Massively overcharged by EDF

Beth_puttock

Please help!! For several years I have been paying £80/£90 per week on my prepayment electricity meter. I had queried this several times and even had our council come and check that our meter wasn’t being tapped into. During this time we had got ourselves into debt with rent arrears (order seeking possession) and bailiffs calling for council tax to name just a couple. At some points we weren’t even able to hear the house properly as we couldn’t afford it. It has now come to light that our meter has been jumping from economy 7 to standard by itself. This has now been fixed and we are putting on less than half the money we were before. Before it was taking £11 per night and now only £4.
EDF have said there calculations are that we are due about £1000 refund. To me this seems very low considering we having been paying almost £5000 a year for our electricity. Also there are very strange things showing on our statements like a cancellation of charges of £5340 from 2014-2017. We had our prepayment meter then and I have no idea where this money has gone or why it was canecelled.
Any advice on what I should do would be greatly appreciated.
Beth

mmmmikey

Hi Beth,


I would suggest that in the first instance you write to EDF customer services using the same kind of language / tone that you have used in this post. Tell them that you are not happy with their offer for the reasons you have outlined, and ask them to explain to you how they have arrived at that figure.


Also tell them that in view of the amount involved you would like this to be dealt with as a formal complaint (use those words - formal complaint). This is important as it puts them under certain obligations and forces them to work to a timetable. There's no need to be threatening about this - just tell them that's what you want in writing.


Once they have responded you can decide what to do next. If you are happy with their explanation or any revised offer then fine, but if not you can then refer the matter to the ombudsman who will look into it for you. Note that you will need to have followed EDF's complaint system before you refer it to the ombudsman (if that's needed) which is one of the reasons for asking EDF to deal with it as a formal complaint.


The most important thing here is to keep calm and unemotional in your letters etc. as that will put you in a good position if it comes to dealing with ombudsman. If you can't sort it with EDF and do need to go to the ombudsman then you can post back here for more advice.


Good luck, Mike

BodyOfBones

I second everything that Mike has said above. Excellent advice.

Beth_puttock

Hi Mike
Thank you for your reply. I have emailed a very similar email to them, will this count as ‘in writing’? I have spoken to the man dealing with it this morning and he is going to explain all the figures to me later with hopefully an offer. I am worried though that he is just going to try and baffle me with figures! I will ask for all calculations to be shared with me. And I will challenge any offer that I feel is too low. On my previous correspondence there is a complaint reference number so I am assuming that it is already a formal complaint? Sorry for all the questions but these companies don’t make it very easy.

Beth

foxy-stoat

Still scratching my head that its taken you years of paying over £400 a month for electric to get to the bottom of this.

Good luck and report back - some good advice here.

elsien

You don't have to accept on the spot when they ring you back. Tell them to put their offer and any explanation of the figures/calculations in writing so you can go over them at your own time and pace.

mmmmikey

Hi Beth - an email is fine and counts as "in writing". Good that they are dealing with it. It's worth listening to what they have to say, but if (like me) you're not comfortable about dealing with this kind of thing over the phone, after they've said what they said, you can say something like "I think I understand what you're saying but I'd like to think about it. Would you mind putting what you've said in an email to me?". I would resist the temptation to agree to anything (other than a huge offer ) on the phone - just say something like "that sounds OK to me, but I need to check a couple of things before I agree". If there is a complaint reference number then yes, it is being dealt with formally. Good luck, Mike

Beth_puttock

Foxy-stoat
I have queried this on numerous occasions and even had our heating system changed to try and use less electric. Our usage hasn’t changed just the cost where we were being charged for the wrong tariff. Every time I queried it I was just told we were high users. Now the meter is working correctly we are putting less than half the amount of money on the meter. We even spent two winters with only a couple of heater running. EDF were absolutely no use at looking into it. It was only when all I called again last week that they admitted that the meter had been jumping from economy 7 to standard on its own. This had not been easy for us financially and has caused us to get into debt with a lot of our other bills. Even the statements don’t show the correct amount of top ups we have put on. I feel they have us over a barrel. I am not after a quick buck but would like a fair refund for the massive amount of money I have struggled to pay.

Beth_puttock

Thank you!!

Beth_puttock

EDF have just called with an offer of refund of £1993 and £50 compensation. What an insult. I politely said thank you but no thank you and requested all calculations to be emailed to be so I can take it to the ombudsman. Let’s see what happens now.