Martin Lewis's advice has helped a couple secure a £4,000 refund on their energy bills after they discovered they had been overpaying for three years. The news comes as energy bills are forecast to rise by £209 to £1,850 a year for a typical dual fuel household from July, according to Cornwall Insight's final forecast.
The MoneySavingExpert.com founder advised households to check their energy account balances in May, recommending that customers should have no more than a month and a half worth of direct debits in credit. If the balance exceeds that, he suggested asking for some of it back.
Martin explained: "The basic pattern is, over those winter months, you use your credit or you build up debt, depending where you are. That bottoms out just around May… and then you start to build up credit until it peaks in November. If you’ve got a lot of credit right now, this is the point where you shouldn’t have a lot of credit - which is why this is the perfect time to be checking."
He added: "My rough rule of thumb… if you have more than a month and a half worth of direct debits in credit right now, I would want it back. So if you pay £200 a month, you got £300 in credit, that’s fine - but £500, I’d want £200 back."
Couple Jill and Brian took this advice and were shocked to find they had been paying too much for three years. Jill said: "We were paying around £260 a month, which to me seemed extraordinary." Brian added: "When I phoned the energy provider, they actually went back and checked and we’d been overpaying for three years. There was £4,500 in credit. I left £500 in the account so we ended up with a £4,000 refund."
With energy bills set to rise, Martin's tip could help many households reclaim overpayments and reduce their financial burden.
