EDF high electric bills and claim I have been underpaying them for 2 years

electric85

I have been living in a two bedroom flat for 2 years (two people living there) and in September I received a bill from EDF claiming that I my monthly instalments should be increased to over £300, that my yearly bill is estimated at nearly 5000 and that I had accumulated an outstanding balance on my account.

The flat is does not have central heating and is electric only (no gas) but this just seems ridiculous!

Prior to this I had been informed that my payments were in line - at one point even claiming that I was in credit. I have been speaking to them for two months and written a formal complaint and had a new meter installed because they admitted discrepancies with the meter readings.

They now claim that our usage is £152 a month (double the amount of the average family home!!) and that there is an outstanding balance of £1,500 on the account.

Does anyone have any advice? £152 per month is extreme for just two people - can this actually be correct!?

and can EDF really claim that I have accumulated the debt if they have undercharged me?

dogshome

How are you heating this flat? Is it an ECO7 meter with low cost power overnight and high cost power in the day? - It's not uncommon for suppliers to confuse which meter reading is for the Night Rate and which is the Day Rate.
Switch everything off in the middle of the day then boil a kettle to see which is meter turning, then check that those numbers are the one's listed as the DAY rate on your bill.

The other power dragon is use of the Immersion Heaters Daytime boost switch - make sure it's off and it stays off

Check that the meter number printed on your bill matches that on the meter, also if this is an apartment block with all the meters located in a service room, check that the meter you think is yours really is by turning off all the power in your flat, then by useing mobile phone check that the meter has stopped moving, then re-starts when someone switches on a kettle in your flat

jalexa

electric85 wrote: »

Does anyone have any advice? £152 per month is extreme for just two people - can this actually be correct!?

Electricity is measured in kWhrs, not ££s. As a matter of urgency you need to get a handle on your consumption by taking daily readings for a week, then weekly readings for another month.

If you post the daily readings you might get more meaningful help.

Whether Edf have behaved badly or not depends on the frequncy of the billing, whether the bill contained an estimated reading and what action you took if it was an estimated reading.

Curious about the meter replacement. That may or may not be relevant but more information is required. There should be a reference to a meter change on a bill and clearly traceable consumption across the meter change.

rogerblack

First step - go back through old bills, checking _ACTUAL_ - not estimated readings.
What period has this amount occurred over.
The trivial solution would be if it's over a short enough period that your main fuse would have blown if you'd have used this much electricity.
Otherwise, it gets more annoying.
Also ensure that the current reading is in fact accurate!

undaunted

IF you have used more than you have been billed for then yes they can reasonably expect you to pay it I'm afraid!

If you have an all electric flat and are heating it in some way via the electricity your bills may well be higher than average (eg with fan heaters rather than central heating). If you wish to dispute the £152 p/m / £1500 you need to show that you don't (& haven't previously) been using the amounts of energy they are talking about.

If you believe there is still something wrong (eg their figures are demonstrably wrong not just that you don't like them) & they haven't sorted it out in two months you could try complaining to the Energy Ombudsman

electric85

Thank you for all your responses - they have really helped in terms of what I can do to try and resolve the issue. I will certainly give some of these a go and also keep discussing the issue with EDF. Thanks again!