Incorrect billing by EDF

OracleA

Thank you for the responses.

Wywth

OracleA wrote: »

Hi, I'm hoping that somebody will be able to give me some good advice.

I have been with EDF since September 2011 and I believed it was a dual account for both Gas and Electricity. However I was told 2 weeks ago that I have only been billed for Electricity for these 23 months.

I moved to EDF using Uswitch, they calculated that my dual bill would be £85 per month for dual utilities so we switched. We have been paperless billed by EDF and I am the first to admit that I am not as organised with online bills as I am with paperbills so I probably didn't check my bills a closley as I should have. Now I have properly read the bills, I've noticed that they stated that they were Electricity with no mention of Gas but the amounts of the bills have always been around our starting bill (£85) so it seemed reasonable and I obviously trusted they were correct.

In July, we received a refund of £220 which prompted me to check our account and I found we were in credit by £619. I called EDF who stated that we haven't been billing for Gas. They told me that there would be a debit of over £1000. They have taken the £619 first and we are left with over £500 debit. They then explained about the better billing code and that they can not charge for anything not billed past 12 months and they would do the necessary calculations and get back to me. I had assumed from what they had said, they would be deducting 11 months of the bill with a debit left for just over half the original to cover 12 months.

They contacted me a week later to say they were knocking of £25 for the 11 months that they can't charge for! I still don't understand this but they have sent the calculation to me. They now say that part of the direct debit they have been receiving is for gas as well but that now puts me in debit with my electricity. They also said that as they have been receiving payments towards gas, they can't deduct anymore because the fact that they have been receiving payments changes the definition and outcome of the better billing code.

I really feel that they have changed my situation so that they do not have to abide by the better billing code that they have signed up to. Surely if my bill states Electricity only, that is they only that they can claim my payments are for.

They have emailed me to say they will give a 10% reduction to the bill which amounts to £110 to account for the fact that the mistake wasn't noticed but that still leaves a debit of £400 and odd.

I am still really not happy with this and I don't think I will be until they are offering to deduct just less than half of the debit (11 months worth).

Does anybody think that this is a fair offer and I should take it? Likewise if anybody thinks that I should keep fighting and has any information that will be useful, I would be really grateful.

I never got any futher down your post because it says at the very top of each bill in big black lettering excatly what the bill they give you is for

matelodave

It really is hard to have a lot of sympathy for someone who doesn't check their bills or bank statements and then suddenly gets a big bill that goes back a year or more.

It's not everso hard to check bills and statements to see if they are correct - it's your money, take charge of it and don't blame someone else if you haven't at least kept an eye on what's going on.