Hardship Policy

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If you're having trouble paying your energy bill, we want to hear from you as early as possible. Our full Hardship Policy is set out below.

1. Introduction

This policy applies to residential customers living in New South Wales who find it hard to pay their energy bills due to hardship.

You might experience hardship because of factors like:

• death in the family
• household illness
• family violence
• unemployment
• reduced income

This policy explains what we will do to help you manage your energy bills, how we consider your circumstances and needs, and your rights as a customer in our hardship program. In respecting customer's rights, we will:

• Contact you in a timely manner when it is relevant to do so
• Give you clear information about the assistance available under our hardship policy
• As soon as practicable, provide assistance you're entitled to under this policy
• Notify you of the existence of our Hardship Policy as soon as any indication of hardship has been recognised
• Provide you with a copy of the Hardship Policy at no cost
• Put a hold on any external collections or debt recovery action while you're in hardship
• Waive any late payment fees applied on accounts of customers in hardship
• Provide access to affordable, renegotiable payment plans
• Provide access to available government grants and concessions
• Not disconnect customers with an active payment arrangement or investigation on file
• Not charge a security deposit to customers in hardship
• Work with you and any financial counsellor or other advisor assisting you

You can ask a support person to contact us, such as a financial counsellor or someone who helps you manage your energy bills. We will need your permission to talk to your support person.

2. Transparency & Equitable Access

We are committed to communicating regularly with you and providing you with equitable access to the benefits and procedures under this policy in circumstances of hardship. We will work to consider your present and future energy needs. Our goal is to always support you with the reasonable ongoing supply of energy and to aid you during your times of hardship.

3. We Are Committed to You

We are committed to offering you appropriate payment plans that suit your current financial ability and all applicable benefits available during the program. Our staff undergo training to understand hardship issues so they can answer customer queries, identify customers experiencing payment difficulties, and assist them — and we regularly review and update this training so staff can identify customers facing payment difficulties and ensure they're treated equally and fairly.

4. Who Is Eligible for the Program?

Residential customers experiencing payment difficulties are eligible to enter our Hardship Program. You must meet the following criteria:

• You have an active debt
• You accept and commit to making payments according to the agreed payment plan
• You accept to inform us if you are unable to meet the payment conditions
• You stay in touch and keep us informed about any change in your circumstances

If you don't meet these criteria, you may be ineligible for assistance under this policy. We will contact you and tell you why, and what other options or assistance may be available to you.

5. Identifying Hardship

We encourage customers who may be experiencing financial hardship to contact us personally or through a third party, such as a financial counsellor or community support agency.

We understand customers may not feel comfortable notifying us of their financial situation. We therefore employ credit management cycles and account monitoring to identify customers who may be experiencing hardship as quickly as possible, in line with our obligations under the National Energy Retail Law and Rules and regulatory guidelines. Our systems identify hardship customers by observing a customer's history of late payments, payment extensions, part payments, broken payment arrangements, and government assistance (e.g. grants and concessions).

If we believe non-payment is due to payment difficulties, our Hardship Team will contact you as soon as practicable and provide payment plan options available under our Hardship Program.

6. What We Will Do to Help You

We will tell you about our hardship program if you tell us you're having trouble paying your bill, you're referred to us by a financial counsellor or community worker, or we're concerned you may be experiencing financial hardship.

We will recommend you speak to a staff member to join our hardship program if you have a history of late payments, broken payment plans, requested payment extensions, received a disconnection warning notice, or been disconnected for non-payment. We can also support you to join if you're eligible for a relief grant or emergency assistance, or have personal circumstances such as a death in the family or job loss. If you're having trouble paying your bills for any reason, please contact us so we can discuss your individual situation.

To speak with one of our trained specialists, call us on 02 5657 8205, email contact@relayenergy.com.au, or use our contact form. Our staff will ask you a few questions about your circumstances and work out if you can join the hardship program. We will assess your application for hardship assistance within 5 business days of receiving it.

