Need help, EDF have overcharged us for 17 years!

SeanTheMac

macman wrote: »

Which is a completely different issue. But a bit of Googling tells me that a launderette wash will cost you a minimum of £2.50, whereas a typical home wash cycle would be more like 30-40pp (for the electricity/hot water). So I don't think 'probably' comes into it. It's more expensive by far.
But what I find really baffling is that you have been struggling with your bills for 17 years, but you've never changed supplier?

For many years we were told that we couldn't change suppliers because we had a pre-pay meter. I don't believe that's a problem nowadays but we've been contacted by energy suppliers over the years since who have informed us that they can't provide us with a better rate than the one EDF have us on.

As for the other post concerning us being "lazy" for going into emergency credit, we have a very limited budget. Sometimes we don't have £20 to put on the meter until the following day.
That's no justification for charging us daytime rate at economy 7 times. Just because we are poor doesn't mean we should be treated differently from anyone else. We are struggling to keep our heads above water as it is, we don't need this on top.

macman

Apologies, I have edited my post now.

lstar337

SeanTheMac wrote: »

For many years we were told that we couldn't change suppliers because we had a pre-pay meter. I don't believe that's a problem nowadays but we've been contacted by energy suppliers over the years since who have informed us that they can't provide us with a better rate than the one EDF have us on.

As for the other post concerning us being "lazy" for going into emergency credit, we have a very limited budget. Sometimes we don't have £20 to put on the meter until the following day.
That's no justification for charging us daytime rate at economy 7 times. Just because we are poor doesn't mean we should be treated differently from anyone else. We are struggling to keep our heads above water as it is, we don't need this on top.

I didn't mean to imply that you were lazy, and no, it is no justification.

[Deleted User]

Its common practice for meter readers ( not me ) to read the daytime prepay ( which is on screen " H " and log it into the night field on our handheld computors, and screen " J " which is the night rate, and that reading gets imput into the dayfield. I am not sure if this sloppy practice has any bearing on your problem

SeanTheMac

Well, as I expected, EDF removed the meter and replaced it with a new one.
After inspection they have admitted that the meter was faulty and has been for 7 years, the time this particular meter has been installed for.
There's no way we can prove the meter previously installed was doing the same so we have to let the previous 10 years lie.

The first offer was ludicrous, they sent us a printout purporting to list every payment made at the various paypoints we used to charge our key. One item of interest was that they claim we paid £145 in October of 2012, back in January this year they sent us a similar breakdown that says we paid £270 for that same period so the numbers had been massaged or some of the payments weren't filtering through properly. And, according to their figures we had overpaid EDF by £320.
Immediately my wife did some quick calculations and started laughing. £320/364 weeks = under a pound a week overpayment.
My wife pointed out that if it were only just under a pound a week we wouldn't have noticed any appreciable difference in our finances and wouldn't have queried this issue for the past decade or more.
She further informed her that our charges had almost halved since having the new meter installed - we use around £20 a week now as opposed to around £35 this time last year.
The customer relations manager on the other end of the line agreed and said she would go back to the drawing board.

This they have done and they have come back with their second refund offer of £4800. Bit of a jump there!
The trouble is, it's still not enough. That figure breaks down to an overpayment of around £13 a week. Probably about right for the summer months but nowhere near for the winter months when we were paying £70 and £80 a week to keep the lights on.

Should we reject this offer as well?
Are they likely to tell us we are getting nothing if we do?

Should we take them to small claims court?
I am pretty sure if we were to take them to court we would win as they have already admitted fault and liability, it's just the figures that are in dispute.
Our proof of overpayment is patchy, we have two contradictory letters, one stating that we paid £270 in October 2012 and the other saying we paid £145 for the same period. That, and the subjective evidence that we KNOW we are paying substantially less for the same amount of electricity are pretty much all we have.

The customer services manager has also hinted that their will be a "goodwill" payment added to the overpayment refund to cover any (read crippling) financial hardship suffered. What this will actually be we have no idea as yet.
My wife and I would probably accept a refund of around £7000 - this is a very conservative estimate based on how much we are saving now and our present usage, the real overpayment is probably closer to £10k but we aren't greedy. Any goodwill payment on top of this £7k would be a bonus but no goodwill payment at all wouldn't be a deal breaker.

So where do we go from here?
Any help from someone who knows the system where this is concerned would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks in advance

gfplux

One approach is for you to make a counter offer in writing, recorded delivery to their offer of £4800. Perhaps your offer could be set out mathematically eg 250 weeks @ £x plus 250 weeks at £2x = £8000 or so.
Do add at the end that if they except this offer you will except that the previous years you will let lie.

StuC75

Now its been a while since last had a prepayment meter(student days many years ago).., but do you not get a statement that show the meter readings observed over time and the payments received?

In cases where the meter diddled such usage, the bills would then still reflect the true position in terms of usage and payments received. separate to whatever the meter would show...

Afterall that was why the token card 'glitches' of sellotape over and other peoples tokens never really worked as although you got the usage of the electric, the money never made it through to the supplier.. so you paid in the long run..

SeanTheMac

No we have never had a statement.

Daz2009

I think gfplux has made a good suggestion.
They've admitted it's their mistake,they're just quibbling over the compo.
Ask for £10,000 and they'll probably offer you the £7,000 you want..

Put your calculations in writing,you have nothing to lose.

[Deleted User]

You should contact BBC Watchdog, they would love this.

Aside from anything else there are probably a lot of other people on similar meters that are being ripped off too.

As for the amount you can add interest to the refund owed. That must add up to quite a bit but is tricky to calculate. They should definitely pay you for the hardship you were suffering.