Alinta Energy Retail Sales Pty Ltd (Alinta) has paid 15 infringement notices totalling $1.089 million issued by the AER for alleged breaches of the overcharging obligations under the National Energy Retail Rules (the Retail Rules).
The AER issued the infringement notices as it believed on reasonable grounds that Alinta breached:
- rule 31(1) of the Retail Rules on five occasions, by failing to inform small customers of overcharges equal to or over $50 within 10 business days after becoming ‘aware’ of the overcharge;
- rule 31(2) of the Retail Rules on six occasions, by failing to use its best endeavours to refund small customers the overcharged amount (where the overcharge amount was equal to or over $50) within 10 business days, where no direction was given by the customer; and
- rule 31(3) of the Retail Rules on four occasions, by failing to use its best endeavours to refund small customers within 10 business days where an amount overcharged is less than $50 and the small customer had ceased to be a customer of Alinta.
The alleged breaches arose from Alinta’s receipt of Centrepay deductions from the welfare payments of customers who were no longer receiving energy supply from Alinta and who did not have any outstanding debts.