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Not entirely an Amex question….
I owed my energy company (Octopus) about £1,000, and paid this off via Amex so that I could reduce my DD from £255 a month. They wouldn’t let me change the DD still but put me on a variable DD where I just pay the whole bill.
Around the same time I got a lot of Solar and Battery installed, so since then I’ve had negative bills. Not paid anything via DD.
This built up to a credit of £250. I asked for £200 to be refunded and they refunded it to my Amex card. I’m a bit annoyed as I’ve obviously lost MR points, and if I get more refunded it will, according to Octopus, continue to go to Amex, as, in their opinion, Amex is the “Source of funds”. I’m also worried Amex will consider this MS.
My opinion is that the Amex payment covered the debt and that export is the source of funds, but I’m not sure what to do now, because my bills will be strongly negative all summer to the point it will likely cover my winter usage – there will be no more DD payments if I leave it. This implies I can’t actually refund anything without it going on the Amex.
Options seem to be….
1. Cancel Amex card. I would like to move from Plat to BA Premium now anyway (having earned Plat bonus). I’d move my 200k pts to Avios before hand (although I also hold Business Plat so wouldn’t lose them anyway). Not sure what will happen then if Octopus try to refund to a closed card?
2. Move octopus account to Wife’s name as a “new account” breaking the link to the payments I previously made via Amex.Thoughts? Especially on how option 1 will pan out!!
Can’t you just remove the Amex from the octopus account?
If you can’t do it online maybe a call?
If a refund is made to a cancelled card it’s held in a suspense account until someone at Amex processes it or the customer calls to ask for it.
I wouldn’t cancel a card just because of this.
I don’t see how refunds are manufactured spends. Surely the opposite?
Your bill is with Amex. It’s the totality of import, export and any gas. They are not separate. Octopus are correct refunding your Amex. I can’t see this being a problem with Amex.
If you close card Octopus will still refund the (closed) card. You can then ask Amex to refund the cash. In my experience they won’t transfer the balance to another card in your name. Others may have a different experience. By closing and transferring points out yes you do avoid the ‘loss’ of MR points – but we’re hardly talking about lot.
Prospectively moving the account would also work. You would also earn 2x £50 referral bonuses. Though as you’re closing your account you wouldn’t benefit from yours – mine is clean-calf-98 which would benefit us both
Can’t you just remove the Amex from the octopus account?
If you can’t do it online maybe a call?
If a refund is made to a cancelled card it’s held in a suspense account until someone at Amex processes it or the customer calls to ask for it.
I wouldn’t cancel a card just because of this.
I don’t see how refunds are manufactured spends. Surely the opposite?
I don’t think removing the card helps – they have the history and the link is to card paid on
If a refund is made to a closed card the card provider is meant to contact you and ask you for where to send it – eg a bank account in your name via BACS you’d be asked to provide details of, which for compliance purposes, must be in your own name. That wouldn’t count as a transaction on the card as the card is no longer theŕe to transact with. So no earnings/benefits on any late transaction and no deductions from same,after the card has been closed. I’d just give them my BACS details when they contact you which will be an option they should give in their communication, selecting the option to have the money transferred to my personal bank account as this is the usual way to take this money back.
Having your name on a domestic bill even jointly is one way of proving residence as required by other entities from time to time so I’d think before having your wife solely take over the bill. But I’d think that would trigger a refund all in one go which in some ways is less messy. She might be treated as a new customer potentially so I am not sure what she’d need to set up but it would be a pfaff.
I think I’d just close the card if I didn’t need it personally. Although I don’t think this is a oroblem with Amex I did have one card I closed that much later received unexpected refunds for travel during the pandemic and both the card provider and the airline failed to notify me – so keep track of when the refund should appear.
So if I’m reading it correctly, you’ve not paid anything by DD since the Amex payment to Octopus. If that is the case then they are correctly refunding the most recent payment, and as noted they would continue to do that even if the card was closed. That in itself isn’t a problem, but you’d have to keep going to Amex to get it back if there are likely to be multiple ‘refunds’ over time.
Switching the account name should work for future credit amounts but not any existing credit at the time of the switch. Whether that is worth the effort depends on how much of the £1K is left over at that point.
Refunding to the Amex is the opposite of MS. MS will be if Octopus let you refund to your bank account. Amex themselves have been a lot stricter recently on returning payments to source so I am not surprised to see Octopus etc be strict on this, seems to be something their regulators/auditors etc have eyes on.
