Bernard Foster

WATCHDOGS ADVICE IS "IF IT SEEMS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT USUALLY IS" I would warn viewers the same applies to advice given by the watchdog team and Martin Lewis. It is continually advised that people switch energy providers to save money but never mention that it could cost you money even if you are out of contract. I tried to get excess money taken from my account for about two months before my contract was up expecting that I would need to move once the current deal ended. When the deal ended as expected the rise in charges meant I had to seek an alternative which I did using MSE. The change went through without any problems except that when I phoned Economy Energy to continued to try to get my overpaid money back they said they had no information regarding the move. This was strange as Tonic my new provider said they had been sent the information and Economy had stopped requesting my meter readings. I gave them all the relevant information and was told it would take three weeks. After a month I was told the information was not on record so I gave to them again and waited three weeks. I was then told they could not do anything without confirmation from Tonic. Tonic said as I had left they could no longer act directly but sent me an Email to forward to Economy, which I did. Two weeks later I relieved an Email from Economy saying that due to an Ofgem provision order they had stopped trading and I would have to seek compensation via Ofgem or the Ombudsman. I knew Ofgem would accept no responsibility and as expected they directed me to the Ombudsman. After a prolonged period the Ombudsman emailed me stating there was nothing they could do. When promoting that people switch you state that it is backed up so that you are not left without energy and your credit is moved to your new provider but if your old provider knows they are going under and just hang onto your money it would seem there is no recourse. I am going to send an email to the company the Ofgen appointed to take over Economy's customers to find out if there is any scope to have my credit moved. I will post the result of that in due course. Regards B Foster