Should I trust EDF?

inspectorperez

My six monthly billing date is 13 April and here we are 11 days later with a totally overestimated bill despite regular online readings being submitted by me. This coupled with a no show for smart meter installation.

In between 13 April and now there have been 2 telephone calls from me to customer services requesting a correct bill. I'm still waiting.

In addition, I now have a rearranged smart meter installation due to take place on 10 May.

TBH, I'm inclined to give it several more days for a correct bill to be issued, failing which I might just cancel the installation altogether.

I'm slightly nervous about the installation anyway as it is an Economy 7 tariff with old fashioned night storage heaters and have in the past had a major billing issue over transposed daytime/nighttime readings (by EDF) and just want to make sure I never have to deal with a repeat of that nightmare scenario.

Would be interested to hear how others more experienced than me on the subject of energy supplies might handle this situation?

MattMattMattUK

inspectorperez said:

My six monthly billing date is 13 April and here we are 11 days later with a totally overestimated bill despite regular online readings being submitted by me. This coupled with a no show for smart meter installation.

If EDF missed a meter install appointment (rather than cancelled and informed you) then you are entitled to an automatic £30 compensation. How far out is the estimate and what are the difference in dates? You can contact them and ask them to correct the bill.

inspectorperez said:

In between 13 April and now there have been 2 telephone calls from me to customer services requesting a correct bill. I'm still waiting.

Stop calling them, raise a complaint instead Lay out the facts and only the facts, meter reads, billing dates etc. and tell them that they need to reissue the bill.

inspectorperez said:

In addition, I now have a rearranged smart meter installation due to take place on 10 May.

TBH, I'm inclined to give it several more days for a correct bill to be issued, failing which I might just cancel the installation altogether.

There is no point in cancelling the installation because the estimated/actual reads are an issue, that will not put you in a better position.

inspectorperez said:

I'm slightly nervous about the installation anyway as it is an Economy 7 tariff with old fashioned night storage heaters and have in the past had a major billing issue over transposed daytime/nighttime readings (by EDF) and just want to make sure I never have to deal with a repeat of that nightmare scenario.

Make sure that the installer knows before he starts work that it is a five terminal meter if that is what you need. Make sure you take closing reads including pictures. If there is a transposed registers that is much easier to deal with on a new install with a smart meter, it would not be hugely difficult to resolve and is unlikely to happen.

inspectorperez said:

Would be interested to hear how others more experienced than me on the subject of energy supplies might handle this situation?

Raise a formal complaint about the billing situation, let them sort it out, if they do not you can bang them over the head with the ombudsman after eight weeks. 

molerat

The ONLY way to get anything done with EDF is via the complaint route.  Their normal CS route is completely useless.

Alnat1

If you're not happy with them, move to another supplier. I'd suggest Octopus who seem to have many more happy customers.

Robin9

@inspectorperez As above you are wasting your time with CS   go to     complaintresolution@edfenergy.com


They sorted my ex Zog account (non Smart meter) and also generated a bill when Chat failed miserably 


My Smart electric with them is fine


PS When you do have the Smart installed on May 10  -  lots of photo's , note the old readings and make the installer go through the button pressing - 6 or 9 ?

brewerdave

inspectorperez said:

My six monthly billing date is 13 April and here we are 11 days later with a totally overestimated bill despite regular online readings being submitted by me. This coupled with a no show for smart meter installation.

In between 13 April and now there have been 2 telephone calls from me to customer services requesting a correct bill. I'm still waiting.

In addition, I now have a rearranged smart meter installation due to take place on 10 May.

TBH, I'm inclined to give it several more days for a correct bill to be issued, failing which I might just cancel the installation altogether.

I'm slightly nervous about the installation anyway as it is an Economy 7 tariff with old fashioned night storage heaters and have in the past had a major billing issue over transposed daytime/nighttime readings (by EDF) and just want to make sure I never have to deal with a repeat of that nightmare scenario.

I would be very nervous allowing the fitter to remove the old meter if you still haven't had a corrected bill. 

pochase

As @MattMattMattUK was saying already make sure that teh correct final meter readings are taken.

So make also sure that the installer puts a lable with the correct readings on theenw meter, and that be enters the correct readings into his instalaltion form.

With E7 it is important that he writs down the correct day and night readings.

The above is importnat no matter if the new meter is smart or an older "dumb" meter. We have seen quite a few threads where a wrong final meter reading was used by the supplier and the customer did not take any evidence of the correct final readings.

Swipe

You need to grill the smart meter installer and do not let them go ahead unless they confirm they're installing an Economy 7 five port / terminal smart meter. Once the installation is completed, you'll need to confirm which rate (R1 or R2) is now peak rate. Also then worth switching on a storage heater to make sure it's not live during peak rate. And most importantly, you'll need to check your switch over time the following morning (or stay up late) and check the storage heater circuit is live during off peak .

inspectorperez

Many thanks for the very helpful and informative comments.

Think I'll try and print this thread out on hard copy to use as an aide memoir on installation day.

What a great shame that you have to go through a complaints procedure just to get a correct bill!

inspectorperez

Just a bit of feedback on my original post for anyone interested.

Correct bill now eventually issued including £30 compensation for no show meter installation and £10 for billing complaint.

Now moving on to meter replacement and let's see how that goes.

inspectorperez

A further update for the benefit of any reader who wants an answer to my question "Should I trust EDF"?, I think the answer is definitely a "yes" and a "no"!

So I drove 100 miles this morning for a "between" 12.00pm to 4.00pm appointment for second attempt at smart meter installation after the first attempt failed because of an EDF no show.

At circa 2.00pm received a phone call from an engineer some 30 miles away from the property. The good news was that he was the first EDF person I have spoken to in this whole scenario who knew exactly what he was talking about, knew the location of my property and knew the general area very well. In no time at all he explained that because of the location of my meter and his experience of the area generally, there was little chance that the smart meter would work. The likely outcome would be that he would fit the new SMET2 (five ports for Eco7) and discover that it would not work when he came to programme it, necessitating a refit of the old meter. We agreed to abort the installation.

So all in all, I've wasted 2 days of my life and driven 400 miles without any progress other than to remain with the status quo.

The engineer stated that in his view I should just bide my time and wait for the eventual release of a Gen3 smart meter which should deal with issues like this which appear to be reasonably common in his experience in certain areas.

I'll write this off as one of those unfortunate experiences in life, but only wish I had been able to get to speak to a knowledgeable person at EDF in the first instance rather than having to field the inane text, phone and email messages reminding me to turn up for the appointments in question.