iSupply pays out after blocking almost 23,000 switches

iSupply Energy is to pay more than half a million pounds in redress after almost 23,000 of its customers were blocked from switching over an eight-year period.

The company is in the process of being wound down after EDF Energy acquired its more than 190,000 customer accounts from the Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall in March this year.

In an announcement today (26 October), energy regulator Ofgem revealed that between 2012 and early 2020 a system error which objected to any customer transfer if they had an outstanding debit balance of £40 or over owed to the supplier resulted in 22,863 customers being blocked from switching.

Licence conditions stipulate that suppliers can only prevent customers from switching for money owed if the amount has been billed at least 28 days before the switching request.

As a result, the company will pay £406,224.81 in customer refunds (£21.65 average per customer), as well as goodwill payments of £114,315.

Any residual monies where customers cannot be contacted or do not cash cheques will go into the voluntary redress fund.

The regulator added that it “continues to engage closely” with the company while it leaves the market, including ensuring that this redress package is progressed in full. iSupply has already issued cheques compensating those customers impacted by this issue.

This is not the first time that iSupply has paid out for licence breaches.

In December 2019 it was revealed that the company had agreed to pay £1.5 million into the voluntary redress fund after breaching the price cap and overcharging customers around £36,000.

Additionally in June this year, the company agreed a £1.5 million redress package following a number of failings involving more than 115,000 customers over a six-year period.