A 93-year-old woman from Horwich has spoken out about the difficulty in reclaiming a hundreds of pounds in credit from her energy supplier.

Mollie Highton was shocked to discover when a family friend checked her accounts that she was owed a total of £817 by EDF.

Despite trying for more than a month to claim it back, she says the company was reluctant to give it back to her and would not arrange for someone to come and do a metre reading.

She had to continue to make regular payments into the company, even though she was in a surplus with them.

Her family friend said as things stood by the time Christmas came she would be around £1,700 in credit.

At the time she was still making monthly deposits of £217 into the company, even though she was owed money by them.

The pensioner, who worked until the age of 74 as a cook and a cleaner, hit out at the actions of the energy company.

She said: “I want to sort it out really, it’s not right.

“I am worried about rising bills.

“When I had my shopping done, everything was going up.

“The money would come in handy, it definitely would.”

The family friend who was sorting the bills said EDF had agreed to refund the money after being approached by The Bolton News.

He said: "I just had EDF energy asking about Mollie Highton's account, they said Bolton news had rang them.

"So I have now given them gas readings and they had electric readings up to date and the £815 they quoted owing Mollie turned out to be £930.

"So I have now had EDF put £700 into Mollie's bank account and left £230 for future bills for her."

A spokesperson for EDF Energy said they had been in touch with the family friend who handles the account.

The spokeperson said: "He is happy with the actions we’ve taken and the complaint is now resolved.

"In September 2022, we received contact from the customer requesting a refund of credit.

"We requested a meter reading to bring the account up to date before a refund could be processed.  

"We explained to the customer her annual review is due in December and should she be in credit at this stage, the amount would automatically be refunded, we would not actively issue a refund midway through the annual billing period as any credit built up through the summer would offset against the expected increase in consumption over the winter.

"We’ve completed a partial refund as the account was still in credit and adjusted the direct debit amount."