EDF Fail Ofgem Direct Debit Rules

victor2

Spurred on by backfoot's comments in another thread, I complained to Consumer Direct a couple of days ago about the fact that EDF were adjusting my DD every time I gave them a reading and had not responded to my letter of complaint sent in early December 2011.
Well, a man from EDF telephoned me today in response to Consumer Direct getting on to them. He apologised about there being no response to my letter, which it seemed he had no record of. Anyway he went on about their new IT systems etc., and trying to improve things for their customers.
He couldn't explain how the last recalc (after a meter man visited as I've stopped giving them readings) came out to £135 and their customer services person calculated it to be £72. I have it at £100 and it should more than cover my usage. They agreed to leave it at £100, having offered to lower it to £80.
Anyway, he agreed to write to me with details of how they calculate the direct debit amount. Will be interesting to see if I get anything and if it is meaningful.

backfoot

undaunted wrote: »

Or even a competent regulatory structure - what is the point of anyone making rules if neither Ofgem or Consumer Focus have actually been willing to do anything to ensure they are enforced when breached?

Absolutely. What was the year long consultation, reports and eventually the new rules all for? I have personally spoken to one of its authors and it was like drawing teeth to get any commitment or information regarding current monitoring or enforcement.

EDf's examples, including random numbers, beggars belief as does the sort of response Snowcat has received. These should be system generated numbers fed into an explanation which contains the calculation.Any forecast is just that, but it should have some foundation which can be easily understood.

I think EDF and Eon have gone dramatically backwards on this.

backfoot

victor2 wrote: »

Spurred on by backfoot's comments in another thread, I complained to Consumer Direct a couple of days ago about the fact that EDF were adjusting my DD every time I gave them a reading and had not responded to my letter of complaint sent in early December 2011.
Well, a man from EDF telephoned me today in response to Consumer Direct getting on to them. He apologised about there being no response to my letter, which it seemed he had no record of. Anyway he went on about their new IT systems etc., and trying to improve things for their customers.
He couldn't explain how the last recalc (after a meter man visited as I've stopped giving them readings) came out to £135 and their customer services person calculated it to be £72. I have it at £100 and it should more than cover my usage. They agreed to leave it at £100, having offered to lower it to £80.
Anyway, he agreed to write to me with details of how they calculate the direct debit amount. Will be interesting to see if I get anything and if it is meaningful.

Well done Victor. I have followed your story of woe with EDF for some time. You end up getting it corrected only because of your own diligence.

What I am trying to do, for all customers, is get the process changed at source so that it is correct first time. You are just being presented with a charade and each phone call is designed to placate you and not resolve the issue. They are simply not abiding by the rules.

I will only deal with them in writing creating a trail of evidence. The inabilty to respond to a complaint properly being a big part of any case presented.(as in snowcat's case).

jalexa

victor2 wrote: »

They agreed to leave it at £100, having offered to lower it to £80.

Remember you can make extra payments to the account number mentioned somewhere on MyAccount more easily than you can remove payments. The money shows quickly but I am not aware how it is allocated to each fuel.

I have made limited extra payments to reach my "short year" annual review date on balance with the correct payment for the next 2 full years. That is my personal agenda. Actually due to weather and other energy efficiency measures I am slightly "ahead". This has not prevented increased payments being calculated on every (30 days +) meter reading submission.

Also Ofgem incorrectly shows Edf as having an "anniversary" review but I have it in writing from Edf they "spring-align" randomly:D distributed from April to June. I think that will make a good email question.:) I am randomly:D allocated April apparently.

victor2

jalexa wrote: »

Remember you can make extra payments to the account number mentioned somewhere on MyAccount more easily than you can remove payments. The money shows quickly but I am not aware how it is allocated to each fuel.

I have made limited extra payments to reach my "short year" annual review date on balance with the correct payment for the next 2 full years. That is my personal agenda. Actually due to weather and other energy efficiency measures I am slightly "ahead". This has not prevented increased payments being calculated on every (30 days +) meter reading submission.

Also Ofgem incorrectly shows Edf as having an "anniversary" review but I have it in writing from Edf they "spring-align" randomly:D distributed from April to June. I am randomly:D allocated April apparently.

