Paying a Bill through Account Credit

[SuperSuze84]

Longish story short - after numerous attempts at getting a refund, Three finally credited my home broadband account by £48.16 in February 2023, after they failed to apply a spending-cap limit to my newly set-up account. Victory, I thought 🤔

After receiving the credit, I discovered there was no means of transferring to to my bank account. I requested that Three take future bill payments for my home broadband from that credit instead, as this would be my only means of spending it.

However, in March 2023 I was charged twice for my bill. Once by direct debit and a second time Three reduced the credit on my account by the cost of the bill. So, I cancelled my direct debit thinking that the next three months payments would be taken straight from the account credit.

However, on Easter Sunday my broadband stopped working and I discovered a restriction has been placed on my broadband account for non-payment. Customer services on Webchat are useless and are telling me that my account credit cannot be used as payment (even though Three reduced my account credit last month for a bill).

I am now so confused..... any advice?

A) Can you transfer credit to a bank account?

B) Should Three be restricting my broadband when my account is clearly in credit?

C) Can you pay a bill through credit?

I'm sure what they're doing isn't entirely legal. 

SuperSuze

[sc1999]

Hi, we have had this before. According to one of the moderators any account balance should be taken first. The only time, I think, that balances are returned is at the point of final bill at end of contract. 

Cancelling a direct debit may trigger alarms bells within 3's system so it's reasonable that they do something to your account. It may also affect your credit rating. Try calling customer services on 333 or 0333 338 1001 and talk to a human.

At some point a moderator may pick up on this post and message you directly and they can put you in contact with the correct person.

[JonathanB]

Hi @SuperSuze84,

I'm sorry to hear that you've had such trouble in getting this credit applied, only for the account to be suspended.

There's a couple of potential explanations for what's happened and will be dependent on the dates of the account activity. I'll do my best to answer the questions though, then direct you to some more help with this.

A) It depends on the reason for the credit, it sounds like in this case the credit would have been classed as goodwill, charges were applied for usage that did happen, but there was a dispute about a cap that should have prevented it, so we've added equivalent credit to the charges? In that situation we would apply the credit to future bills rather than a bank refund.

B) If the account is overall in credit, but the billing system doesn't seem to be recognising this, then we can look at getting this unsuspended. Things can get messy when Direct Debits are cancelled and automated systems can't always fully understand what has happened when bills show as unpaid, there are definitely options to override this.

C) Any credit does automatically allocate to the following bill(s) after being applied, I'm guessing there's either some unpaid balance from before the credit was applied, or it's already allocated in full.

These answers are based on really general information though. I'll get you in touch with colleagues that can access the account and look into your specific situation. I'll send a private message shortly.

To view your private messages on the community, click on your avatar image in the top right of any community page, then "Messages".

Thanks,
JonathanB