EDF have changed my direct debit - it's too low?!

[Deleted User]

Call them and ask why? When they say it's saving you money, store that point and make a note of the call time and date.

When you get to next year and you are in debt, call them back and ask why?

Make sure you have the spare cash saved.

Make a formal complaint under "misselling", to reduce a direct debit to save you money or to say it saves money is defined as misselling.

I have just been paid £350 for exactly that. I tried for more but was told I was too greedy and they were told to give me a formal apology.

Oh well ...

backfoot

assj wrote: »

Call them and ask why? When they say it's saving you money, store that point and make a note of the call time and date.

When you get to next year and you are in debt, call them back and ask why?

Make sure you have the spare cash saved.

Make a formal complaint under "misselling", to reduce a direct debit to save you money or to say it saves money is defined as misselling.

I have just been paid £350 for exactly that. I tried for more but was told I was too greedy and they were told to give me a formal apology.

Oh well ...

This sounds like an Energy Ombudsman Adjudication.

Could you please post of the copy of their ruling please, as it may help others.

I personally wouldn't class a reduced Direct Debit part way through a contract as misselling.

Was your case similar or too low a quote from the outset ?

[Deleted User]

backfoot wrote: »

This sounds like an Energy Ombudsman Adjudication.

Could you please post of the copy of their ruling please, as it may help others.

I personally wouldn't class a reduced Direct Debit part way through a contract as misselling.

Was your case similar or too low a quote from the outset ?

My situation was that I asked them to save me money, in response they reduced the direct debit... As they had said to me that I would "save" money, that was the misselling.

Yes you are correct it was Energy Ombudsman Adjudication. I wanted £500 but they said the £350 odd that EDF had already given me was ample.

They did request an apology of which I now have, however I found the Ombudsman service a bit of a waste of time, compared with the FOS.

I will have a look when I get home to see exactly what the wording was in the final decision.

backfoot

assj wrote: »

My situation was that I asked them to save me money, in response they reduced the direct debit... As they had said to me that I would "save" money, that was the misselling.

Yes you are correct it was Energy Ombudsman Adjudication. I wanted £500 but they said the £350 odd that EDF had already given me was ample.

They did request an apology of which I now have, however I found the Ombudsman service a bit of a waste of time, compared with the FOS.

I will have a look when I get home to see exactly what the wording was in the final decision.

Thanks. Very interesting and a significant compensation award.

Were you on a tariff already with EDF or another Supplier ?

Did they keep you on the same tariff and how much did they reduce the Direct Debit?

Was this done by you making a phone enquiry or them ringing you?

When EDF made you the £350 award,what was the basis for it? e.g the difference between your charges and the cheapest deal.

Norman_Castle

I was with edf for six years. They repeatedly overpriced the direct debits then undercharged the following year. While I was paying a small amount they were holding my overpayments in their account. Their bills were also very misleading showing a credit balance with a minus sign ahead of it and the main headline of the bill with the words "Your gas bill" which then showed my positive payment balance as a negative.

[Deleted User]

I called them to ask them how to reduce my bills. They then just reduced the direct debit, they said I was "paying too much via direct debit", a few months went by and I found that I was in debt, the direct debits were wrong by about £60 per month.

This is what EDF have said to me;

I am pleased to confirm that EDF Energy has received the Ombudsman Services: Energy's Final Decision in respect of your complaint.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the shortfalls in customer services that you experienced and for any inconvenience caused.

In accordance with the Ombudsman's decision, please find enclosed three account statements; two for your seperate gas cover and electricity accounts, and one for your joing gas and electricity account.

These statements show all charges and payments made on your account and also any goodwill payments applied by EDF Energy. As you will see although the Ombudsman advised we have credited your account with a total opf £220.00 goofwill, we have actually credited a total of £310.00. Please see the joint account for reference.

After all of this they still had the compensation value wrong. The compensation was paid as goodwill payments in stage of £45 x 3, £100, and then various other amounts, at one point they called me and asked what I wanted, I said £100 more, she said okay well how about £50, so I said let's have a deal at £75. It really did just go like that...

Will post the details from the Ombudsman in a few moments.

I hope this helps someone...

[Deleted User]

Here is the response, not a lot of detail!

I can confirm the decision was taken as the promise to reduce bills by reduced direct debits is considered misselling. Hope that helps!

YOUR COMPLAINT ABOUT EDF ENERGY

Please find below a summary of the proposals agreed by you and EDF Energy, in full and final

resolution of your complaint.

EDF Energy has agreed to:

• provide confirmation of the total goodwill credits already made, of £220 and explain how the

balance has come about;

• make an apology for the poor customer service and inconvenience; and

• offer a payment plan for any balance remaining (the actual terms of which are a commercial

decision for the supplier).

EDF Energy should provide the remedy within 28 days from the date of this letter.

The Ombudsman is pleased there is a satisfactory outcome to this case.

Yours sincerely

Marcus Osborne

Homeagain

I have been reading this post with interest and sorry if I appear to be hijacking but I seem to have a similar problem and I am so very fed up. Since moving into rented premises almost two years ago I have been paying 60.00 per month at the initial recommendation of EDF. The accounts (both gas and electricity) were in credit but the October account was 271.65 in debit. However on the statement it says 'do nothing as you are paying by debit order (or words to his effect). I did nothing until today when I received an account for 665.00 in debit. Why on earth did they not tell me sooner that the DD amount was too low? Why wait until I have a huge bill that I am going to struggle to pay? Clearly I am pretty stupid when it comes to utility bills. I think their last account reflecting a debit of 271.00 but saying DO NOTHING was misleading. Now I have told them to put the debit order up to 100.00 and I have offered them 40.00 a month on the arrears. Its the best I can do even though they did apologise for 'misleading' me. Any point in taking this further??

[Deleted User]

I think you do have a point, but we know that EDF will argue that they don't review the payments until you ask. Didn't they change systems? Maybe it's a system fault? A good reason for a complaint if you ask me

You can always try and see what is said, however I would hope to settle before reaching Ombudsman stage. As I said in my initial posts, I didn't find them very helpful, if you see the response they gave me it appears that they didn't really want to say what they thought and were happy to let me sort it out directly with EDF. I have a feeling they would have suggested £50 compensation or something like that! :eek:

I didn't get the compensation that I wanted, because I wanted my account balance cleared, but only a quarter of my account was cleared. Fair enough I owed the money, and I got a great discount so that's always a good point!

When you follow the process you will find that EDF make a lot of mistakes and play into your hands so to speak, they will just give you points to fire back at them, I don't think they read complaints or have staff that fully understand what they are doing.

I will be watching EDF very closely for the next few months. If I see anything else I will let you know. I now owe them nearly £600 so I have to try and get that sorted and I am sure we will hit a wall at some point.

HTH

Terrylw1

I think its important to remember what the Standard Licence Conditions (SLC) state.

Look at 27.15 which states any DD value must be based on on available data and makes no mention of review periods since they irrelevant as bill production and any incoming readings provide the opportunity for a review. Its quite easy to argue this with a supplier since they won't really be working on this basis hence not compliant with the SLC.

I guess the supplier would argue that they have an expressed term by stating they will review at X months but I'm not sure that would be enough personally.

Use the supplier .pdf's.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Licensing/Work/Pages/licence-conditions-consolidated.aspx