Martin Lewis explains how you could be owed hundreds of pounds back on your energy bill

You could be owed hundreds of pounds back on your energy bill: Martin Lewis advice Source: BBC

Transcript

00:00If you pay your energy bill by monthly direct debit this is the perfect moment to check whether

00:05they're sitting on hundreds or in extreme cases thousands of pounds too much of your credit.

00:11The job of monthly direct debit is to estimate your uses across the year so that you pay in 12

00:16monthly installments. That of course means in the high use winter period you're paying less than you

00:21use and in the low use summer period you're paying more than you use. But right now, the end of April,

00:26the beginning of May, is when in the energy direct debit cycle you should be at the lowest point

00:32of credit possible. So as long as you're doing you have a working smart meter or you've fed in a meter

00:38reading and that's been factored into your bill, if you check your account now and you find that

00:42you've got a lot of energy credit it's too much and you should get it in your pocket not theirs.

00:47How much is too much? Well, I would say if you've got more than a month or a month and a half's worth

00:51of direct debit in credit, so your direct debit is £200, you're over £300 in credit, I would be

00:57asking for that amount back. And the energy company has to justify to you why it won't give you the

01:03money back if you ask. Otherwise, you've got a right to the cash.