Martin Lewis says check British Gas, OVO, EDF, EON, Octopus bill in November

Martin Lewis says British Gas, OVO, EDF, EON and Octopus customers should check their energy bills this month. The BBC and ITV star has spoken out over the importance of checking whether you're in energy bill credit as we reach December and Christmas.

Discussing the 'the direct debit cycle', Mr Lewis, 52, says November is the prime time for credit accumulation in preparation for higher winter usage. If your credit has grown excessively, you might just be giving the energy company a free loan to earn interest on, instead of keeping it in your bank account where it belongs.

Mr Lewis said: "This is the time of the year where you should be most in credit, which means it's quite a good time to look at how much credit you are in. I would say two months, if you have no more than two months' worth of credit right now, that's probably about right, you want to be in credit right now, don't speak to them.

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"But if you've got three, four, five, six months' worth of credit with your energy provider, get up on the phone and say 'I think I've got too much credit and I would like the money in my bank account and not yours, please.

"Be very polite, but over two months' worth of credit right now, I'd be getting in touch with them and see if you can do it online and get your credit back. I've got loads of successes of people getting hundreds of pounds back on this."

All of the big six give automatic annual refunds to people who pay by direct debit and are in credit on their account. If you pay by direct debit with EDF, you get any extra credit automatically refunded on each anniversary of when you first signed up, no matter how much it is.