Changing meters - Terrible service from EDF

Netizen

Ever since joining EDF 4 months ago we've had awful customer service from them. The call centre staff are often patronising and argumentative, looking for a way to blame us for the problems we're having :mad:

To cut a long story somewhat shorter, we currently have an outdated token meter for which most shops are no longer selling tokens. We want it changed for a regular billing setup, but a Meter Plus engineer isn't able to do it because we apparently have a sub-routed supply (meaning the line from substation to our house is split to other houses on the street).

EDF have requested YEDL (the supply network) to do the necessary work, but they haven't responded in 8 weeks or more to numerous requests to even get an appointment sorted. Thanks to EDF's rubbish customer service not understanding the problem, they've made another engineer appointment to come here in two weeks to change the meter. Despite us telling them the engineer will probably refuse to do the work for same reasons as above.

They've also got the cheek to tell us that it is OUR responsibility to send a letter to everyone in the street to warn them of a possible interruption! I thought this is exactly the sort of thing an electricity company is supposed to do themselves? Does anyone know that if we didn't do this, who would get in trouble?

To top all of this, we have made a formal complaint (covering more than is detailed here) to the head office as reccomended by Ofgem/ombudsman, but it's taken longer than it should have to get a response. The response came today in the form of an evening phone call, in which a very arsey woman told my girlfriend it's our problem that nothing's gone right because the meter is our property and our responsibility, which I'm SURE is incorrect!

Can anyone advise if it's at all worth our time making a top level complaint to the ombudsman? Is there anything else we can do to get things moving along as they should? Because to be honest as soon as this is over and we're on normal billing/DD I'm dumping EDF purely for the next cheapest purely because of the poor service.

Incidentally I was with them for the past 3 years while I was at uni in Sheffield and the service was brilliant. What happened!?

Incisor

Netizen wrote: »

... To cut a long story somewhat shorter, we currently have an outdated token meter for which most shops are no longer selling tokens. We want it changed for a regular billing setup, but a Meter Plus engineer isn't able to do it because we apparently have a sub-routed supply (meaning the line from substation to our house is split to other houses on the street). ...

Well that is one big piece of piffle. This description of a sub-routed supply will be the case with most premises. It would be very unusual [probably only in a rural area with 2 houses, 1 each way up the road] to have individual lines from the substation to each house.

dunloadin

Not piffle as such, just a bad description. Sounds to me like no cutout exists in the property, the cutout could be shared with an adjoining property or be in a locked bemco box hidden away in the street somewhere. As the meter worker can't isolate the meter he would be working live....and would certainly loose his job if he/she did so, or worse still loose life or limb if they got a belt.

The meter worker will only be allowed to remove the DMO fuse, and from the sound of it the supplier (EDF) need to contact the DMO (YEDL) to get a cutout installed into the property, in the area I work in this is classed as routine work and has a mimimum 2 month wait before work will commence. It's not your job to sort it out, call centre personel do talk some cack at times, I despair at some of the things they come out with (often in all innocence, though some can be a bit zealous)

Netizen, as you can't get tokens in your area you will end up being off supply, this is classed as an emergency so the meter worker who gets called out to you should be able to get the DNO guys out to sort the cutout problem out in hours rather than months....either by locating the fuse or fitting a cutout at the meter point.

Netizen

I've probably done an awful job of explaining it so apologies for that! I'm sure the engineer knew exactly what he was talking about, but I haven't remembered it correctly. When I say substation, I mean the concrete hut with green doors at the end of the street. We're certainly not in a rural position, 1.5 miles from Wakefield city centre.

Zealous is exactly the right word to describe some of EDF's staff. You either get one of them or occasionally a really nice person who talks like a human being, there's no middle ground.

We technically can still get tokens from a post office nearly a mile away on foot, but even they have said the supply of tokens isn't being renewed. YEDL quoted us 6-8 weeks just to respond to the request for work to be done, no timeframe was given for an actual appointment.

Oh hang on...

As I was writing the above, EDF called to say that the work can take place on 28/10 as scheduled. Apparently they've changed their mind about YEDL being needed to install a cutout and the engineer can do it himself. Downtime would be only 20 mins too. Before the work can be done, our landlord apparently has to cover up some exposed earth wires as a matter of safety.

Is it me or does this sound too good to be true?