What went wrong with our prepayment customers’ final statements and how we’ve fixed it
Today Ofgem has published the result of an investigation into an issue which saw Good Energy fail to issue final account statements to 2,284 prepayment customers.
The issue was revealed after E.ON Next, which — in common with several energy suppliers in the UK — uses the same billing system as Good Energy, was found to have had 250,000 affected customers.
We were very dismayed to have found that it also affected Good Energy customers and discovered that it was historical from 2014 right up to 2023.
For 2,284 prepayment customers who had left Good Energy, we had failed to provide them with the final statement of their account which they are obligated to received.
As soon as this was identified, we put in place a manual process and have since made system changes to make sure it does not happen again and that all prepayment customers who leave us receive their final statement.
We have also made every effort to provide due compensation to affected customers. This includes goodwill sums in excess of their potential credit balance plus interest, and the General Standards of Performance payments all customers who do not receive final statements in time.
Part of this included addressing the industry wide challenge of estimating balances on traditional prepayment meters, which are very analogue. Prior to this issue being identified, Good Energy’s process was to allow customers to request a refund simply by confirming the balance on their meter — which only they can access — and their bank details.
If they left the meter key at the property when moving out and didn’t request a refund, then any remaining credit would have been used by the new occupier. Usually, any remaining credit is very small, as most customers do not add lots of credit when they know they are about to move out of the property within a few days.
Following Ofgem’s engagement refunds are made based on the last available top-up data, and if in credit this is refunded to the customer and if in debt this is written off.
Good Energy is committed to fairness for all of our customers and we fell short here, but are confident that we have now done the right thing by all those affected.
