British Gas owner Centrica to pay $27 million after prepay meter probe

* Probe found British Gas installed prepay meters ​without consent

* Vulnerable ⁠customers had to keep topping up ​to keep supply

* Utility to pay compensation, write off some debt

* Centrica CEO says it has apologised, ​ended ‌practice (Writes through with details and quotes, adds Centrica comment in paragraphs 4-5)

May ⁠15 (Reuters) - British Gas owner Centrica has agreed to ⁠pay 20 million pounds ($26.69 million) ​into a redress fund after investigators found the utility installed prepayment meters in the homes of vulnerable customers without their consent, regulator Ofgem said.

The practice meant those customers ​could ‌ultimately get their supply cut off if they did not keep topping up the meters. The Times newspaper reported in 2023 the prepay systems had been installed by debt agents working on behalf of British Gas.

“It is clear ​that British Gas fell short in its treatment of an unacceptable number of ‌vulnerable customers who had a PPM installed without consent," Ofgem said in a statement.

Centrica CEO Chris O'Shea said ‌he had apologised to affected customers.

"When these issues came to light in 2023 – we apologised, stopped the activity immediately and took rapid action to improve our processes," ​he said in a statement.

British Gas will compensate those affected, write off up to 70 ‌million pounds of energy debt and review customer records for the relevant period, Centrica said.

Customer energy debt is a growing problem in Britain. It currently stands at ⁠around ⁠5.5 billion pounds and could grow to 7 billion ‌pounds by the end of the year, industry group Energy UK has said.

Centrica's payment went into ​Ofgem's voluntary redress ​fund, which is used to help charities support vulnerable ‌energy customers.

The investigation, which covered activity between February 2018 and February 2023, had now been resolved, Ofgem said.

Centrica