The Federal Court has found AGL breached the National Energy Retail Rules by failing to notify and refund customers for overcharges obtained from Centrepay payments in proceedings brought by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER).
The court found AGL overcharged 483 Centrepay customers between December 2016 to November 2021, and that the company failed to notify and refund these customers within the required timeframes.
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Centrepay is a bill paying service administered by Services Australia by which people can elect to arrange regular deductions from their Centrelink payment for essential goods and services. The affected customers had used Centrepay to pay their energy bills but had stopped receiving services from AGL at the time of the alleged conduct.
The Federal Court found that AGL committed a total of 16,156 breaches of the rules.
Justice Downes said, “…the AGL Entities received, processed and retained payments for amounts that exceeded the amount that they were entitled to charge the customers. AGL, through a deliberate design in its payment system methodology… treated each deduction as a payment for a bill, even when the final bill had been paid, and then rather than refunding that excess money to the Affected Customer at that point, AGL, through its payment methodology, applied the amount as a credit to a future bill, even when there was not going to be one.”
AER chair Clare Savage said the court’s decision reinforced the critical importance of retailers prioritising consumer protections.
“We expect retailers to have the policies, systems, and procedures in place to give consumers their money back if they have been overcharged and to provide the protections they’re entitled to under the National Energy Retail Rules,” she said.
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“It’s vital that retailers identify and respond as required when consumers are adversely impacted. We will continue to investigate conduct that harms consumers and take enforcement action where warranted.
The AER is seeking pecuniary penalties, declarations, an order requiring implementation of a compliance program, and costs. The court will make orders after hearing further from the parties.
