Edf back billing

lemon45

Hi everyone, 
My father has a really bad problem with his previous energy supplier EDF. He moved out of his house last february 2019. On the day he moved out he wrote down his meter readings for both gas and electric and provided these via chat. He received his final bill and paid it in full. Now a year later he has  received a "final bill" again asking for £775! Because, they say, that his bill for 2018-2019 was based on estimates.  However,  he always paid his bills quarterly and provided actual readings via chat. He has copies of all the chat transcripts to prove this.  This started around 3 weeks ago, when he  first received his " final bill". He contacted Edf via chat and he complained and they cancelled the bill. Then a week later he received the same bill. He contacted them again via chat and the edf agent said that he would remove the bill and place a lock on his account so that no further bills would be generated.  My father questioned the agent and said , how could they place a lock on the account when the account has been closed? The agent said so that the computer does not generate a new bill. He kept saying that the account is closed and that my father would not have to pay anything and to be rest assured. Now, he received today an email from Edf saying that he must pay the bill as the previous bill was based on estimates.  However, my father always gave actual readings and he has the chat transcripts to prove this. Edf will not listen at all. My father also said to Edf that it was illegal to back bill as it has been over 12 months. However,  the agent said that it was not illegal as my father received a credit bill in march 2019.
 My father is 80 years old and this is causing him so much stress it is making him ill. I cannot bear to see him like this because last year he had peace of mind that he had paid the bill in full and that the account was settled and closed.  It is alot of money for which he does not owe. 
I'm sorry to have reeled on but I cannot stand to see my father sick with worry when it is Edf at fault. Could somebody please help .

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Although your father provided meter readings by 'chat', and fortunately kept the transcripts, you need to ensure those readings were actually used on the bills. Are the final readings when he left EDF in February 2019 the same as those on his final bill in March 2019? 

Were those final meter readings agreed with the new tenant/owner or their representative(letting agent or estate agent). The new occupants will initially be on a legally binding deemed contract with EDF and if they gave different readings to EDF this might account for the discrepancy. 

lemon45

Hi Cardew, 

Thanks for your reply.  The actual final meter reads provided via chat were used on the final bill. As regards to the new owners he has no idea what readings they gave. My father had a  smart meter, doesn't that mean that the readings would be automatically sent to Edf anyway?

dogshome

At a guess, whilst the account was set up on the computer to take readings from a Smart Meter, there was a failure in the transmissions which resulted in all the bills being estimated, ( Readings marked with an E - Check the bills ), and the only time a human being was involved was the End Reading for the House Move .

How long was your father in this house, and on what date was the Smart Meter installed?

lemon45

Hi, my father  lived there for around 40 years and the smart reader was installed, I think, since 2016/17.
If there was a computer failure with the smart meter, then surely it still makes sense that my father provided the readings via chat and based on these readings an actual bill was produced, which he always paid in full quarterly. 
What should he do now? He has complained but they keep producing the same bill. 

dogshome

As before, the Computer was in charge and set up for Smart readings - If there wasn't a Smart meter the computer would have been set up to ask for readings at set intervals, but because there is no human interaction, the customer supplied readings were ignored

The fact that a Credit was issued in March 2019, to an account that we now know was in Deficit shows that the Computer was in total charge

No Readings from Smart meter so Computer Estimates Bill - Computer Logs receipt of D/Debits -  Computer sees Credit Balance building up v the Estimated bills and  issues a credit.

The point is, that EDF have issued a stream of inaccurate bills for at least a year, and back-billing rules rely not just on bill dating, but also correct billing

If you don't still have the billls to check that they were all estimated, ask EDF for copies in a letter headed Complaint

MWT

lemon45 said:

Hi, my father  lived there for around 40 years and the smart reader was installed, I think, since 2016/17.
If there was a computer failure with the smart meter, then surely it still makes sense that my father provided the readings via chat and based on these readings an actual bill was produced, which he always paid in full quarterly. 
What should he do now? He has complained but they keep producing the same bill. 

Exactly right. It doesn't matter if every previous bill was based on an estimate, if you have confirmed that the final bill he paid used the actual final readings then that should be the end of it.

What readings are shown on the new 'final' bill?

They can't be the same as the actual final readings he gave or the amount would be the same?

What was the value of the credit he received in March last year and why was the credit issued?

lemon45

Thanks for all your replies. The readings on the "new final bill" are exactly the same as my father gave on the day he moved out. This is why the new bill doesn't make sense. The final bill produced last year was for £316 and this new bill is for £775. The credit issued last year in March 2019 was for £755. When my father received his credit bill, he chatted with EDf and questioned why they were giving him credit when his final bill was paid and the account closed. Edf said that the credit was due to him and that he should not worry. 
MWT said:

lemon45 said:

Hi, my father  lived there for around 40 years and the smart reader was installed, I think, since 2016/17.
If there was a computer failure with the smart meter, then surely it still makes sense that my father provided the readings via chat and based on these readings an actual bill was produced, which he always paid in full quarterly. 
What should he do now? He has complained but they keep producing the same bill. 

Exactly right. It doesn't matter if every previous bill was based on an estimate, if you have confirmed that the final bill he paid used the actual final readings then that should be the end of it.

What readings are shown on the new 'final' bill?

They can't be the same as the actual final readings he gave or the amount would be the same?

What was the value of the credit he received in March last year and why was the credit issued?

The final reads are the same on both bills, it should be the end of it, but they keep sending this new bill. It just doesn't make any sense. 

MWT

lemon45 said:

The final bill produced last year was for £316 and this new bill is for £775. The credit issued last year in March 2019 was for £755. When my father received his credit bill, he chatted with EDf and questioned why they were giving him credit when his final bill was paid and the account closed. Edf said that the credit was due to him and that he should not worry.

Looks like that may be the problem...

Sounds like that credit was issued in error, and they are now reclaiming it, and within the 12 month back-billing cut-off...

If you don't know why a credit is being given, it is unwise to assume you are going to keep it sadly.

lemon45

Thanks for your reply.  My father did at the time question it and chatted with the advisor and told the advisor that he had always given actual reads so how would a credit amount be produced? But the advisor kept saying "don't worry it is due to you" and my father was concerned over this, but they kept saying a refund was due. 

dogshome

Well, that seems to back up the " With no Smart Meter input,Computer Estimates Readings" scenario - Check the bills up to March 2019 for Estimated readings