EDF underestimating electricity bill

elaina79

Hi all.

I am currently in arrears with EDF for my gas and electricity bills. I have contacted them to arrange a payment plan and they contacted me asking for a current meter reading so they can work out my monthly repayments.

I looked at the meter readings my husband took against the estimates that are on my bill. To my horror I have found that my electricity bill has been largely underestimated. I can easily add £1000 :eek: to the current arrears I have with them.

I know that if I had sent them the actual reading they would give me a repayment plan that would cripple me. I'm expecting my 3rd child in June so am saving all I can.
The readings I have sent are slightly higher than my estimated bill readings so that the monthly payments won't be too high.
What I am planning to do is send my readings in regularly but my own "estimates" and slowely get me usage up to my actual readings instead of getting a huge bill at once. That way I am paying it up, but without them knowing I have huge arrears.

Am I at any risk by doing this, technically I will be paying what I have used but in my own time.

Pink_fluff

Why didn't you give them meter readings before? Then you would not have ended up with a big bill?

Michael_Nottingham

elaina79 wrote: »

Hi all.

I am currently in arrears with EDF for my gas and electricity bills. I have contacted them to arrange a payment plan and they contacted me asking for a current meter reading so they can work out my monthly repayments.

I looked at the meter readings my husband took against the estimates that are on my bill. To my horror I have found that my electricity bill has been largely underestimated. I can easily add £1000 :eek: to the current arrears I have with them.

I know that if I had sent them the actual reading they would give me a repayment plan that would cripple me. I'm expecting my 3rd child in June so am saving all I can.
The readings I have sent are slightly higher than my estimated bill readings so that the monthly payments won't be too high.
What I am planning to do is send my readings in regularly but my own "estimates" and slowely get me usage up to my actual readings instead of getting a huge bill at once. That way I am paying it up, but without them knowing I have huge arrears.

Am I at any risk by doing this, technically I will be paying what I have used but in my own time.

Well obviously its your choice but I would imagine lying about your meter readings is fraud or theft. What happens if they come to read your meter and find out the truth? Legally I think they have to safety check them every 2? years and I think they can get a warrant to do so.

How efficient is your house and would you qualify for any subsidised or free energy efficiency measures?
Also would you qualify for a social tariff and if not are you on their cheapest tariff?

elaina79

To be honest I just foolishly assumed that EDF would estimate it close to what I was using so I didn't really bother to read the meter. My gas estimates were pretty spot on though.

My meter is at the back of the house and the gate is always locked so they couldn't read it or service it unless we let them in anyway. Out of all the houses I have lived in never have any of the companies I have been with have ever checked my meters and the house I am now is has only been here for about 1 and half years so the meters are new.
The house is an eco house with low energy appliences and given the time that I have been here the bill is average. I'm not very energy concious and I use my tumble dryer alot at the moment due to the amount of washing I have.

Thank you Michael_Nottingham I will look into another tarrif, to be honest I have no idea what one I am on at the moment.

Magentasue

If your meter hasn't been read for a year and a half, they'll be wanting to read it sooner rather than later. It's all very well delaying repayment, but if you're 'not very energy-conscious' your debt will just escalate. Apart from the risk of being guilty of fraud and theft, why get into more debt. Surely better to ditch the tumble drier and other culprits and get the debt cleared? Despite living in an eco-house and there only being two adults and two children in the house, your underestimate comes to £50 a month (£1000 divided by a year and a half). This is on top of your regular payments AND arrears. You're using far more than you can afford to pay for even without the extra £1000 if you have arrears.

I can understand you wanting to avoid a repayment plan you can't afford, but surely it will only get worse the longer you postpone the inevitable? Have you considered the CAB debt counselling or similar? The Debt-Free Wannabe board is very helpful and supportive - well, used to be. Definitely look into alternative tariffs but cut back as well.

elaina79

I must have given a reading in march of last year coz that bill was not an estimate, it did seem very high but I was ill at the time and totally forgot to look into why that was.

