In Splitting the Bill, Brendan Kearns states “financial hardship assistance can include - - making sure customers are on the cheapest offer”. If they aren’t, I’m wondering whether the energy retailer is obliged to recalculate the outstanding bill(s) at the cheapest rates.
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Welcome to the Community @Alan100
I have done some searches and not found what you have referred to. So not sure where this article is from, would you be able to provide a link to it?
It starts on page 37 of the June magazine. “Crowdfunding Bills” is shown at the very top Mainly the article is about the HelpPay app.
I feel that it would be unreasonable for others to help pay a bill that was more than if the customer had been on the cheapest plan.
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Ahh thank you for the extra information, it was from an article published on the CHOICE site in April this year.
There is a far as I know, no obligation to recalculate the bill based on a cheapest plan cost. What an energy company is obliged to do depends on which State the problem has occurred in. Often a payment plan is the first option explored and putting the client onto the cheapest plan with a structured budget payment set up so that next time a bill is paid off or the total 12 month cost will be paid off by the end of the 12 month period.
Things like Easipay with Origin is an example of these budgeting payment plans, others may have similar budgeting payment plans. In some States the first outstanding debt can largely be paid off by a once only payment funded from State Government coffers.
Others can’t afford any energy plan they may be offered, they live in extremely pitiful conditions sadly.
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