If you don’t want to lose the points then just close the Amex. Octopus can refund to it and Amex will return the funds to the source you paid the bill off with originally
Having your name on a domestic bill even jointly is one way of proving residence as required by other entities from time to time so I’d think before having your wife solely take over the bill. But I’d think that would trigger a refund all in one go which in some ways is less messy. She might be treated as a new customer potentially so I am not sure what she’d need to set up but it would be a pfaff.
Right now the energy bill is in my sole name, and all our accounts are joint, so it’s whatever 😀
Right now the balance is only £28, so again doesn’t matter much, not much to refund. The issue is that next bill it will probably be £200+ again, if that’s on an account in wifes name that has never made an Amex payment they won’t refund to Amex!
£1000 spend = 1000 points = £10ish of value. This seems a whole lot of faff for a tenner; particularly if you have to chase Amex for multiple future refunds to a closed card. Dunno what you earn per hour at the day job, but is any of this actually worth your time?
If you intended to reduce the DD on your Octopus account you should not have cleared the account to zero. You need to be in credit by more than your current DD amount in order to reduce the DD.
My recommendation would be to continue paying the current £255 for two months. That way your account will be roughly £300 in credit and then you can reduce the DD to 100 or even £50.
I installed solar panels and a battery last November and have got to the point where my electricity usage is actually in credit given I now export more electricity than I use. The result is gas is by far the biggest share of the bill but the balance I am in credit by is below my current DD. Octopus took this month’s DD of £200 2 days ago so now I am £163 in credit but it’s still not enough to be able to reduce my DD but it will be at the end of June.
If you intended to reduce the DD on your Octopus account you should not have cleared the account to zero. You need to be in credit by more than your current DD amount in order to reduce the DD.
My recommendation would be to continue paying the current £255 for two months. That way your account will be roughly £300 in credit and then you can reduce the DD to 100 or even £50.
I installed solar panels and a battery last November and have got to the point where my electricity usage is actually in credit given I now export more electricity than I use. The result is gas is by far the biggest share of the bill but the balance I am in credit by is below my current DD. Octopus took this month’s DD of £200 2 days ago so now I am £163 in credit but it’s still not enough to be able to reduce my DD but it will be at the end of June.
I switched to Variable DD after clearing it so that’s sorted, just means the DD will be whatever the bill is. I hoped this meant if the bill was negative they would pay me, but apparently I just build up silly amounts of credit.
Can’t you just cancel the DD.
I don’t see how paying £1000 to Amex and then getting £1000 refunded to Amex (even over several transactions) is a problem.
The problem with Amex arises if you pay off the £1000 Amex bill using a debit card that isn’t linked to your bank account (i.e. Curve). Later when the Octopus payments get “refunded” to Amex, this leaves your Amex in credit, but instead of spending the money on the Amex, you ask Amex to refund them to your bank account. This would be MS as you’ve abused Amex to transfer money from your Curve-linked credit card to your bank account.
If you paid Amex by bank transfer/direct debit and Amex refunds you back to the same bank account, there is no problem. In fact it is more likely to be perceived as a problem if you close the Amex and force a refund by bank transfer (unless you paid it off by bank transfer/direct debit and you want the money to go back to the same current account).
@AJA the OP has already said they are no longer paying £250 pm, or indeed anything at present.
Off topic, but I don’t see why any points collector would choose to pay any significant amount by DD. Mine has been £5 for several years, with periodic card payments to cover whatever is necessary.
the OP has already said they are no longer paying £250 pm, or indeed anything at present.
Yes I understood that. I was explaining what to do to reduce your DD from whatever it is set at. I think that was the original intention.
OP made the mistake of thinking he could clear the amount he owed to zero by using a credit card and then reducing his DD and was surprised to find he couldn’t adjust it.
Not sure why he then got into the position of being owed by Octopus and instead of reducing the DD first went to refund the credit balance.
And now because he is on a variable DD he won’t build up a credit balance from the DD as he continues to build up credit purely from the export of electricity from his solar system meaning Octopus has no need to invoke the DD. He now faces the issue that any refunds will be back to his most recent form of payment which was the Amex payment. I suspect when those refunds exceed the Amex payment he will start getting payment to his bank account.
On your off topic query I agree that the ideal is to have a very low DD and then pay any balance via Amex or points earning card.
