EDF Mistake

nisojoem

Phoned up customer service about electric bill , to be told they have been reading my meter wrong for a number of years. Its a day and night meter and they have been reading it the wrong way round since it was replaced some years ago.told we owe over £8000 .went through ombudsman(useless) to be told they would settle for £1900 and should take offer. they also say i am using £2220 of electric per year. I do not use electric for heating or hot water,live in a small bungalow(3 bed) ..... How can it be that they made the mistake and i get screwed. They also lost any proof of anyone reading my meter(would like to know who it was that entered my house the last three meter readings .FURIOUS...THOUGHTS ?

molerat

How many kWh are you using on each register per year ?

You are not really getting screwed as you have had the benefit of their mistake for several years. They should not be back billing for more than 12 months of use so do you have your own figures to disprove that £2200 use ?

House_Martin

nisojoem wrote: »

Phoned up customer service about electric bill , to be told they have been reading my meter wrong for a number of years. Its a day and night meter and they have been reading it the wrong way round since it was replaced some years ago.told we owe over £8000 .went through ombudsman(useless) to be told they would settle for £1900 and should take offer. they also say i am using £2220 of electric per year. I do not use electric for heating or hot water,live in a small bungalow(3 bed) ..... How can it be that they made the mistake and i get screwed. They also lost any proof of anyone reading my meter(would like to know who it was that entered my house the last three meter readings .FURIOUS...THOUGHTS ?

I work for EDF reading meters, we read meters twice a year for EDF , that is if they can get access if your meters are inside. Did you do any of your own readings at all ?. Did you not spot the much lower priced quarterly billing and did you attempt to rectify the transposed readings yourself ?.Your bill would have showed the day and night readings with the two tariffs clearly seen to be incorrect,
I presume you have a digital meter which shows rate 1 and rate 2 and probably a total reading .Rate 1 would most likely be the day reading which G4S,now MDS meter readers may have input in their PDA as the night reading meaning you would have got the cheap rate for 14 hours. That is easy to see on a bill and you should have corrected it. I m not sure you should be "furious ", the transposed readings have been in front of you for years to be seen clearly on any bill over the years.
It is so common on here the transposed day and night billing mainly because G4S/MDS are in charge of the meter readings.Poor training and a weird PDA which shows rate 1 night so if a meter reader sees a 1 on a meter he/she will input into that field on the PDA. Auto billing does the rest and a computer is pretty stupid in these cases.
I expect if you make enough of a fuss about it the supplier will back down and either lower it or scrub it completely, they usually do.

matelodave

IMO you are not getting screwed, a bit of effort on your part would have sorted it all out years ago.

Sounds like you are getting a good deal if they reckon you owe £8000 and are only asking for £1900.

Why haven't you been checking the bills against meter readings. You cannot totally blame EDF because you've been too idle to make sure that they are correct.

Perhaps you'll check your meter yourself and make sure the bills are correct in future to avoid any more problems.

dogshome

1) An annual Elec consumption cost of £2,220 when the VAT and Daily Charge are deducted, works out appx to a net fuel cost £1,750.
At say 14p a KWh it buys 12,600 KWh, which is nearly 4 times greater than Ofgem's consumption figure for the average family home.

2) Meter replaced some years ago ?.
If this error occurred at this date and it was more than 6 years ago, then the Statute of Limitations forbids EDF to adjust any bills that are older then 6 years.

3) The Back-billing agreement does more than cover problems of suppliers not issueing bills - It also covers incorrect billing and over this time period the OP has the right to claim BB relief in spades.

4) A simple demand for extra payment does not stand up in law - It must be supported by fully detailed paperwork, which in this case is a re-worked copy of every bill that EDF are claiming extra money for

The OP's poor experience with the Ombudsman is a common theme on this site.
Apart from it's sometimes 'Flying in the face of justice' decisions, it must always be kept in mind that it's income depends on the same suppliers the customers are complaining about

molerat

dogshome wrote: »

The OP's poor experience with the Ombudsman is a common theme on this site.
Apart from it's sometimes 'Flying in the face of justice' decisions, it must always be kept in mind that it's income depends on the same suppliers the customers are complaining about

I have used the ombudsman service twice and have nothing but praise for the way they handled the cases both over e-mail and on the phone.

The problem is that they can only work on theinformation they are given from both sides. In this case it seems the op has done nothing to counter the usage figures provided by EDF.