EDF rate 1 & 2 mixed up

weymouthlad

Switched from Southern Electric to EDF in March this year. Submitted readings, paid final bill etc. Im sent a bill in April when i notice the readings are incorrect. Phoned EDF and informed them, and they promised to sort it out. As this bill was only for a six day period they agreed to add it to the next bill with the correct readings, and cancel this bill. Great I thought. Bill just arrived for March-July £246.09. That seems expensive, looked at the meter readings, and guess what....there still the wrong way around! Phoned again, and they said they would sort it. Was told that the previous supplier agreed that the readings were the wrong way around, but now have to wait for 'Electricity Independent' to verify it. Who are they? And they have no idea how long it will take to sort it out. I asked them to cancel the current bill until they sort it, as im not going to pay them any money until they can actually send me a correct bill.

Im not sure how the readings got mixed up in the first place. Surley it is obvious that the readings are the wrong way around?

Sorry its long..any thoughts on this please?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Quite a common scenario I am afraid, and from reports on MSE, EDF are not capable of sorting anything out.

I suggest that if you have any problems with EDF that you should put it in writing rather than phone - an email will suffice.

weymouthlad

Ok thanks for the advice. I will put it in writing to them. I just don't get how they managed it in the first place!

[Deleted User]

Brit Gas are commonly getting obvious day and night readings mixed, eg night 11456 units, Day 02056. these are the sort of average rates an eco 7 user would use without night storage, about a 6 th of the total or more is a usual sort of figure a user would use at night.. Its as if they think you suddenly come alive at 1 .30 in the morning and start using every thing electric in the house. the answer is auto billing systems, no rows of girls tapping away on calculators with common sense who would spot these mess ups

weymouthlad

Maybe they should bring those girls back!
I have put an email into EDF confirming my telephone conversation earlier today. I hope they do sort it, they are getting no money from me until they do!

Terrylw1

You need to be told what has gone wrong, its clear they haven't explained anything.

By saying "electricity independent", I party that has never existed, I think they mean 1 of 2 things:

- the meter details have been submitted to the new supplier transposed, hence the supplier trusts that data and sets it up. This data is sent to the metet readers as well, so to fix it, the data has to be resubmitted to everyone to be inline.

- the meter details are fine but your switch reading was submitted transposed. So, your new supplier set you up transposed in their account system, they sent the reads to their Data Collector for validation who may see a large jump and fail it, thus triggering your new supplier to investigate...the easiest way being to check it with you where you would have told them they are the wrong way around. However, if the transposed consumption fit inside your yearly consumption, the new suppliers Data Collector could validate it, send that to your new supplier, pass it to the old suppliers Data Collector who does the same validation and passes it to your old supplier. Your old supplier then issues the final bill to this transposition.

So, you need to know if its either of the above 2 scenarios. If not, its likely that your old supplier billed them the right way round and its only your new supplier that has set them up transposed in their accounts system,

If it is either of the above 2 scenarios, if scenario 1 it should be a couple of weeks or so as long as the agent doesn't dispute it which would mean a site visit. If scenario 2, that can take a bit of time since the readings need resubmitting for validation and passing on, but 3 weeks should be enough.

There could be backlogs in any of these areas as well which add weeks on at a time.

Another root cause could be that the old suppliers Meter Operator submitted the meter details transposed. This and scenario 1 would be rarer since its all automation and if your readings were OK before, it didn't cause them problems before.

Scenario 2 is more likely, but even more likely than that is that its all set up fine with everyone but EDF...where someone has keyed your start readings in transposed.

Raise it as a complaint, it won't drag as much then.

weymouthlad

Thanks, ive put it in an email to them, if they dont reply within a reasonable time i will make a complaint as you suggest.

Southern electric had my readings correct on the final bill, and i submitted these myself. I also submitted the reading for the new supplier, correctly stating which was rate 1 & 2. Its only when i got the first bill I discovered they had mixed them up.
I only changed supplier because EDF were somewhat cheaper than Southern Electric.

weymouthlad

EDF are now sending an engineer out next week!

Terrylw1

So, either a) they don't believe you, or b) their agent says they & you are incorrect hence won't make the data changes.

Be onsite if possible. Despite your talks with the supplier, the engineer will tell you how its set up and this could help you with the supplier.