People are being reminded that they can get £400 off their energy bills after it was found millions of vouchers are going unclaimed. Energy companies are giving domestic customers a £400 discount off their gas and electric bills over the next six months.
The scheme, being delivered through the UK government's expansion of the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS), is being applied to your electricity bill for six months through a £66 discount in both October and November followed by four £67 discounts from December to March.
Those with traditional prepayment meter users are getting their discounts slightly differently through equivalent vouchers which must be redeemed. But earlier this week it was found that millions of vouchers offering a total of £400 towards the cost of energy have yet to be claimed. The BBC reported that only £27 million worth of £50 million worth of vouchers had been redeemed so far, leading to fears some might lose out on their discount.
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The vouchers issued have an expiry date of 90 days so you need to redeem them before the date they run out or you won't get your money. Here is how to redeem any vouchers you've had already and those you'll get in the coming months.
Speaking on BBC 5 Live's Wake Up to Money podcast this week, Steve O'Neill from PayPoint - which distributes the money - explained why people were missing out and what to do if you haven't redeemed a voucher.
"All of these vouchers cover a 90 day validity period," he said. "We're currently 30 days into that 90 so we're a third through, but we're over half redeemed. What we typically see is a bit of a rush at the beginning and a bit of a rush at the end when the expiry date goes."
Under the scheme, households with a traditional “non-smart” prepayment meter receive vouchers in the first week of each month by text, email or post. Customers should then be able to redeem these at post offices and PayPoint locations at corner shops and newsagents.
Mr O'Neill urged customers to use their vouchers and contact their supplier if they were having issues. "It really is important for customers to make sure they've got it and if they haven't they should contact their energy supplier," he said.
"If they have got their voucher, what they should do is really use it to redeem it." Mr O'Neill added that customers could redeem their vouchers at any time of the day at one of PayPoint's many locations around the UK. "We have 28,000 locations around the UK that are open seven days a week, often 24/7. We've even had a voucher redeemed at 1am in the morning."
But Mr O'Neill said customers needed to be aware of their expiry date on their vouchers and redeem them before they run out. "The thing that people absolutely need to do is to check the expiry date because we don't want people to miss out on the support that they quite significantly need for their energy bills this winter.
"I suspect given the fact that vouchers can still be used in the next couple of months that people are holding fire until it gets a little bit colder and to support it when their energy use goes up and their costs go up."
It has also been reported that people have been having issues redeeming their vouchers. Customer Leslie Turnbull from Hartlepool told BBC 5 Live she'd been left with nowhere to turn to after struggling to redeem her vouchers over the last few weeks.
"They were supposed to go on the meter automatically in October. That didn't happen and contacting them has been an absolute nightmare," she said. "You can be up to 479 in a queue on webchat, it can take over two hours to get anyone to answer you. We don't know what to do now, we can't get straight answers from them."
Ms Turnbull said vouchers were supposed to be sent by Boost - which is an online offshoot of Ovo Energy - in the post but that this hadn't happened. "They keep saying that it will be within the next three or four days and it doesn't happen. My post has comes and I still haven't got it. We're now into November without getting the October payment.
"I could cry. I don't know what else to do. You have to be more careful with your money because you're thinking 'this is fine, come October at least I'll have £66 on the electric meter'. But by not getting it you're now having to delve into the money you would buy food and everything else [with]. It just makes money tighter and tighter than it already should be. I've put off doing my shop this week because I just don't know when it's going to go on there. It's frightening." A spokesperson from Ovo told the podcast it was "very sorry" about Ms Turnbull's situation and said she had a dedicated agent number to contact about resolving the issue.
MoneySavingExpert Martin Lewis said he'd also been made aware of people struggling to get their vouchers redeemed. Speaking on Twitter he said: "I'm hearing some people are unable to claim their energy support £66 a month vouchers (for non-smart prepay meters) because the vouchers say you need photo ID - and you may not have.
"If so they should (can't promise) accept a a household bill or bank statement (dated within 12 months.)"
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