Sir, – After a winter of needing to sit down before opening the electricity bill, I was delighted to see the Government credit applied to my electricity account on April 2nd. This was fortuitous timing as my billing cycle had ended a day previous and the direct debit was due to be taken 18 days hence. However, imagine my surprise when today, although the credit had been applied to the account, my provider Electric Ireland in fact took the original direct debit amount, not the reduced figure.
Upon ringing customer service, it seems that the direct debit couldn’t or wouldn’t be changed to reflect payments made on the account prior to collection, despite more than two weeks of lead time. When asking the customer service agent would this also be the case if I wanted to pay a sum of money off the account each month to lessen the blow of a big bill arriving, she advised me not to do that either as it was likely a direct debit wouldn’t be adjusted and I would end up paying twice. They did suggest I get my bank to refund the direct debit and they would then readjust the bill, but that is no doubt a path to heartache so I declined the offer.
I do know that I will benefit from the credit in June when the next bill is due and luckily I can pay the electricity bill, but what about those who can’t? The manner in which this has been applied by Electric Ireland is certainly not within the spirit of what the Government was trying to achieve by hanging on to the money for up to two months after the bill for which it was intended for was due. – Yours, etc,
NIAMH BYRNE,
Dublin 3.