Price increased on my prepayment gas meter before my contracted fixed tariff ended!

MWT

KitKatKen said:

...and so I cannot fathom how they managed to increase it between now and back then.

Unlike electricity meters, the gas cards can have a future tariff change loaded onto them, and since the next price was already known at the point when you loaded your card before the end of March, the new rates from 1st April were loaded onto the card earlier in March and set up ready to go on your meter from 1st April...

KitKatKen

Mobtr said:

Rather than do a chat, why don’t you just ring them and ask what’s going on & if what you have been told is correct? 

Hello Mobtr,

For two reasons, the first is I am a stroke survivor and have difficulty in making myself understood and my mind is too slow to argue. The second reason is I was advised by a friend in the legal industry to use any form of communication that can be documented, such as by email or letter to hold as proof should I need to take matters further. You cannot record phone conversations and I would feel uncomfortable doing so if I could and know from previous dealings with EDF that I can save their chat conversations all time-stamped as a file so I went with that, I also followed up with a complaint by email as a belt and braces type of approach.

Now I have on record, from an EDF representative, that what is displayed on my meter is not what I am actually paying and I will be asking them to show how they did this and show evidence that I am still paying my contracted tariff, if they do then I can no longer trust what is displayed on my meter and I certainly can no longer trust EDF with these kinds of practices. 

I have a few more questions for them and will wait to see if they hang themselves with their silly excuses. If they do then I'll take it further, not for any financial gain but to expose their incompetence in the public domain. 

Thanks for your reply.

KitKatKen

MWT said:

KitKatKen said:

...and so I cannot fathom how they managed to increase it between now and back then.

Unlike electricity meters, the gas cards can have a future tariff change loaded onto them, and since the next price was already known at the point when you loaded your card before the end of March, the new rates from 1st April were loaded onto the card earlier in March and set up ready to go on your meter from 1st April...

Hello again MWT,

Wow! I did not know that! 

However, you would think that EDF's system would have used my account details and seen that my tariff was fixed until the 31st of May and coded my gas card so that the rate would change, including the display, at midnight of the 31st.

As I mentioned before, I have used a prepayment meter for over ten years and its behaviour always made sense. Any notice of increase I would top up just before the increase date for a month and the price would remain the same until the next top up when the display would change immediately in front of me. It has always been this way for me and I found it very convenient to manage my energy use this way. However, I do understand that the energy companies had to do something to stop prepay customers from topping up too much before the rise, I just wish they had honoured my contract and increased my tariff after and not before its expiry date.

It looks like EDF just increased everyone's tariff on the 1st of April regardless of any contract their customers may have had.

Anyway, I've learned something new today, thank you MWT.