Good point there, maybe I should have set it at £80 and put the extra £20 aside in my bank account. As I'm on a single account for both fuels, it doesn't matter how the split is, although they do calculate the DD for each fuel, with the random element of course.
As much as anything, I want to prove to them that my calculation of £100 was sufficient to cover my usage on the fixed tariff I'm on, for the duration of the contract.
EDF told me it was a 6 monthly DD review based on your start date, but nothing in writing and they did it every month I gave them a reading anyway. The first 6 monthly review was due last November. I gave them no reading and nothing happened!

brewerdave

victor2 wrote: »

EDF told me it was a 6 monthly DD review based on your start date, but nothing in writing and they did it every month I gave them a reading anyway. The first 6 monthly review was due last November. I gave them no reading and nothing happened!

..exactly the same experience - in the first 5 months with them I made three phone calls to EDF last year (after meter reading entry/bill generation) to get DDs put back down to original figure; in one of these calls the Customer Service "advisor" mentioned a six month review - that was up in mid Jan,no meter reading AND NOTHING HAPPENED:rotfl:
I'm due a meter reader visit later this month - so I await the inevitable bill/DD "review" with baited breath - especially as my spreadsheet is now showing a surplus of ~ £80 on current usage including this cold spell!

backfoot

brewerdave wrote: »

..exactly the same experience - in the first 5 months with them I made three phone calls to EDF last year (after meter reading entry/bill generation) to get DDs put back down to original figure; in one of these calls the Customer Service "advisor" mentioned a six month review - that was up in mid Jan,no meter reading AND NOTHING HAPPENED:rotfl:
I'm due a meter reader visit later this month - so I await the inevitable bill/DD "review" with baited breath - especially as my spreadsheet is now showing a surplus of ~ £80 on current usage including this cold spell!

Thanks brewerdave,

In some ways a revision down is just as important, if not more, for the customer to understand how the DD change has occurred.

The system (if it can be called that), which reacts to every meter reading is oversensitive and causes untold problems and confusion. The whole system is specified incorrectly and the customers shouldn't have to continually redress these mistakes.

meggsy

EDF insider tells Ofgem of chaos at call centres as complaints soar

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2099837/EDF-insider-tells-Ofgem-chaos-centres-complaints-soar.html#ixzz1mAMcOFp5

jalexa

backfoot wrote: »

The system (if it can be called that), which reacts to every meter reading is oversensitive...

I'm sure that is how it is and seems to you, but my particualar beef is that it is completely insensitive to regular meter readings. I have submitted regular monthly reads and even though the reads clearly show a projected seasonally adjusted consumption over 30% lower than the Edf assumption figure I extracted from them, the recalculation figures indicate that the "assumption" has hardly been varied.

They really are going to have a very difficult explanation come the April review. Incidently given that the Ofgem guide states Edf do "anniversary" zero-balance (not spring) I have emailed asking for an explanation why I have an April annual review (for a July start). Doing my little bit for chaos.:D

backfoot

jalexa wrote: »

I'm sure that is how it is and seems to you, but my particualar beef is that it is completely insensitive to regular meter readings. I have submitted regular monthly reads and even though the reads clearly show a projected seasonally adjusted consumption over 30% lower than the Edf assumption figure I extracted from them, the recalculation figures indicate that the "assumption" has hardly been varied.

They really are going to have a very difficult explanation come the April review. Incidently given that the Ofgem guide states Edf do "anniversary" zero-balance (not spring) I have emailed asking for an explanation why I have an April annual review (for a July start). Doing my little bit for chaos.:D

Finding the right balance for review frequency and sensitivity is a debatable matter.

My own view is that DD management has become far too intrusive and over complex.

The big concern is where DD amounts fall obviously behind the actual rate of consumption. That might be shown by significant year on year increase where history shows it.

If we are to have formal reviews, (which I am not convinced about) then no more than one six monthly review is required.

Systems like EDF's which seems to react to any meter reading is nonsensical and overly complex. I think it is expecting too much of the algorithms to expect them to pick up every nuance of all our consumption patterns.Direct Debits should be regular fixed amounts as the norm.

We started DD's with an expectation of a spreading an annual estimate of cost into 1/12ths.Take into account price increases but that's about it. If someone doesn't like that approximation, I would suggest DD's aren't suitable and quarterly payment in arrears would be better.

In your case, as a supplier I would leave well alone but react if you wanted to reduce because of the saving measures you had taken.Instead we have created a conflict zone around all these reviews.

We now have every supplier playing games with DD Management either deliberately for their benefit or because they haven't thought through their system specifications in attempting to be too clever.

I know what the Regulatory regime has designed as a framework but it all seems to have gone awry to me.