EDF have completely baffled me...

pops5588

I fear I may need this explaining to me like a 3 year old as the chap behind a computer in a foreign country has left me thoroughly confused.

We bought a house in August last year and set up an EDF account. They set up a direct debit of £55 a month to cover Gas and Electricity which is fixed for a year. I was told that to get more accurate payments to enter meter readings monthly which I have been doing for the last 6 months.

Everything has been going swimmingly, I just checked our account online out of interest and we are over £200 in credit coming out of winter! I know we don't use much and obviously am happy to be in credit but considering that our usage is probably going to only decrease from here as we head towards summer I wanted to find out from them how long they hold hundreds of pounds of our money for.

Firstly the guy told me told me that our monthly direct debit has been decreased because of our low usage? Not sure how that would be relevant even if it were true, we lived with my mum before so are brand new EDF customers who have only ever been on this £55 monthly charge.

Then he told me that we have an annual bill date of 16/06/2014 so no money would be refunded to us until then. I don't know why this is our annual bill date as we wouldn't even have been EDF customers for a year at this stage.

He then told me that it's my fault because if I had entered meter readings quarterly instead of monthly my direct debit payment would have been reviewed automatically?! I'm being told two different things!!

Can anyone make any sense of this?! Our balance is only going to go up from here, I wouldn't be surprised if it'll have doubled by the time we get to June and if we are overpaying to this extent to be honest I'd rather have the money to put in a savings account rather than just have it sat in EDF's pocket...

insanegloss

Firstly, check that the balance is real, as in billed up to a recent actual meter read. If so, they shouldn't be holding onto your money if you request a refund (providing your balance is a true one). It sounds like what the chap was talking about was the automatic process, i.e if you did nothing and was in credit you would get that back in the middle of the year.

macman

Which 'foreign country' was it? Last time I called them, EDF call centres were in Exeter and Sunderland.

brewerdave

I would suspect that £55 pm is too low for both gas and electricity - so coming out of Winter it it extremely unlikely that you are really in credit. Have you actually had a bill yet??

pops5588

Yes the call centres are in the UK, the facility I used was the live chat which isn't. I won't use it again, lesson learned!

Yes I know £55 sounds low, I really don't know what to say on that count, I guess we just don't use much. We've had 4 bills issued so far detailing our usage. I won't type everything out but please feel free to tell me if you can see a mistake.

Bill 1 - 09/09/2013: Covers 9th August - 9th September
Electricity Charges: £20.45
Gas Charges: £12.76
Total charged: £32.03
This left us £22.97 in credit

Bill 2 - 09/11/2013: Covers 10th September - 9th November
Electricity Charges: £38.08
Gas Charges: £29.53
Total Charged: £65.33
This left us £67.64 in credit

Bill 3 - 11/01/2014: Covers 10th November - 11th January
Electricity Charges: £37.05
Gas Charges: £63.40
Total Charged: £85.40
During this time I think the rules were changed on energy companies giving direct debit discounts so we had £13.08 credited to our account to cover this.
This bill left us £92.24 in credit

Bill 4 - 27/02/2014: Covers 12th January - yesterday when I phoned.
Electricity Charges: £24.62
Gas Charges: £48.82
Total Charged: £77.11
This leaves us £125.13 in credit as of today.

brewerdave

On those bills, are the meter readings used the actual readings that you supplied or estimates? I ask because it seems unbelievable that you have only used the equivalent of ~£112 of gas in the 4 winter months(bills 3 and 4) -presuming that you have central heating and hot water supplied by gas then I would have expected at least 2-3 times as much! That works out at barely £1 per day including standing charges!!
I suppose that they are charging you for the right type of gas meter? Is the marking on your meter -m3 or cu ft? Does it agree with the units used for the bills? If they are charging you for a m3 meter but you have an older cu ft meter then you have underpaid by a factor of ~ 3 for your gas!

pops5588

They have used actual meter readings that we supplied monthly.

Not sure about the marking on our meter and am at my mums house right now so will have a look tomorrow morning and see. If there is anything tricky going on here they certainly haven't implied as such that we should be concerned....

In terms of usage it's just the two of us, we live in a terraced house and our neighbours use their heating quite a lot as they have kids so we have never felt particularly cold enough to put the heating on much. We didn't turn it on until November and even then we only have it on for half an hour in the morning and about an hour in the evening. I will check if we're being led into a trap though...

pops5588

I've looked at it's an m3 meter. What does that mean exactly?

Hoof_Hearted

Cubic metres

Norman_Castle

From my experience with EDF they like to overcharge for a year, then undercharge the following year. This way they get to hold your money in their bank for longer.

pops5588

I'm just nervous now. Everything looks like it tallies up and I've always supplied them with accurate meter readings, but now I'm paranoid that they're going to send us a bill for hundreds of pounds and I won't even know where it's come from! Is it really not possible that we just don't use much?!