Martin Lewis urges British Gas, Ovo, Octopus customers to make phone call by end of May

Martin Lewis has urged energy customers to ring their firm and get money back - IF they're in credit. The Money Saving Expert founder and BBC Sounds podcast presenter has spoken out on the latest Maritn Lewis Money Show podcast episode.

ITV regular Mr Lewis said in a warning to Ovo, Octopus, British Gas, EDF and EOn customers: "So let me give you what the cycle would be roughly for someone who started with that company in Jaunary.. As we go from January through to March, you would gradually start to be more and more in debt, so after by around mid-February you would be a month's worth of Direct Debit in debt and it would bottom out roughly, the end of April, early May, in other words - today.

"This is the bottom, this is when you would expect to owe your energy firm the most, which is, roughly if you started in January...just over one-and-a-half month's worth of Direct Debit ,so your direct debit is £200, you're probably owing £330 if you started in January.

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"From this point onwards, you start to repay that debt, it goes up...you get to about zero in September, and then your maximum credit is mid-November - six months from now. At that point, on this scale, you would probably be one month in credit, now the reason for that is because January isn't actually the middle of the Direct Debit cycle.

"If you moved to a company in May, you would probably never go in debt if it was all done perfectly, what would just happen is in November you would probably be two-and-a-half months in credit and if you started in November you would probably never go in credit, you would always be in debt, because it would bottom out in May..."

He added: "The real point is, right now, assuming you've done a meter reading and everything is up to date, you are at the bottom of your direct debit cycle. Now that's interesting for a number of reasons, it means if you're a month, a month-and-a-half, two months in debt right, not that big of a deal because you would expect to be in debt.

"It means if you're in credit right now, a month, two months, three months, in credit then you are too much in credit because the best case scenario at this point is you shouldn't have any credit, in many cases you should be in debt, but if you're in credit...and you tend not to be building it up at this point in the year, this is the time you get in touch with them and say 'hey this is the bottom of the Direct Debit cycle, there is no way I should be in credit right now, and I would like you to give me that credit back please.'

"Now you might want to leave a little bit with them, half a month' worth od direct debit, but if you're two,three, four, five months of direct debits in credit right now - too much, get that money in your pocket. Stop them earning the interest, they have billions of pounds of our cash, earning interest on, and that's our money.

"If you're in credit, get your credit back right now. This is the perfect point in the Direct Debit cycle for doing that."