EDF - No bills for a year

missm87

Hello, looks like im in same situation as a few of you
would love some advice on our situation.......
we signed up with EDF about a year and a half ago.....all was going great then june last year we upped our direct debit payments for both our gas and electricity to £35 each.... a couple of weeks ago i was going through our paper work and couldnt find a gas bill..... i looked at our online banking and it confirmed we have a direct debit with EDF.... so i rang them...... to find out that theyhave only been taking out the direct debit for electicity and not for gas......FOR 12 MONTHS!!! ..... but wehave recieved no gas bills either for 12 months.... any way they saythe direct debit status is "pending" on their system and thats whyit hasnt been getting took out .... So they are currently working out what our bill is....which will no doubt be a ridiculous amount!
my questions are:

1) do EDF not have a obligation to inform us the direct debit hadnt been getting took before now ?

2) should they not of been out and read the meter before now? (therefor generating a gas bill)

3) will we not be covered by the direct debit promise as this is their mistake not ours?

4) why would the DD for electircity come out fine but not for gas?

5) has anyone else experienced this and what was the outcome?

weve just had a baby 6 weeks ago and cant really afford for our outgoings to increase drastically.....
and before i get people telling me i should of noticed before now, i realise this but glancing through my statment i seen payments coming out from EDF so was unaware there was a problem!

any help or advice on this would be appreciated

thanks in advance

Dave_J_3

another edf victim here.

in the last 2 weeks i've had 8 letters from them. The kept adjusting my dd, telling me i owe them thousands, then i owe nothing, then i owe hundreds, then they cancelled my dd and sent me a letter to pay now. Set my dd again on the wrong date for the wrong agreed amount.
It appears something their end has completely gone wrong. Anyways i've now binned them of and gone to npower for my sins. But they appear cheaper.

See what happens, they all as bad as each other

jalexa

missm87 wrote: »

before i get people telling me i should of noticed before now, i realise this...

any help or advice on this would be appreciated

First of all welcome to the forum, and sometimes harsh advice:).

The good news, if there is any, is that you have not affected your customer rights by your "failings" but Edf may have weakened their position by their "failings".

However, while you describe extremely poor Edf conduct, which is no surprise to Forum regulars, none of it is necessarily a failure to comply with regulations. Take on board the following information and take control.

Suppliers are not legally required to read meters more frequently that once every 2 years, though most of the time most suppliers, including Edf, aim for quarterly reads.

Regarding Direct Debit, the main requirement is for a supplier to give notice of a changed amount or a changed day of the month.

Regarding bills, there is a supplier requirement to comply with the Code of Practice for Accurate Bills. Specifically, subject to the customer not having willfully avoided payment or having been uncooperative, a supplier cannot charge for unbilled energy supplied more than 12 months prior.

I fear you misundertand the direct debit guarantee. It is not "free money" but a temporary refund of money collected without due notice. That is about the only thing you haven't mentioned happening.

What you need to do is to press for an accurate bill. If the bill imposes a significant "catch-up" you should ask for payment terms. Make sure they become aware that any "catch-up hike" would result in financial hardship. Bear in mind that you must expect to pay for the energy you consume and £35/month is unrealistically low.

You are entitled to raise a formal complaint on the first failure to resolve an issue 100% to your satisfaction. I recommend you give Edf one further timebound attempt to satisfy, then if not 100% satisfied raise a formal complaint. After a further 8 weeks you would be entitled to ask the Energy Ombudsman to consider the issue.