1st, EDF, now British Gas, advice needed please

spiro

EDF would have advised you before changing you from one tariff to another, this would have been via a 'bill insert', letter or email. That is when you have 28 days to change suppliers or tariff if you want to stay with the same supplier. Therefore it would appear that EDF have agreed to extend this period for you - dont know why.

In terms of BG I not sure how you comaplin as you are not a customer of theirs (yet). In terms of any complaint you complaint 1st have to complain to your supplier (do this in writing). If you disagree with the outcome then you can complain to the ombudsmen. I doubt there is much you can do about BG not processing your switch in a timely manner unless you have it in writing that they will supply you from dd/mm/yy.

jalexa

Mr__X wrote: »

The introduction of the standing charges quadrupled my quarterly bill..

I stand to be corrected based on your particular circumstances but until then I don't believe that.

As I said there is more than one thing going on here. First things first, are you *certain* that Edf didn't notify you? Even a very carefully worded letter that slipped under your radar? Did you "reject" the change with Edf before the implementation date for the change?

If no "notice letter" was received from EDF (and your costs increased as a result of the change) that is grounds for a complaint to Edf.

However *if* you received "notice" (from Edf) but failed to "reject" the change, you have no entitlement to avoid the increased charges.

*If* you did "reject" the changes, and then promptly initiated the switch, but BG failed to inform Edf within 15 working days, then I believe you would be entitled to compensation from British Gas equivalent to the extra costs incurred.

However I cannot tell from your posts *exactly* what hapenned. I guess only you know. And what hapenned and how you handled it makes a difference to your entitlement.

HalloweenJack

was it around march that you started getting the standing charge? i think i have an idea what is going on

Mr__X_5

spiro wrote: »

EDF would have advised you before changing you from one tariff to another, this would have been via a 'bill insert', letter or email. That is when you have 28 days to change suppliers or tariff if you want to stay with the same supplier. Therefore it would appear that EDF have agreed to extend this period for you - dont know why.

In terms of BG I not sure how you comaplin as you are not a customer of theirs (yet). In terms of any complaint you complaint 1st have to complain to your supplier (do this in writing). If you disagree with the outcome then you can complain to the ombudsmen. I doubt there is much you can do about BG not processing your switch in a timely manner unless you have it in writing that they will supply you from dd/mm/yy.

EDF never did inform me via 'bill insert', letter, email or whatever which is why they gave me the period to switch supplier. In fact I'm not even sure it's actually a change of tariff, all I know is when I got billed in July is 'standing charges' were included whereas they never were previously.

As for BG, I did say earlier in the thread they refuse to accept liability for their untimely switchover which is why I'm questioning the EDF advisor's email & failure to update as she promised. If she had replied after 7 days as she had previously stated I would've still had 13 days to sort things out with BG, instead she had the 13 days and I'm left with the 7 days which may not be long enough.

HalloweenJack

can you tell us your tariff last year from a previous bill?

Mr__X_5

jalexa wrote: »

I stand to be corrected based on your particular circumstances but until then I don't believe that.

As I said there is more than one thing going on here. First things first, are you *certain* that Edf didn't notify you? Even a very carefully worded letter that slipped under your radar? Did you "reject" the change with Edf before the implementation date for the change?

If no "notice letter" was received from EDF (and your costs increased as a result of the change) that is grounds for a complaint to Edf.

However *if* you received "notice" (from Edf) but failed to "reject" the change, you have no entitlement to avoid the increased charges.

*If* you did "reject" the changes, and then promptly initiated the switch, but BG failed to inform Edf within 15 working days, then I believe you would be entitled to compensation from British Gas equivalent to the extra costs incurred.

However I cannot tell from your posts *exactly* what hapenned. I guess only you know. And what hapenned and how you handled it makes a difference to your entitlement.

LOL My quarterly bill for gas was well under £10 (in fact my 1st year here cost less than £10 for the whole year), I only use gas for 1 hot water tap, everything else including shower is electric.

Yes I am sure I never got any previous notification to changes prior to receiving a higher than usual gas bill in July, hence their agreement to give me until 24th August to change supplier.

I'm not sure what extra you need to know. I had until 24th August to change supplier, so long as I did that I wouldn't get charged for the daily standing charges which got sneaked into July's quarterly bill and I could leave EDF without penalty. I thought I had done this 17th August with BG but they failed to process my order. Meanwhile I was in contact via email with an EDF advisor who was keeping me up-to-date as to whether they had received the order from BG. On 2nd September I was told I'd get a further update in 1 week, she failed. Instead it took her 13 days for the next update (15th September) to let me know BG still haven't put in the order and if they never heard anything within 7 days from BG there was nothing more she could do. If I had got that email after the week (9th September) like she previously stated I would've still had 13 days to sort BGs mess out. Instead 7 days is possibly not long enough as I couldn't do anything until the 16th the earliest. I've done all I can but if BG haven't put the order in by the 22nd (tomorrow) I'm gonna get penalised and presumedly I'll be liable for the daily standing charges. On top of this I have to make a decision "to remain with EDF Energy on your current tariff or to have your gas supply capped so that you will not incur any charges for your consumption or the daily standing charge." (which I also asked about in OP but so far nobody has attempted to reply)

Mr__X_5

HalloweenJack wrote: »

was it around march that you started getting the standing charge? i think i have an idea what is going on

Yes. Unfortunately it wasn't until I got billed in July I knew about it though, hence our dispute since then.

Mr__X_5

HalloweenJack wrote: »

can you tell us your tariff last year from a previous bill?

Unfortunately I don't have any bills from last year. Typically I shredded a whole load of old mail a few months back. Normally I'm a hoarder of things that might come in handy but never usually do.

Edit*

I don't know, I might be wrong here but 'economy' seems to ring a bell somewhere. Was there a tariff called economy?. Like I previously said, I moved here 5 years ago when it was brand new and everything was set up for EDF. So long as the bills seemed reasonable I just paid them. It's only in July this year I ever had an issue (aside from a couple of ridiculous over-estimated readings which were promptly dealt with). Since July there has been nothing but hassle (which I wont go into here).

HalloweenJack

so teh first you knew of it was when *something* changed in march and the next quater bill came in?

im going to `go out on a limb` here - you were on EDF Online Saver 5 - for best discounts and no standing charge , which ended as a useable tariff on march 31st 2011 - at which point , as it says in the contract , you would have reverted to standard tarrif. useage wise , as by march this year OS5 was only 2% less than standard it would be been similar BUT then the standing charge comes in.


call EDF and ask what tariff you were on last year.

http://www.edfenergy.com/products-services/for-your-home/documents/product-terms/online-saver-v5.pdf

thats the OS5 T&C , and is the last of the NSC edf tariffs , as pretty much all of them now has one.

Mr__X_5

HalloweenJack wrote: »

so teh first you knew of it was when *something* changed in march and the next quater bill came in?

im going to `go out on a limb` here - you were on EDF Online Saver 5 - for best discounts and no standing charge , which ended as a useable tariff on march 31st 2011 - at which point , as it says in the contract , you would have reverted to standard tarrif. useage wise , as by march this year OS5 was only 2% less than standard it would be been similar BUT then the standing charge comes in.


call EDF and ask what tariff you were on last year.

http://www.edfenergy.com/products-services/for-your-home/documents/product-terms/online-saver-v5.pdf

thats the OS5 T&C , and is the last of the NSC edf tariffs , as pretty much all of them now has one.

The relevance of any of this what exactly?. My issue has nothing to do with what tariff I'm on or was on. I was given a get-out card, done everything required from me and was let down through incompetence from either BG, the EDF advisor or both.

I guess I'm wasting my time here.