EDF...help.

LotteMoney

What a tale of woe....I changed my energy supplier to EDF in June 2008. I had been with Npower who were pretty average but EDF were cheaper and offered a cap on prices and a duel fuel discount.
I wish I had never bothered.

When I signed up I wanted to pay duel fuel, direct debit. No problems, all went smoothly and I was happy. A year in, they sent me a letter telling me that my meter reading was incorrect and that also that I had a pre-payment meter! Well, I don't and I rang to tell them. The bill they then sent me was for over £1000... This was the letter I had.

Thank you for your recent email and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding, and for the frustration and inconvenience we have caused you.

This matter has now been escalated to me as a Customer Liaison Supervisor reporting directly to the Director and I will do everything I can to try and resolve this matter with you.

The route cause of all the problems is the fact that when we took over your supply in 2008, the information received from your previous supplier advised us that you had a prepayment meter. We now know that this was not correct and when we were advised of this in May 2010 we corrected your details and issued a first bill.

Clearly this issue was no fault of yours and we should have immediately applied the Billing Code. This requires that we only bill back 12 months from the date of the first correct bill, which means we will only bill you from 6 May 2009. This will mean that we remove a total of £482.94 for the period 18 August 2008 to 6 May 2009. The balance on your account is currently £1380.46 so this will reduce to £897.52. In addition to this I will credit your account with £100.00 as goodwill in recognition of our service failure, making a total outstanding of £797.52.

I will also be happy to set up a payment arrangement to allow you to clear this balance over a period of time based on your personal requirements, or to set up a monthly Direct Debit to clear this and cover your future usage.


In may of 2010 I was made redundant and shortly afterwards became ill with MS. I sometimes strugle to leave the house. Today, after receiving a 'Notice of application to warrant entry' I called and then received this email. I was also told that if I take it to the ombudsman I will lose any 'Goodwill gesture discounts' I asked for a deadlock letter in October and since then they have been trying to stop me from taking this to the ombudsman.



Following your call today I am writing to confirm that there is currently a dispute on your account and as such all collection activity has been stopped.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the manner in which your complaint has been dealt with, I have passed your comments on regarding ************* (staff member) and specifically the email of
23 December 2010.

You have been offered the billing code which is in line with the Energy Retail Association’s Code of Practice for Accurate Billing and meets the expectations set out by the Energy Ombudsman. This would mean that we would only bill you for 12 months from the point when you were issued your first accurate bill. Therefore only charging you for the charges accrued from 14 May 2009 to
14 May 2010. please note any charges accrued since 14 May 2010 are not under dispute and should have been paid on receipt of the bill. My apologies if this was not made clear to you previously.

As advised by ***Staff member**, if the billing code was applied you would be discounted £482.94, he has also offered a further goodwill of £100.00 bringing your outstanding balance to £855.52.

I understand your position on this, and specifically that you are concerned that you will not be able to repay this in your current position. Nonetheless as you can probably appreciate we cannot clear the whole balance as this gas has been used and as your energy supplier we are entitled to bill for the remaining balance.

In order to help you manage the repayments I suggested Fuel Direct, however, having looked into this you would need to be on income support or pension credits. From my recollection you were not in receipt of these.

Another option would be to add the equivalent to your monthly Direct Debit, as the Fuel Direct deductions from your benefits would be set at £3.50 a week this would be a total of £14.00 a month on top of your Direct Debit. Unfortunately I am concerned that this will not be manageable. At present based on the meter reading of 5252 on 3 September 2009 and 6981 on 13 May 2010 you used £690.46, this is a monthly average of £60.00. This would mean that in order to set up a payment arrangement you would need to be paying a minimum of £74.00 a month for your gas account.

I genuinely would like to be able to offer more however with your current level of consumption this is the minimum repayment plan we can set, if I offered a lower payment plan we would not be acting responsible as your supplier because your outstanding balance would only increase.

You advised you did not want to have a prepayment meter; my concern is if you do not have this and are unable to make the proposed repayments then the outstanding charges are going to greatly increase. We are aware that there is a lot of stigma towards prepayment meters, however, you would be surprised with the amount of customers who come to prefer this method of payment as you do not need to worry about the debt increasing and are able to monitor your consumption which often means a reduction in ongoing utility costs. If you agreed to this option we would be able to install it free of charge and set the weekly collection rate at its lowest level of £3.50 a week. If you are unable to make the proposed repayments then realistically this is the only option we have available.

Due to the events that have occurred with your meter and the service you have received you now wish to go to the Energy Ombudsman. This is an understandable reaction, I think you are aware however that whatever the outcome of the Energy Ombudsman’s investigation we are required to adhere to that, which is not guaranteed to meet or exceed the current offer. Therefore if you are dissatisfied with the above offer and wish to discuss this further please contact me as I am more then happy to assist you.

I have suspended collection activity until 14 February to enable you time to get advice on this. After this date normal collection activity will resume. In the case that we are still negotiating a resolution or if your case has been accepted by the Energy Ombudsman then this hold may be extended. '




Does anyone know if I can do anymore?
Lotte.

HappyMJ

Sounds like a good offer to me. Had you been paying the £60 per month as had been agreed in the first place then there would be no debt.

LotteMoney

I was paying the DD that they set up! There was no 'debt' but they billed me incorrectly.



The £60 'offer' came today-I think you may have misread? I made no arrangement of £60! I was just paying my direct debit every month. I don't have 'debts' credit cards or anything else.

LotteMoney

Anyone? Could really use some help here.