British Gas is to pay out a total of £1.73m for failures in the way it handled a switchover of payment provider for its prepayment customers. The UK’s largest energy supplier has paid £1.48m in compensation to affected customers, who pay for their energy in advance through top-ups rather than bills, and £250,000 to the energy regulator Ofgem’s energy redress fund. The payments relate to British Gas’s failure to inform some of its most vulnerable customers about a change of top-up provider, from Paypoint to Payzone, and a change in minimum top-up spend from £1 to £5. The energy provider, which is owned by Centrica, informed most of its customers in December 2019 about the changes, which came into effect on 1 January 2020, but failed to notify around 270,000 people. As a result, Ofgem found that some customers could have had their energy supply cut off in the middle of winter, or could have made wasted journeys to shops where they were no longer able to top up their accounts. In addition, affected customers were not able to contact British Gas by telephone on its general enquiries line on the day the changes came into force. British Gas finally contacted some affected customers in late January, weeks after the changes were introduced. Ofgem found that the customers who were notified in advance were given insufficient time to switch energy suppliers if they found British Gas’s new arrangements to be unsuitable. The notice to customers contained only internet links to information about the changes rather than a telephone number, which could have disadvantaged people without internet access. Ofgem has decided not to take formal enforcement against the energy supplier following British Gas’s decision to make the payments. Philippa Pickford, Ofgem’s director of retail, criticised British Gas’s failure to inform its customers of changes during winter. “When such a fundamental change is being made, such as where meters can be topped up, energy suppliers need to communicate with their customers in plenty of time,” she said. “British Gas should have informed all of their prepayment customers, many whom are in vulnerable situations, of the change to how to top-up their meters.” All energy suppliers should learn lessons from this case, said Gillian Guy, the chief executive of Citizens Advice, and added it was “unacceptable” that people risked having their energy supply cut off in winter due to poor communications. “Households with pre-payment meters are disproportionately likely to be on lower incomes, have children or include people with health conditions,” Guy said. “It’s critical that suppliers take extra care and make sure changes like this don’t put people at risk.”