EDF demanding £4,500 electricity bill, what can I do?

ccleeds

I hope someone can help. My sister has just received a letter from her electricity company EDF stating that her latest bill is £4,500 and they are collecting it from her bank on 16 June!!!

As you can imagine, my sister is in shock. She has spoken to the company to ask why the bill is so large and they have said they have been basing her bill on estimates since 2004. However, their meter has been read at least once a year and in October 2008 they had an additional reading on the meter. My sister did ask why her bill sometimes had estimate on it, despite the readings being made and the meter reader confirmed this error can happen, but confirmed that their meter readings had been sent in.

The bill is paid on direct debit, so based on the fact that readings had been taken my sister was under the believe the bills had been correct. Is there anything she can do? Is EDF at fault for not applying the meter readings that had been taken?Does she have to pay all this money back?

Any help or advise greatly appreciated.

Kind regards
Catherine

Magentasue

Is the meter reading on the nightmare bill correct? Even if bills have been underestimated for five years, that's a lot of electricity!

Has your sister checked the meter readings on previous bills against her meter - what was the difference?

When you sister received previous bills, did she ring in the correct meter readings?

Is she certain the bill is for her meter?

Vestra

An extra £4500 does sounds a lot, how much usually were her estimated bills? Is it an electric heating property?

charliemaine1bee

Contact energywatch..they were great when i had problems with electricity company..x

Moglex

One thing to do is to ensure that if the matter hasn't been settled by Friday morning to cancel the DD with the bank.

That will ensure no DD refusal charge and (if she happens to keep that much money in there) they don't get the £4500.

Premier_2

charliemaine1bee wrote: »

Contact energywatch..they were great when i had problems with electricity company..x

They may have been great...some even say the fact the were so helpful to consumers and so troublesome to suppliers was the reason they were disbanded last year!

Premier_2

ccleeds wrote: »

I hope someone can help. My sister has just received a letter from her electricity company EDF stating that her latest bill is £4,500 and they are collecting it from her bank on 16 June!!!...

Get your sister to call ther electricity supplier immediately and, assuming she accepts she does actually owe the money, see if she can arrange a repayment plan with the supplier, perhaps over 12 months.

Btw, she should have been given 10 working days notice from receipt of any attempt to collect a revised amount by DD, but obviously the supplier can't be responsible if they sent the notice earlier but for whatever reason your sister only just received it.

Sun-Is-Fun

Had a similar experience this week. British Gas said we owe £1000 for electricity as have been estimating bills since we moved into property (about 3 years) ago. Asked if we could pay it all off, I said no, they said can you pay 3/4, I said no. This bartering went on an on. Eventually, we have to pay £200 per month to clear bill.

1carminestocky

Threaten to take them to court?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1743317

Although you may have to be a celebrity to get anything out of it.