Switching just after bill hike - will they hit me again?

KazakhToon

Hi there,

I've been with EDF for a few months and waited longer than I should to read the meters (Aug-Oct between readings). They realised I was using more than they'd expected and bumped my bills up to a combined £65 from £50. I've shifted tariffs to bring it down to £61, but am looking around at other deals and thinking about moving again.

My question is, if I do move will EDF hit me for a lump sum payment? My account with them is in credit atm though not by much.

And, is it really worth switching for a supposedly better deal when they always seem to adjust the payments to what you were paying the previous guys a few months after you sign up?

macman

What you pay per month on DD is irrelevant. What matters is the annual cost, which any comp site can tell you in seconds, armed with just your annual kWh usage and postcode. Not sure what you mean by a 'lump sum payment', but there are no ETC's on any current EDF tarrif.
Your DD will be adjusted to reflect your actual usage, if you submit regular reads. Use more than estimated and your DD will rise.

Wolf3

I think the lump sum payment the OP refers to is a final bill that's in debit, and this will only occur if the payments you have made by DD don't cover your usage.
As Macman has described the DD payments are relatively irrelevant, what you need to compare is the cost of your annual usage on the other tariffs. When you got stopped in the street, a small saving was quoted to get customers to switch, even if the the customer was worse off. This practise has now stopped and i believe there is new legislation for DD payments
As the DD is just an average monthly payment of your whole annual usage, use this as a guideline. It may seem the payments are adjusted shortly after but they should only change if the new energy supplier believe your payments aren't going to cover this usage. At the start they're relying on your annual usage being what you used for the quote, if your usage a few months later is higher than they were led to believe this can mean your DD increasing to cover the debt and also the higher usage.