My plan is everytime I give a meter reading, work my way up so that I eventually reach the same readings but will be working out how much I am using at the same time to reduce the amount of debt.
I do understand what everyone is saying that it would be theft or fraud and I want to get it cleared as soon as I can. I hate having this hanging over me.

I am going to cut down on the things that I think will use alot of electricity and see how much of a difference that makes.

I have heard of a gadget you can use that measures the amount of energy a particular applience uses. Does anyone know what these are called?
Also what is the average cost of a electricity bill for 1 and half years. I have roughly worked out that with the bills I have had and the underestimation my total cost for the time I have been here is about £1300.

Cardew

The chance of action being take for fraud is negligble - you made a mistake(several times!!) couldn't be bothered to read the meter so guessed!!!!

As electricty prices will probably be reducing soon - it could be argued that your plan is to pay for the extra units at a lower price(I appreciate that isn't your intent!)

The average consumption in UK for 18 months would be approx 5,000kWh but many use a lot more - certainly with a lot of Tumble Dryer use.

For you to say that you would have over £1,000 arrears, implies that you have used approx 10,000kWh more than you have been billed for! That is a lot of electricity in a gas heated house.

However you cannot really deny a meter reader access. You can plead that you are scared to let a man enter your garden, but they will make an appointment and if required they can legally gain entry or cut you off.

The obvious implication for people denying an accredited meter reader entry is that meter tampering is occurring.

Magentasue

elaina79 wrote: »

I have heard of a gadget you can use that measures the amount of energy a particular applience uses. Does anyone know what these are called?

Google 'energy monitor' and you'll see two types. One plugs into socket, you plug tumble drier or whatever into it and it records the kwh used. About £7. For about £30 upwards, you can get one that clips on near the meter and a wireless display unit records kwh used at any time and the total for the day/week/month.

You could start with reading your meter every day and working out your average daily consumption. Aim to cut down to somewhere around 10 - lower's great, of course, but 10 is easily achievable if your children young teens or younger. Stop using your tuble drier, switch everything off at the wall when not in use, lowest temp programmes on washing machine and diswasher, as few bulbs as possible (lots of spotlights very expensive) and make them low watt etc.

elaina79

Thank you Magentasue I had no idea what these things were called. I might try the one that plugs into the socket and measure each appliance. Its either the tumble dryer or even the laptop that hubby leaves on. My kids are young and leave all the lights on, sometimes its like blackpool illuminations upstairs.

With the washing machine we use a quick low temp wash most of the time. I do leave things on standby so might start switching things off at the wall from now on.

I hope to pay this off as soon as I can and to be honest never thought about the price reduction. So I'm hoping that it will be paid off or at least the readings tally up before any inspection is due.

This has made me alot more energy aware if nothing else. I have looked on various forums and found its quite common for EDF to underestimate their bills. Why would this be when my gas reading was pretty much spot on.

Magentasue

elaina79 wrote: »

Its either the tumble dryer or even the laptop that hubby leaves on. My kids are young and leave all the lights on, sometimes its like blackpool illuminations upstairs.

This has made me alot more energy aware if nothing else. I have looked on various forums and found its quite common for EDF to underestimate their bills. Why would this be when my gas reading was pretty much spot on.

My laptop uses 1kwh over fifty hours. The tumble drier uses 1.75kwh in an hour. There are six of us all in adult sized clothes plus all the towels and bedding and I've cut down to a couple of hours a week max by using an airer and being strict with myself. Don't use it at all in the summer.

Lights - we used to have halogen spotlights in our old house - not any more. As for underestimates - energy companies can't win. If they over estimate, they're accused of taking too much money and if they under estimate, that's wrong. It's up to the customer to submit readings, really. I think smart meters will stop all this - in our parents' day, there was more often someone at home to let the meter man in, and they came round every quarter. Now, as you've found to your cost, they can estimate bills for a long time, assuming they're accurate because nobody corrects the readings.

elaina79

OMG :eek:

I just roughly (I think) worked out that it costs about £20 per month to use my dryer. Thats £240 per year. Roll on summer is all I can say.