£11.5k electricity bill from EDF... Help!

matthewc_3

:eek:

We have just had a bill for £11,500 turn up for our house today from EDF... I nearly fell off my chair...!

Would greatly appreciate some advice.....
Use Gas for cooking and heating.
Electricity for the normal things.

They have issued a bill going from May 2003 through until June 2009 even though paying by direct debit over that time period.
Apparently they fitted a new meter in May 2003 as the old one was faulty, but didn't update the new meter serial number against our account... so then whenever they have come out to read the meter, the actual meter readings they have taken have been posted against the new meter serial number which was never tagged against our account, so appears they have been billing for 6 years without ever taking account actual usage... the monthly direct debit they have been taking has been £35 and the bills we received have never shown a problem. They have now spotted this problem, do a back billing, and think that in that time we owe them a further £11.5k.

2 issues...
a) can't believe we have ever used that amount of electricity
b) what on earth are you supposed to do in this situation when you get hit with a bill like this that covers 6 years of charges that is due to their muck up of not telling you sooner....?

Help!

anniecave

is the revised bill for both gas and electric ... or just for one or the other?
likewise is the 35/month direct debit for combined total or just for one or the other?
if it's just one revised bill and the 35 was just for this one, how much have you been paying for the other?

you mention a house - how many bedrooms? detached, terraced or what? well insulated or not? how many people live there?

kippen_noedel

Had a quick look at the Ofgem website and see they gave companies 2 years to sort out their back billing issues in 2005. Told them to stop the process beyond 2 years.

This might not apply because they have been issuing bills, albeit totally incorrect ones. I wonder if they have a "Duty of Care" to ensure they maintain a professional service.

Sounds like you need the help of an expert, you might find one at eh CAB or consumerfocus.org.uk/ or Martin himself ??

There was some change to legislation recently that I think means you have to lodge a complaint with the energy company first. I'd start with registering the fact that you are disputing the bill to avoid it going straight to debt collectors as some companies are very quick to use that process.

jimexbox

matthewc wrote: »

what on earth are you supposed to do in this situation when you get hit with a bill like this that covers 6 years of charges that is due to their muck up of not telling you sooner....?

Help!

If you have been paying your bills, and this is an error on their part, they can only bill you for the last 12 months usage.

stewie_griffin

I think this probably would fall under the 1 year back billing rule:

Under what circumstances will suppliers agree not to charge customers for
energy used?
[FONT=&quot]Energy Suppliers have a responsibility to ensure Customers are accurately billed for[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]energy consumed. Likewise, Customers have a responsibility to pay for the energy they[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]consume.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Supplier is completely within its rights to bill in full for any energy consumed where[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]it can demonstrate that;[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]a) use of supply has been made by a Customer but that no attempt has been made by a[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Customer to contact a Supplier to make or arrange payment, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]b) the Customer is wilfully avoiding payment, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]c) the Customer has not co-operated with attempts to obtain meter readings or resolve[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]asset queries required to facilitate accurate bill production.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Unless the above clauses (a) to (c) apply, Energy Suppliers will not seek additional[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]payments for un-billed energy consumed over 12 months ago if they have:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]d) received the necessary industry notifications but have failed to set up a record on[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]their billing systems, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]e) failed to set up or maintain accurate meter and metering data, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]f) failed to use valid readings provided by the Customer or data collectors, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]g) failed to reassess regular payments within the previous 15 months based on accurate[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]information available to them, or have failed to communicate the need for and use of a[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Customer own reading at this time, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]h) failed to attempt to obtain a valid reading during the previous 15 months, or[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]i) failed to send a bill to the Customer or billing address during the previous 15 months,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]unless their express agreement with the individual Customer allows for this.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Where Suppliers issue a bill which has these principles applied, they will credit the[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]account with the value of the unbilled energy consumed over 12 months ago, taking into[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]consideration any payments already made by the Customer or credits applied to the[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]account, so that the Customer is not required to pay any additional sums towards this[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]previously unbilled energy consumption.[/FONT]
I think in this case points d, e, and f could all apply. The only reason I could think it wouldn't apply is if the OP was sent letters regading his meter which he then ignored and then it could be argued that c applies.

ukbill69

Id write them a letter and send it recorded and tell them this, im sure they will sort this for you. Ive been with EDF for two years and they have been good. If they end up taking you to court then you can explain this to the judge.

matthewc_3

Hi there,,, -thanks for the quick replies. To answer some of the questions...
a) this is just for electricity (gas is separate with British Gas)
b) the account holder is actually my father... he's asked me to help
c) They have been issuing him bills every month and taking direct debit, but never flagged or highlighted there was an issue
d) he has never given them a meter reading, but doesn't recall every being asked to. EDF confirmed to me on the phone the dates they came themselves and took actual meter readings and what the readings were.... I'm guessing they then processed those meter readings against the meter serial number each year, but because the meter was not tagged to my fathers account, they have never updated to his account and therefore caused his direct debit amout to alter or flag that he was running up such a big bill.

any further thoughts?

anniecave

That doesn't sound right to me...

If the cooking and heating is on gas, he must be using ridiculous amounts of electricty to be owing 11,500 even after paying 35 per month.

Was the meter really exchanged like they said it was? have you confirmed that the meter serial number they have now is really your father's meter? What meter readings do they say they have for this new meter? Can you post them up? What is the start reading on the bill for the new meter and what is the reading now on the bills? does the current reading (on the bill) match approximately to the current reading on the meter?

Kaz2904

It would equate to a £195 bill each month for 6 years. That is pretty high when he has gas too.

eslick

just a thought and you might have mentioned it have you checked the meter reading is correct, they have been known to make mistakes

matthewc_3

Been doing some more digging... this is what I have worked out from the actual meter readings they had taken but never applied to the account....

Date of actual readingActual meter readingNumber of days in periodUnits used in periodAvg daily unit consumption16/05/2003210/07/2003216855216639.413/07/2004232193692105157.005/12/2005512565102803755.004/07/2007895355763827966.512/09/2008209844363144972.114/06/2009400392751905569.3

The house is a 4-5 bed bungalow.... central heating is gas.... hot water is heated off the imersion.... 3 chest freezers in an out-house.... fridge freezer in kitcher. dishwasher, tumble dryer and washing machine - each of which used one a day usually. Also a hot tub in the garden which was installed late summar 2007 (about aug I think) - a marquis spa 630.

Couple of big problems.... usage, from what they are saying seems high and seems to have jumped back in 2004.... you can see a bit of an uptick sinze 2007 which I'm guessing is the hot tub (but it isn't major uptick).
The current rate they appear to have us on is 16p per unit... and looking around we can get this quite a bit cheap (about 8.7p looking at a dual fuel deal).
So main problem is that we have never looked at rate/tarriff/usage over the years as bills have always looked fine and direct debit never been increased in a big way. Only this incident that has now obviously caused us to look and realised that a) over the years we have been on a tariff that has prob been way to high b) we have something chewing up a lot of electricity but never noticed this before because the bills have not been accurate and c) they are now asking for a lump sum in one go that we have never budgeted for over the years and in my mind we wouldn't have run up if the billing had been accurate and we had seen how much we were using and being charged....