If you're accepted into our hardship program, we will tell you if you're on the right energy plan (or if there's a better one for you), tell you about government concessions, relief schemes or energy rebates you may be eligible for, give you ideas about reducing your energy use, talk to you about a payment amount that suits your circumstances, suspend credit collection action, and flag your account as "Hardship." Our dedicated Hardship Team will review your account every month to ensure you're meeting the program's obligations, the program is meeting your needs, and your tariff remains appropriate. We can send you a free copy of our hardship policy at any time.

7. Payment Options

We will conduct a financial assessment to determine how much you can afford to pay towards your electricity. Our dedicated Hardship Team will work with you on this — asking about your income and expenses, and checking whether there are benefits you're entitled to but not receiving. You can discuss your financial situation over the phone, by email at contact@relayenergy.com.au, or through our contact form.

Payment options available to hardship customers include payment plans, Centrepay, and Direct Debit. To build your payment plan, we'll consider how much you can pay, how much you owe, and how much energy we expect you'll use over the next 12 months.

If you're experiencing payment difficulties due to hardship, our staff will take all your circumstances into account and act fairly and reasonably. If you've joined our hardship program, we will not charge late payment fees, require a security deposit, or make changes to your plan without your agreement (for example, we won't put you on a shortened collection cycle unless you agree first).

Short-Term Payment Plan — offered if you're having short-term financial difficulty and can resume paying billed amounts on time once the plan ends. You can pay equal weekly, fortnightly, or monthly instalments for 3 months; we'll contact you afterwards to discuss any changes to your circumstances. The plan is designed to cover arrears and estimated usage while reflecting your capacity to pay, and in some circumstances we may roll over a portion of your current debt onto the next invoice.

Long-Term Payment Plan — offered if you're facing long-term financial hardship, over a period of 6 to 12 months. We'll consider your historical billing and future energy costs, review your usage pattern and help identify how costs can be lowered, assist you in accessing utility and community assistance programs, and retrospectively apply pay-on-time discounts to overdue bills where this helps reduce your arrears. In some circumstances, at our trained staff's discretion, we may also provide one-off credits or discounts on outstanding debt for customers actively participating in the program, assign the most appropriate tariff and pay-on-time discounts at no cost, and offer financial assistance to reduce energy usage including field audits and appliance replacement. We'll review your payment plan every month and keep you updated.

Once we agree to a payment plan, we'll send you information about it (who to contact for help, how long the plan runs, the amount and frequency of payments, and how we worked them out) via your preferred method, or by post if you don't indicate one.

You can use Centrepay if eligible — a free service that automatically deducts an amount from your Centrelink payments towards your energy bills. You'll need our Centrepay reference details, which we can provide when you call. For more information visit centrelink.gov.au or call 1800 050 004.

If you miss a payment, we'll contact you to see if you need help — calling on the third business day after the due date, sending SMS reminders where possible, and sending a payment plan reminder letter five business days after the due date, which will explain the possibility of being removed from the program and your options for renegotiating. We'll allow an additional 7 business days from the final reminder before considering removing you from the plan.

What you must do: tell us if your situation changes and you can no longer make your payments, so we can review your arrangement, and tell us if your contact details change. We will only remove you from our Hardship program for reasons set out in this policy, unless you request it. If you've had two payment plans cancelled in the last 12 months because you didn't follow them, we don't have to offer you another plan and we might disconnect your energy.

8. Other Supports to Help You Pay Your Energy Bill

We will tell you about other ways to get help paying your energy bill, including government relief schemes, energy rebates, concession programs, and financial counselling services. If you find out you're eligible for these programs, let us know as soon as possible so we can help you.

Further information for NSW customers is available at service.nsw.gov.au.

Financial counselling is a free and confidential service offered by community organisations, community legal centres, and some government agencies. You can contact the National Debt Helpline Monday to Friday, 9:30am to 4:30pm, on 1800 007 007, or visit moneysmart.gov.au. When you call, you'll be transferred to the service in your state.

