6 hours ago
2
Western Australia’s state-owned energy utility has admitted to overcharging customers to the tune of $40 million over the past 15 years.
Synergy announced the overpayment, which related to closed accounts being charged, on Friday morning with about 174,000 customers affected.
Synergy has admitted overcharging customers who closed their accounts.Credit: Bethany Rae
“In many cases, this has happened because Synergy’s allowed customers to continue to pay to their closed account, even in the absence of a bill,” chief executive Kurt Baker told ABC Perth.
In a statement, Synergy said it had identified all impacted customers and would contact them directly, with more than half the overpayments $100 or less.
Some of the payments date back to 2009 and were made to Synergy via a range of methods including BPAY, direct debit, EFTPOS and Australia Post.
“We have a responsibility and obligation to detect and return customer overpayments to accounts quickly,” Baker said in the statement.
“We will make this right for our customers, and we will take all possible steps to refund overpayments and rectify this situation.
“Our priority is to return overpaid amounts to impacted customers.”
Synergy has conducted internal reviews to assess any additional impacts and now implemented measures to identify when overpayments are received on closed accounts.
The company has also worked with independent reviewers, organised through the state government, and self-reported the overpayments to the Economic Regulation Authority.
“Synergy takes this matter seriously. Our customers expect our payment systems and processes to be reliable, and have the appropriate governance in place,” Baker said.
Loading
“We have taken a diligent approach to identifying all impacted customers, and set up a dedicated and specialised customer response team to contact them and make refunds.”
Friday’s overpayment revelation comes after the company revealed in July it had overcharged more than 2800 Centrelink recipients by $2.29 million since 2009.
Synergy was forced to repay the money and apologise after the over-charges were reported to WA’s utility watchdog, the Economic Regulation Authority.
The authority found Synergy breached its code of conduct by failing to tell customers within 10 business days that they had been overcharged.
Synergy reported to the authority that it continued to accept Centrepay payments from the customers despite their electricity accounts being closed.
with Hamish Hastie
Get alerts on breaking news as it happens. Sign up for our Breaking News Alert.
Most Viewed in National
Loading
