’ve switched suppliers, your old one has six weeks from when the switch was completed to send a final bill, after which they have ten days to dish out refunds.

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