9. Our Programs and Services

As a hardship customer, you can access a range of programs and services including government relief schemes, energy rebates, concession programs, and financial counselling services. We'll consider your individual situation to find the right programs or services for your needs — if you find out you're eligible for any of these, let us know as soon as possible so we can help.

10. Reviewing Your Tariff

When you join our hardship program, we'll talk to you about your energy use and whether you're on the right plan. We'll work with you to determine the most appropriate tariff, bearing in mind whether you have dedicated off-peak appliances, any previous tariffs and bills, your overall power usage, and any other relevant information you provide.

If we think there's a better energy plan for you, we'll explain why and ask if you'd like to transfer for free. We will only talk to you about energy plans we can offer.

11. We Can Help You Save Energy

Using less energy can save you money. When you join our hardship program, we can give you tips to use less energy. If you've joined our hardship program, we will not charge late payment fees, require a security deposit, or make changes to your plan without your agreement — for example, we won't put you on a shortened collection cycle unless you agree first.

12. Energy Field Audits

We help facilitate energy field audits if you're experiencing payment difficulties. An Energy Audit analyses a property to indicate how it can reduce energy consumption and costs, helping you understand energy wastage and accelerate efficiency improvements. You may be eligible if you've had a sudden increase in energy consumption, or if you request one — and depending on your circumstances, as determined by our trained staff, we may contribute to or pay for an audit.

If we partially cover the cost, we'll pay the agreed amount to the audit partner (recorded with one of our trained staff), who will invoice you for the remainder, along with a full report on potential savings. You may also request an audit at your own cost, in which case we'll refer you to our chosen audit partner and help you understand the results.

Considering your financial situation, our trained staff may decide to offer this free of charge. Energy field audits are only available if you're currently on a Hardship payment plan; a free-of-charge audit will only be provided if you're facing severe hardship or high outstanding debt.

Appliance Assistance — you may experience large swings in energy usage depending on your household appliances. If you're experiencing hardship, and in appropriate circumstances as determined by our Hardship Manager, we'll work with you to identify appliances that, if replaced, may reduce your energy consumption and costs. At your request, we'll nominate a suitable third party (whether or not we're affiliated with them) to sell or supply a particular appliance.

13. Complaints

If you have a complaint about our hardship program, we're ready to listen and help sort any issues out. We have a policy and procedures in place for managing disputes, and wherever possible we'll strive to resolve your complaint on first contact.

If we don't believe we can resolve your complaint within 10 business days (or 2 business days for an urgent complaint), we'll advise you within that period why there's a delay, the timeframe that will apply, and — if we expect resolution to take more than 9 further business days — your options for external dispute resolution (except where the delay is due to a declared mass service disruption). We have an internal escalation process, and your complaint will be escalated and managed accordingly if you request it.

We ensure our Customer Care staff are trained to understand the remedies available to resolve complaints, tailor any remedy to the root cause of your complaint and your circumstances, and have management monitor complaints to identify and address wider issues.

Our aim is to provide you with excellent customer service — if we're not meeting your expectations in any way, we want to hear about it. We'll approach each situation individually and work with you towards a resolution that's fair, legal and reasonable. All complaints are managed according to our Complaints and Dispute Resolution process.

You can contact us via phone on 02 5657 8205, email at contact@relayenergy.com.au, our contact form, or by post to 317 High Street, Maitland NSW 2320.

If we can't meet your expectations in how we handle an issue, independent dispute resolution is available through:

14. Privacy

We are committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles. Our full Privacy Policy is available under Policies on our website. Alternatively, you can request a copy by calling 02 5657 8205 or writing to 317 High Street, Maitland NSW 2320.

15. Authorised Representatives and Advocates

An "Authorised Representative" is a person you've appointed and delegated to deal with us on your behalf, with some authority over your account. An "Advocate" is a person you've appointed to deal with us on your behalf, but without authority over your account. You can authorise a third party to speak on your behalf — call or write to us with the authorised person's name, contact number, and date of birth. We will contact you only if the authorised party refuses to speak with us, or is not in contact with us for more than fourteen business days.

This policy will be reviewed periodically to reflect changes in relevant law, rules, and guidelines.