The problem is being in a position to be able to reduce the DD to £5. Which was the point of my first post explaining how to do it.:-)
I switched to Variable DD after clearing it so that’s sorted, just means the DD will be whatever the bill is. I hoped this meant if the bill was negative they would pay me, but apparently I just build up silly amounts of credit.
This is the reason why you build up silly amounts of credit and cannot get a refund to your bank account:
And now because he is on a variable DD he won’t build up a credit balance from the DD as he continues to build up credit purely from the export of electricity from his solar system meaning Octopus has no need to invoke the DD. He now faces the issue that any refunds will be back to his most recent form of payment which was the Amex payment. I suspect when those refunds exceed the Amex payment he will start getting payment to his bank account.the OP has already said they are no longer paying £250 pm, or indeed anything at present.
Yes I understood that. I was explaining what to do to reduce your DD from whatever it is set at. I think that was the original intention.
OP made the mistake of thinking he could clear the amount he owed to zero by using a credit card and then reducing his DD and was surprised to find he couldn’t adjust it.
Not sure why he then got into the position of being owed by Octopus and instead of reducing the DD first went to refund the credit balance.
And now because he is on a variable DD he won’t build up a credit balance from the DD as he continues to build up credit purely from the export of electricity from his solar system meaning Octopus has no need to invoke the DD. He now faces the issue that any refunds will be back to his most recent form of payment which was the Amex payment. I suspect when those refunds exceed the Amex payment he will start getting payment to his bank account.
You’re missing the order of operations.
1: Owe £1000, paying £255 via DD.
2: Pay £1000 via Amex. It still won’t let me reduce the DD even though my DD is now way more than my last several bills, and I’ve just install a load of solar. Balance now £0.
3: Phone Octopus, they suggest switching to variable DD, so my DD will be whatever the bill is. Do this.
4: Subsequent bill is -£40. Now have a credit.
5: Next bill is -£180. Now have a larger credit.
6: Request to refund £200, this goes to Amex.
7: Query this with octopus, who say that yes, any future refunds will continue to go to Amex.Right now my balance is about £20, but my next bill looks set to be about -£280.
@rtho782 Your mistake was initially clearing your account to zero with the Amex payment. If you had paid £900 by Amex your DD would have paid a further £255. That would’ve put you £155 in credit but would not have been enough to reduce your DD as £155 is less than £255. You should’ve let Octopus take another month DD of £255. That would’ve put you in credit to £410. You could then have reduced your DD. And then asked for a refund.
What will happen if you make a 50 quid payment from your bank account – will all future refunds go to that account as it’s the last payment source?
I switched to Variable DD after clearing it so that’s sorted, just means the DD will be whatever the bill is. I hoped this meant if the bill was negative they would pay me, but apparently I just build up silly amounts of credit.
This is the reason why you build up silly amounts of credit and cannot get a refund to your bank account:
And now because he is on a variable DD he won’t build up a credit balance from the DD as he continues to build up credit purely from the export of electricity from his solar system meaning Octopus has no need to invoke the DD. He now faces the issue that any refunds will be back to his most recent form of payment which was the Amex payment. I suspect when those refunds exceed the Amex payment he will start getting payment to his bank account.Hmm, If I set up a £5 DD and let it be taken, will future payments then go to my bank account, or only £5 worth?
Amex won’t give half a thought on this refund (which of course, as others explained, is not MS; MS by definition wouldn’t been refunded to the same source of funds).
Hmm, If I set up a £5 DD and let it be taken, will future payments then go to my bank account, or only £5 worth?
I am not sure even a DD of £5 will be taken as you are in credit from your export of solar electricity. Same issue with simply paying £50 by bank transfer as suggested by @ChrisBCN.
I suspect you are going to continue getting refunds to your Amex until the refunds exceed what was paid by Amex.
Amex won’t give half a thought on this refund (which of course, as others explained, is not MS; MS by definition wouldn’t been refunded to the same source of funds).
I think the main reason I’m worried about it is that the £1000 spend will have assisted in hitting my spend target for the 90k upgrade points I had. If they refund that, Amex might try to take the 90k MR away.
Have just set a regular £10 DD via the online account to come out prior to the next bill. As I’m currently only £24 in credit they should take it.
Once they have, I will request an £11 refund and see where it goes…
I still think a call to Octopus will help sort this dilemma out.
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