They highlighted the £37billion worth of help being provided to households, including the £400 discount on energy bills to assist this winter. Recently, a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, described non-payment as “highly irresponsible messaging which will only push up prices for everyone else”. “The ombudsman will charge the energy companies £500 per complaint to deal with and they are only allowed to have a certain number of complaints open at any given time - otherwise they face heavy penalties/fines.” “Once they have issued their findings to the complaint, you can appeal or disagree, meaning your account will be sent to deadlock, and they will refer you to the ombudsman. This can take quite a while to pull together and again adds to the work they need to complete. He said: “You could issue a Subject Access Request - which means the energy company will need to compile and issue all the information they hold on you. Kevin Mountford, savings expert and co-founder of Raisin UK, pointed towards alternative actions Britons may wish to consider if they feel they cannot afford their bills. Paying bills royalty-free images 575,243 paying bills stock photos, vectors, and illustrations are available royalty-free. READ MORE: Attendance allowance will be replaced for more than 124,000 people This means paying higher interest not just for a mortgage, if you're even eligible, but on credit cards, loans and any other type of borrowing for the following six years.”
“Non-payment of utilities will show on a credit file, initially as missed payments, then arrears, then defaults after seven months and ultimately a county court judgment (CCJ). “Whilst many would love to be able to wield mass action against businesses that are bleeding people dry, the reality is the consequences of that type of action will be dire. “In contrast, hard-working Brits will have to choose between eating and heating within the next few months, so it's unsurprising that groups are springing up advocating mass non-payment of energy bills. She said: “The government should also set out a clear process for the reissuing of any expired or lost vouchers to ensure this works well for customers.Lewis Shaw, founder of Shaw Financial Services, therefore urged Britons to think carefully before taking a stand to not pay their energy bills, and said: “Understandably, consumers want to take a stand against energy suppliers when they appear to be boasting of record profits and bumper payouts to shareholders. Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at Which?, said it was “an urgent priority” for ministers and energy suppliers to quickly improve the scheme “to ensure that all customers on prepayment meters – who are more likely to be vulnerable and on lower incomes – are able to access this vital support without further delay”. He said a survey of 2,000 adults using its services over the first three weeks of January showed 93% found it easy to redeem their EBSS vouchers at a top-up point. “Final redemptions of over four in five recipients is generally considered a good result for government voucher schemes.” We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. Steve O’Neill, corporate affairs and marketing director at PayPoint, said the energy bill support scheme (EBSS) vouchers were administered by the company’s 28,000 retailer partners across the UK. However, customers with prepayment meters had to redeem vouchers. The vouchers are part of Rishi Sunak’s promise in May 2022 to give £400 to every household to help them with their energy bills.įor most households this amount was simply deducted from their direct debits. The charity said 600,000 people were forced to switch from credit meters – which allow consumers to pay by direct debit – after they had run up debt with their energy supplier in 2022, compared with 380,000 in 2021. Last month Citizens Advice said 3.2 million people – the equivalent of one person every 10 seconds – were left with cold and dark homes last year after running out of prepay credit. However, campaigners said if similar rates occurred across all issuers of vouchers it would lead to many more households missing out on several million pounds between them.
The redemption rate is broadly comparable to similar schemes like the warm home discount, PayPoint said. Consumer groups, which have called on ministers to allow households a second chance to claim the vouchers, said as much as £50m of government support for gas and electricity bills had gone unclaimed.īill payment firm PayPoint sent out hundreds of thousands of vouchers in November worth £66 a month under a government support scheme.īut only 81% of those vouchers had been redeemed on Sunday when they ran out – 90 days after they were issued.
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