Bord Gais - can they do this?

Fittle

I have the Bord Gais meter installed at my house. It's a 'pay as you go' system, where you top up your card by X amount, stick it in the machine and you have X amount of 'credit'. I find it incredible and wish I could pay all my bills this way!

Anyway, I didn't use the card over the winter and went to top up two weeks ago - I had lost the card and had to purchase another one at the shop, bring it home to insert it in the machine to 'register' the card. A few days later, I topped up what I thought was this new card - in fact, it was the old card which had magically reappeared:rolleyes:

The 50euro credit I had just put on the old card would not register, so I rang the very nice people at BG who said I had to send in the card to their postal address, and within 2/3 days the credit would reappear on my machine.

No sign of the credit after one week so I rang them yesterday. They told me that I can't get the 50euro credit back onto the system until I top up 3 more times. The minimum top-up is 10euro so the girl suggested I put another 30euro on the card (3 x 10s) and hey presto, I would get my 50euro back.

I know this is a bit of a long-winded story and thanks for reading, and I'm wondering if BG can do this???? Technically, this is my 50euro and they won't give it back to me until I give them another 30euro

Similar situation before, in that we put money on the card (€50 I think, but not fully sure) in the shop, and then the reader at our house wouldn't recognise the card.

So we had to get a new card, and send the old one into BG so they could verify there was cash on it and it was no longer in use.

About two weeks later, i think, we were putting more money in and the €50 appeared on the machine. They never contacted us to say it was being added back on or anything, it just appeared there, and there was no communication between us after I sent the card back (just played the waiting game).

Anyway, reason I'm posting is to say that I was in a very similar situation and we topped up once(by €50, i think, though) in the gap between sending the card back and getting our money back, but they never actually asked us to top up by anything, and I certainly don't remember them mentioning anything about €30 being required.

wmpdd3

God, that is really unbelievable, what is someone supposed to do with out heat/water and cooking while this card goes around the mail like a bomarang?

Was the issue that you topped up by €50, how do you avoid this happening?

Fittle

The issue wasn't that I topped up by 50 - it was that I put the credit on the wrong card. And it's not necessarily 30euro that I have to top up by to get it back - it's that I have to top-up three times for it to be acknowledged!!

I haven't put any credit on the correct card yet, as the weather has improved and I'm using the emersion for hot water - I'll stick a tenner on it this weekend though and live in hope that the 50 will reappear!

wmpdd3

Right gottcha.

jonevin

I work for this company and I'm gonna ask about thus on tues when I'm in. I've can't think of the reasoning for it

Fittle

Thanks Jonevin - I have topped up with two x ten euros in the past week and still no sign of my 50! So it appears they can, and are doing it! Hopefully when I top up again, it will reappear!

jonevin

Sorry for taking so long to reply but yes this is a normal policy, I have sent An email to head office cork to find out why