Energy Direct Debits: Get money back & your payments lowered Discussion

chrbkr

How's this for the explanation I got for why my monthly direct debit was suddenly raised from £30 a month to £211:

I would like to state you that direct debit is based upon the consumption of your fuel. It may increase or decrease according to your high or low consumption.

Aghh!!
When I spoke to someone, they said it was because I sent in a monthly reading that the amount was altered. I don't get it. I think they don't get it either.

Apparently on Blue Promise tariff you shouldn't send in a monthly reading as it causes your direct debit to be reassessed each time.

The basis of the reassessment is beyond my understanding. My account is in credit. I use around £30 of electricity a month at this time of year. I doubt I could use £211 worth, the amount they want me to pay, even if I left everything switched on 24/7.

Have succeeded in going back to £30, but EDF customers need to keep a close eye on what is happening to their accounts. Have no confidence in this company.

jalexa

chrbkr wrote: »

How's this for the explanation I got for why my monthly direct debit was suddenly raised from £30 a month to £211:

I would like to state you that direct debit is based upon the consumption of your fuel. It may increase or decrease according to your high or low consumption.

I don't believe that is an accurate (or honest?) explanation of the Edf Direct Debit 'payment scheme' and therefore of the payment "hike". You are entitled to escalate the accuracy (or honesty?) of the explanation as a Complaint.

MartyMarty82

Hi

I gave my final meter readings to Spark Energy roughly 3 months ago and ended up £160 in credit and my bill explained "you do not need to do anything, your money will be refunded into your bank account automatically..."; surprise surprise this didn't happen..

I contacted them on 04/04/13 to request my money back and was told it will take 28 working days to process, fair enough.. No sign of my money so I contacted them again today and was told 'the refund wasn't processed correctly and wasn't finished' and have now been told that the earliest that I can expect to see my money is 21st June...

It this fair? Should I just be accepting that it is taking so long? What rights do I have to be able to 'demand' my money back sooner?

Thank you!

luv_my_brass

I am doing battle with Scottish Power at the moment who want to raise my DD to £80 per month for duel fuel. They originally quoted me £44 a month when I chose to go with them after scanning moneysupermarket.com and choosing a capped term till October 2013 They came to this amount based on previous years consumption. After 2 months it was raised to £66 and now £80 I have refused them permission to change to this amount. I was with Scottish Power in 2011 and when I changed to another Provider, they had to repay me in excess of £170 in overpayments I have reminded them of this and the situation is currently under discussion apparently. I received a red alert from Martin's site telling me that I was paying too much and should consider changing suppliers.
I will wait and see what decision Scottish Power come to first. But I feel that maybe all Providers try to get as much money out of their customers as they can, and they can hold onto it until a change of supplier.

Scottish_Power

luv_my_brass wrote: »

I will wait and see what decision Scottish Power come to first. But I feel that maybe all Providers try to get as much money out of their customers as they can, and they can hold onto it until a change of supplier.

Hi can we help with this? e-mail us at social@scottishpower.com

There is more information about Direct Debit and billing in our support centre, including video guides and PDF documents.

The link for this is here

http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/support-centre/


Let us know if you would like specific assistance.

David

luv_my_brass

Received a phone call today from Scottish Power assuring me that my DD will remain at £66 per month instead of the £80 they proposed. I still think that I will be in credit at the end of the year though.

markocosic

I'll put another EDF (Blue+ Price Promise 2015) direct debit !!!!take on the record:

Switched to them at the end of May 2013. They chose £94/mo as a Direct Debit. Too high for my usage but I figured I could always fix that later.


£49 initial payment made. £47.93 CR as of 29/05/2013

£94 DD taken. £95.73 CR as of 25/07/2013, but only because EDF refused to accept my gas meter reading. (their online system does not allow for zero usage/identical meter readings, and of course estimates that I used more gas in June than actually I did in the depths of January...)

£94 DD taken. £179.95 CR as of 14/08/2013. I submitted a false gas meter reading (added 1 to the number) in order to work around their failure to programme their website properly (allow for zero usage) and bring my estimated gas bills back into the realms of reason.

£57.05 in 12 weeks, most of which is standing charges. What do EDF do? Up my Direct Debit. Not by much, only to £97/mo, but upping it given how quickly credit was building up (and I'd already informed them of my anticipated usage) was taking the !!!!.


