EDF have added £400 energy support discount back onto bill - is this right?

TheMilkmansDad

Grumpy_chap said:

chrisedward said:

Just got my biannual EDF energy bill and see that they have taken the £400 refund (done at around £66 a month) then added it back on to future bill as outstanding payment. Surely the discount was exactly that - EDF appear to turned it into a loan?

I am glad you have asked this as I am equally perplexed by the bill and it does seem to add the Government fund back to the chargeable amount.  It doesn't seem correct.  None of the responses here make it clear.

I'm not with EDF, but thanks to the multiple threads on their billing and handling of the £66/£67 amounts I'm fairly clued up and understand whats happened and - although badly formatted - the bills are correct. Think some people try to over complicate it!

Grumpy_chap

TheMilkmansDad said:

Grumpy_chap said:

chrisedward said:

Just got my biannual EDF energy bill and see that they have taken the £400 refund (done at around £66 a month) then added it back on to future bill as outstanding payment. Surely the discount was exactly that - EDF appear to turned it into a loan?

I am glad you have asked this as I am equally perplexed by the bill and it does seem to add the Government fund back to the chargeable amount.  It doesn't seem correct.  None of the responses here make it clear.

I'm not with EDF, but thanks to the multiple threads on their billing and handling of the £66/£67 amounts I'm fairly clued up and understand whats happened and - although badly formatted - the bills are correct. Think some people try to over complicate it!

Thanks.
I've looked at the bill and looked again and it failed to make sense.
I'll look again when I get an opportunity - maybe my break away will have reduced the brain fog 

MWT

Grumpy_chap said:

TheMilkmansDad said:

Grumpy_chap said:

chrisedward said:

Just got my biannual EDF energy bill and see that they have taken the £400 refund (done at around £66 a month) then added it back on to future bill as outstanding payment. Surely the discount was exactly that - EDF appear to turned it into a loan?

I am glad you have asked this as I am equally perplexed by the bill and it does seem to add the Government fund back to the chargeable amount.  It doesn't seem correct.  None of the responses here make it clear.

I'm not with EDF, but thanks to the multiple threads on their billing and handling of the £66/£67 amounts I'm fairly clued up and understand whats happened and - although badly formatted - the bills are correct. Think some people try to over complicate it!

Thanks.
I've looked at the bill and looked again and it failed to make sense.
I'll look again when I get an opportunity - maybe my break away will have reduced the brain fog 

The part most people miss is that they deduct the £66/67 from the total usage number, but they put it right at the top of that page where it is often overlooked, but if you add up the amount used for gas and electric you will clearly see it is more than the total declared, until you deduct those support payments...

TheElectricCow

It can seem a bit confusing for those who aren’t financially minded, but the bill is likely correct in this respect.

Your energy costs will show as a debit on your energy account (something that increases the outstanding balance to be paid), and any payments you make will show as credits (these decrease the outstanding balance).

The support payments will first have to be credited to the energy account as this is how they are initially paid to you. Then if EDF transfers this money to your bank account they are taking it out of your energy account to give it to you. This means it will show as a debit (increase) on your EDF bill as it is no longer in that account. It will however still be a credit to your bank account, so you have received the money.

Think of it like having a savings account with a bank - if someone puts £400 into your savings account you can see the balance will have gone up £400. If you transfer that money out of the savings account and put it in your current account, the savings account balance will go back down by £400, but most importantly your current account will now be £400 better off. The money isn’t lost and you don’t owe the savings account anything extra, it’s just in a different account than before.

In this example the savings account is equivalent to energy account you have with EDF, they’ve put the money in there and then moved it to your current account to do with as you wish.

molerat

If you look at the sub totals of the energy charges and the total energy charges figure you will see they are different by the amount of EBSS.  They do not show a calculation where it is deducted from the actual use figure.

Looking at the above from another post you can see that £578.13 + £648.55 + £61.34 does not add up to £1022.02 but £1288.02 as £266, 2 x £66 & 2 x £67, of EBSS has been deducted and will be added back on at the top of the bill.

Alter_ego

Eon next reduce my direct debit by £67 and show £67credit in my online account. Seems OK to me, should I expect any further adjustments?

icaniwill

Mobtr said:

icaniwill said:

chrisedward said:

Just got my biannual EDF energy bill and see that they have taken the £400 refund (done at around £66 a month) then added it back on to future bill as outstanding payment. Surely the discount was exactly that - EDF appear to turned it into a loan?

I am having a similar problem. As replies above say, the £334 has been accounted for in the calculation on page 2. However, the arithmetic on page 1 is crazy. Naturally, trying to find anyone in EDF that can explain any of the calculations is impossible. The explanations on this forum are far clearer.

The customer service operators on the end of the phone have not been briefed on the Government support scheme so are spouting all sorts of explanations that bear no relation to reality. The best so far..."well it's been generated by the system, so it must be right and that's the way it is". The system is currently kaput so no-one can help at all. Not giving up tho.

Not giving up on what? 

Trying to get to the bottom of it. Think I'm there. Sufice to say, the paperwork could be presented more clearly.

molerat

icaniwill said:

Mobtr said:

icaniwill said:

chrisedward said:

Just got my biannual EDF energy bill and see that they have taken the £400 refund (done at around £66 a month) then added it back on to future bill as outstanding payment. Surely the discount was exactly that - EDF appear to turned it into a loan?

I am having a similar problem. As replies above say, the £334 has been accounted for in the calculation on page 2. However, the arithmetic on page 1 is crazy. Naturally, trying to find anyone in EDF that can explain any of the calculations is impossible. The explanations on this forum are far clearer.

The customer service operators on the end of the phone have not been briefed on the Government support scheme so are spouting all sorts of explanations that bear no relation to reality. The best so far..."well it's been generated by the system, so it must be right and that's the way it is". The system is currently kaput so no-one can help at all. Not giving up tho.

Not giving up on what? 

Trying to get to the bottom of it. Think I'm there. Sufice to say, the paperwork could be presented more clearly.

There is nothing to get to the bottom of.  if you look at my previous post you can see a bill and, by reading my explanation, where the EBSS money has deducted from so it can be added back.  It is purely so it can be seen to be accounted for on a system that was never designed to do something like this.

icaniwill

There is nothing to get to the bottom of.  if you look at my previous post you can see a bill and, by reading my explanation, where the EBSS money has deducted from so it can be added back.  It is purely so it can be seen to be accounted for on a system that was never designed to do something like this.

I like to understand my bills. As you say, the system was not designed to handle a situation like this. Back in the day of maths "O"levels, one was expected to show your workings. The EDF bill fails to do so and appears to present arbitary figures. Naturally they have been calculated but those calculations are not presented clearly. I now have it down to 8 lines that make perfect sense without the page two calculation which is needlessly confusing.

Thank you for your help in decoding that second page. It was the first page that remained somewhat opaque but with a little rearrangement now makes sense and is indeed correct.

icaniwill

In case it helps anyone else, this is how it finally made sense to me:

Credits:

+ Balance at start of period

+ Payments made during period

+ Government support payments

Debits:

- Usage

- VAT

- Goverment support (already refunded in period)

Resulting Balance at end of period

- Refunds back to customer

Equals Balance carried forward to next period