EDF have an issue with their algorithm - DD automatically changed from £200 to £2,402 a month(!)

Dextermaximus

My energy provider went bust, so I was put with EDF some time ago - I have a smart electric meter and a manual gas meter.
My DD was around £130, then I put it up to £150 - with the energy rises I decided to set it to £200 a couple of months ago.  All fine, until I decided to logon and check my usage/balance etc - I noticed I was in debit by £180, the website says this is normal, but I decided to make an extra top-up payment of £200 (so the account is now ~£21 in credit - I figured the next DD was due at the beginning of June, so this would then get it setup for next bill) - anyway, it was at this stage that I noticed that they'd changed my DD to £2,402 per MONTH (!!) - I immediately tried to adjust it down, but it said the minimum that I needed to pay was £1,900 per month due to my predicted usage (a 3 bed semi)

I didn't receive a single notification about this change either - if I hadn't noticed that (by pure chance) they would've taken that directly from my account and left me with a very difficult month!  Moral of the story, check your DD amount.

jimjames

You'll see from other posts here than EDF billing is a mess. Pretty shocking they can show a number that big but with their track record I reckon they'd probably try to take it too!

HampshireH

When did you submit that? Won't it be too late to change it this close to the DD date?

Your office block comment did make me smile☺️

Swipe

EDF payments are best left alone

pochase

Usually you get the information of a DD change on the bill. Did you receive a new bill recently and what are the numbers if so?

Mstty

I would do the following

1) delete the direct debit from your bank account

2) raise a complaint with your energy supplier and tell them you have deleted the direct debit

Mobtr

EDF always states on the bills if the direct debit is going to change, did you not read your last bill? Sounds like a rogue meter reading on the account making the system think the meter has gone round the clock. Should be easily resolved with a phone call 

Dextermaximus

Thanks all - I cancelled the DD with my bank and managed to get through to someone helpful in EDF customer services, they've moved the DD date a week into the future to enable changes to be made and agreed the £2,402 was probably (ha) a mistake.
We changed it to £200 - I then logged in to check everything and the DD then said £160 - so I again applied to change it to £200 - then it changed again to £127 (but when I attempted to change again, it shows £200 in that screen) - feels like things are very borked on their systems.
I'll certainly be paying more attention to these amounts from now on anyway!