I asked them to reduce it using their online form:

"Current Direct Debit amount: £97
New Direct Debit amount: £80
Reason for request: Your estimation of my usage over 12 months is wrong. I know what I've used previously. (£25-40/month in electricity throughout the year, plus £60-75/month in gas but only in November/December/January/February/March) EDF doesn't know what I've used previously and your estimates what what I will use in future are far too high. Please stop automatically increasing my direct debit unless there's an actual debt: there is already enough credit in the account to cover the winter gas usage."


This is what they said:

"I wish to inform you that your annual review date is on 16th March 2014 and as per your consumption pattern, we expect you to use electricity worth £272.65 and Gas worth £409.22 for the next seven months. If we divide £272.65 and £409.22 by seven, we get £38.95 (£272.65 / 7 = £38.95) and £58.46 (£409.22 / 7 = £58.46) respectively. When we add these two amounts (£39.00 approx for electricity and £58.00 for gas) we get £97.00 as your monthly direct debit amount. Thus, if we reduce your monthly direct debit amount, there may be amounts outstanding we will have to make arrangements for."


This is what I've replied with:

"Why is the subject of your email "RE: MyAccount failed meter read
submission" whilst the contents refer to a direct debit change
request? This is unhelpful. However with regards "failed meter read
submissions" I would like to point out that the EDF website is broken:
it refuses to accept identical meter readings/zero usage. I don't use
gas in summer. My meter readings are identical month to month. I need
to submit this to EDF otherwise your automated systems estimate
non-zero gas usage and bill me for it. Please fix the website such
that it will accept identical meter readings month to month: this is a
plausible real world scenario, not user error.


Back to the content of the email:

EDF's estimates are wrong. I provided last year's (unseasonally cold)
actual numbers for you in my request to amend the direct debit:
£25-40/month in electricity and £60-75/month in gas, the latter only
for 5 months. Given actual figures, why have you made doing as you're
told and amending the direct debit based on these so difficult? All
you needed to do was change the number.

Your maths is also wrong even if your estimates were correct.
£272.65+£409.22 = £681.87 you estimate I will use over the next 7
months. Factor in my account being in credit to the tune of £170, and
you should calculate £511.87/7 = just £73/month direct debit. If
ignoring the existing credit in the account was an accidental staff
error then this is poor standards at EDF. If ignoring the existing
credit in the account is standard company practice then this is far
more serious - systematic over-estimation of direct debits is in
contravention of condition 27 of the Gas Supply Licence.

Please confirm whether ignoring the existing credit in an account when
calculating the direct debit is standard company practice, or a staff
error on this particular occasion?

Please also set my direct debit to £80 and ensure that it remains
unchanged unless I instruct you otherwise. As you can see from the
above calculations, £80/month is more than adequate for both my
expected usage based on previous bills, and also EDF Energy's
over-estimate of my expected usage. In the event my gas usage
increases further (hell freezes over even more than last winter etc) I
will make the necessary arrangements to repay any outstanding amount.

In the event you fail to reduce my direct debit to £80, or you do so
but then change it again without me having you instructed you to do
so, I will refer the matter to the Energy Ombudsman."


I wonder if a member of their staff will admit to systemic manipulation of direct debits in a manner that is detrimental to consumers in writing...

Wywth

When EDF tried to change my monthly DD payment at the 6 month review (I couldn't make head or tail of their revised payment) I just called them and there was no issue at all getting it reverted to the original amount.

At 12 months they informed me

Having reviewed your account, we've noticed that your energy
costs have not quite been covered by your monthly payments of £xx.00.

This could be because the price you pay for your energy has gone up or you've simply used more than we predicted.

We've incorporated this balance into your projected costs for next year. However, with your usage at the price on your tariff, we predict that your payment of £xx.00 will cover your usage. We've left it the same.

Again, makes no sense to me, apart from "We've left it the same"

DirectDebacle

This is what they said:

"I wish to inform you that your annual review date is on 16th March 2014 and as per your consumption pattern, we expect you to use electricity worth £272.65 and Gas worth £409.22 for the next seven months. If we divide £272.65 and £409.22 by seven, we get £38.95 (£272.65 / 7 = £38.95) and £58.46 (£409.22 / 7 = £58.46) respectively. When we add these two amounts (£39.00 approx for electricity and£58.00 for gas) we get £97.00 as your monthly direct debit amount. Thus, if we reduce your monthly direct debit amount, there may be amounts outstanding we will have to make arrangements for."

Assuming the original DD was agreed as cost of annual consumption/12=MDD why is the annual review date mid March? Should it not be the joining date in May?

If so then cost of estimated usage should be /9 not 7.

datlex

my elec payment was automatically reduced I didn't even have to ask and the overpayment was sent to my bank account in days.