EDF admit billing errors but my small business now owes them £8000

tattyt

Hi,

We have been in an ongoing dispute with edf over our small business energy bills.

For years they have been taking meter readings from us & we have been supplying them with meter readings but to cut a long story short their billing system have not been using these readings. EDF have owned up to this.

They have now sent us a huge bill for £8000+

This has been since 2003.

Does anyone have any advice?

Regards,

neas

Erm?

Check the meter reading you gave them was correct?

You can prob get it reduced? If its over 2 years old or something.. but not sure if it applies to business.. Either way you prob used the energy.. i'd start cutting down lol.

Premier_2

You're a business.

You were supplying your own readings, so it wasn't rocket science to calculate what you actually owed, even if you weren't invoiced for it at the time correctly.

Now, assuming the invoicing errors have been corrected, they've caught up with you.

If you discovered you had supplied products or services a few years ago that you hadn't invoiced or been paid for in full, would you ask for payment or would you just write off the amount???

Edit: the back billing rules do not apply to business customers. They are supposed be be able to manage their own financial affairs ... or pay an accountant to do so.

The Statute of Limitations probably applies, but that allows pursuing debts up to 6 years after the event (5 years in Scotland)

Cardew

Unfortunately the safeguards for domestic billing(12 month back billing etc) do not apply to business accounts.

There have been lots of threads on this subject - I suggest you search this section using the term 'business tariff' or 'business accounts'

Whilst you should get some reduction, their stock answer is that you should have checked your bills against the meter readings.

tattyt

The meter readings were also taken by the energy company. I understand that it is our fault for not scrutinising the bills with a fine tooth comb but unfortunately these things do happen to us all at some point.

What is very annoying is that the energy company are still unable to get the bill correct. They have also admitted that they made a mistake and their system ignored the readings they had.

So in answer to your question "If you discovered you had supplied products or services a few years ago that you hadn't invoiced or been paid for in full, would you ask for payment or would you just write off the amount???"

I just don't know but I do know that I would be extremely embarrassed to admit how bad a mistake I had made....

Premier_2

tattyt wrote: »

...What is very annoying is that the energy company are still unable to get the bill correct...

If the bill is incorrect, and the supplier accepts this, then the bill is usually put into dispute so you won't have to pay anything until they correct it.

That should buy you some time to get the money you do actually owe together.

Presumably you know how much you actually owe as you have worked it out to discover the bill supplied is incorrect.


Edit: If your business really is as small as you imply, surely you realised you were paying on average over £1200 per year less than you should have been?
What do your management accounts reflect for energy costs?

Cardew

tattyt wrote: »

They have also admitted that they made a mistake and their system ignored the readings they had.

That is a problem with the over-reliance on the all powerful computer.

The Program is set to ignore meter readings it 'thinks' must be a mistake and use an estimated reading. One this happens any subsequent readings will be even more inaccurate(it 'thinks')

Obviously there should be some human intervention in this process - but all too frequently there ain't!

You do have grounds on this issue alone of meter reading to get some considerable reduction.

The other issue is how have they calculated your arrears?

Clearly you were paying far less per kWh in 2003, and in subsequent years.
It is not unknown for them to attempt to charge you at today's prices i.e. xxxxkWh @ 2009 prices.

The other method is to estimate a meter reading at the various dates of a price change.

e.g 24 May 2004 meter reading XXXX so 1234 kWh @ 10p

18 Jan 2005 meter reading XXXX so 5678 kWh @ 11p

Obviously there is 'wriggle room' here in your negotiations.

Good luck