EDF refund

Fedal

EDF have processed a refund from my account as I am in credit. I deliberately overpaid during the summer as this would then average out with higher bills in the winter. This seemed sensible - to budget an affordable monthly amount. On the same bill it states that my current DDM will not be adequate to cover winter energy bills and want to increase this by £40 a month. As this increase over the next 12months equates to the refund, where is the logic? I was helpfully told by EDF that the refund is system driven and cannot be overridden but I can make a manual repayment back to my EDF account. To me this is a ludicrous, unhelpful and represents a total lack of understanding of a customers needs. They only produce 6 monthly bills and their customer portal is shockingly inadequate. I do not wish to increase my DDM as  I set this at an affordable level but resent the fact that EDF wish to push my account into debit when there was a plan in place (by over paying) to avoid this. I receive many emails saying that if I am having trouble meeting bills - they are there to help. I was trying to help myself but obviously not what they want. Anyone had any experience of this or a solution please?  (I have complained but just met with the standard response of 'its a system process...outwith our control.'..blah blah). Thanks

Mobtr

This was obviously your annual review. When this is done any credit is automatically refunded if the reads are customer or company. Think it is OFGEM rules due to complaints about energy companies holding onto credit at reviews. Easy solution is to repay the credit back to EDF once you receive it by going into your online account where it says make additional payment. This should also recalculate your direct debit 

[Deleted User]

That's an implementation of OFGEM guidelines for you - written because (as you will see on this forum) people have massive complaints about being "in too much credit" - there are several threads going on right at this moment with people very angry about it..

As a supplier, you'd rather annoy the couple of customers who think about it the way you do, rather than the hundreds who complain about it the other way around.

EssexHebridean

If you can get them to action it, you can try switching your DD to "whole amount monthly" as clearly you are already managing the budgeting side of things without a problem, and you will have the credit they have refunded you to use to pay the disproportionately higher winter bills. (Usually this is a poor choice of time for people to switch to that billing method as it doesn't give them time to build a "buffer zone" of saved money ready to cover the higher use months.)  That should then mean you get monthly bills, and can keep control of your own funds without "estimated use" getting in the way. Unfortunately I suspect it may not be that straightforward - in spite of my account with EDF being in more than sufficient credit they still attempted to take a large (proportionately in relation to our annual use) DD for the first payment we were on this scheme - as we had already made the move to switch away from them due to various other factors by that stage, I just cancelled the DD and let the issue sort itself out, but clearly that's not workable for most folk.

molerat

You could also manually increase your DD which won't then be adjusted until your next review.

PAB190968

I had the same on my bill today.  I increased my DD at end of September to cover the price rise. This was set to include the £66 rebate which I then got as cash in the bank. However, EDF have deducted this £66 from my bill so I think I have had double relief (once in cash, once as a reduction in charges). In the summary of rebate treatment on MSE, EDF were listed as cash refund not bill deduction.Would you all agree? I’m keeping quiet either way…

victor2

PAB190968 said:

I had the same on my bill today.  I increased my DD at end of September to cover the price rise. This was set to include the £66 rebate which I then got as cash in the bank. However, EDF have deducted this £66 from my bill so I think I have had double relief (once in cash, once as a reduction in charges). In the summary of rebate treatment on MSE, EDF were listed as cash refund not bill deduction.Would you all agree? I’m keeping quiet either way…

EDF don't appear to have a very good billing system, and are planning to move all their customers onto the Kraken system, built by Octopus, next year.

However, I find it hard to believe, as has been reported on here more than once, that their system is crediting people's accounts AND refunding them £66/£67 each month, and that somebody within EDF hasn't noticed!

Robin9

victor2 said:

PAB190968 said:

I had the same on my bill today.  I increased my DD at end of September to cover the price rise. This was set to include the £66 rebate which I then got as cash in the bank. However, EDF have deducted this £66 from my bill so I think I have had double relief (once in cash, once as a reduction in charges). In the summary of rebate treatment on MSE, EDF were listed as cash refund not bill deduction.Would you all agree? I’m keeping quiet either way…

Have you had a look on your online account ?

There will be two lines on your online account - the first says £66 Credi t and the second £66 refund (and this means what is being credited to your bank account)

Mobtr

There has been instances where EDF have credited twice in error so one will be debited back onto the account 

Fedal

Thanks for the helpful comments - unfortunately it seems that I fall into the minority of trying to build a buffer for winter bills. I can appreciate the stance taken by Ofgem to protect consumers against energy companies hanging onto credit - but then you could always request a refund of this in those circumstances.   I shall leave my DDM as it was and hang on to the refund.

bannerdown

We have had two 'Refunds', each of £66 as expected. On our latest bill, EDF show these 'Refunds' and have then debited them against our overall bill - i.e. our accumulated direct debit credit is reduced by £132. So they paid us the Governments £66 and then charged us for it.

Trying to contact EDF to get some clarification but it appears impossible to talk to a real person. Maybe I am mistaken but if anyone else has had a recent bill from EDF, please share your interpretation of their logic. It strikes me that they are giving the Government money to me and then taking it back by increasing their charges by the same amount.