EDF bereavement billing problem

tmusic409 · 26 July at 12:09PM

I am currently selling my late parents bungalow and even after a complaint to the CEO and my problem supposedly resolved it's occuring again. Basically the AU (artificially Unintelligent) won't accept that there is no gas being used. In 2 months I have had 4 letters asking for an up to date meter reading because apparently an unoccupied property cannot have no gas used. I have explained this several times, electricity is just fridge, broadband and security camera so very low. I pay monthly on actual use but EDF then won't accept my online readings and take the annual estimated use monthly payment which means an overpayment of over £80. About to complain to Ofgen and claim back the DD payment from my bank.

CSI_Yorkshire · 26 July at 12:13PM

Unless they have made an error in collecting the DD, which they haven't, claiming it back from your bank is not sensible.

And OFGEM don't deal with customers or complaints - that's the Energy Ombudsman.

Robin9 · 26 July at 12:19PM

@tmusic409

You are wasting your time talking to CS

I had a letter this week asking for readings

jlfrs01 · 26 July at 1:02PM

There may possibly be 2 ways of handling this. 1/ Call the Bank and tell them the DD mandate has been broken by EDF, they'll refund you. Then EDF will get in touch to talk about setting up a new one at which point you can say you don't want one and want to be billed monthly for your usage (which will only be the standing charge).

2/Switch to another provider, your account will be closed and EDF will refund you for whatever gas hasn't been used (bar any standing charge), then with the new provider go on monthly billing.

Going to the Energy Ombudsman isn't worth it based on my own experience. The amount of evidence you are required to provide, the length of time it takes for them to investigate before deciding whether they'll act or not and if they do, the many months needed to illicit evidence from EDF means it could be the best part of a year before you see anything. Even then, EDF may choose to appeal, not bother to pay (in which case the EO has to go through another drawn-out process to force them) and may even just provide any monies owing as a credit against the account which is what SSE did in my case.

Ayr_Rage · 26 July at 2:15PM

I had a similar issue with EDF when I was away for 90 days with no gas being used, I have smart meters.

Online, My Account was showing no use but with data being received, after the second bill I received a letter saying "we are having trouble communicating with your gas meter" which was blatantly untrue.

On two bill dates My Account showed readings which were correct, then two days later an estimated reading was added for gas which showed usage.

Online chat is now via WhatsApp, so I had to download that and have a two day argument discussion with some nice Indian agents and finally got them to issue a bill with no usage on the gas side, that was two months in a row !

I made a complaint which was closed straight away as I had managed to get accurate bills produced.

However when I disagreed about their actions a supervisor then picked up the conversation and the upshot was "please tell us when you go away and we will make a note on your account" so I guess the AI flags up unusual readings for human intervention and with a note on my account they can tick a box and override any further nonsense.

Fingers crossed for my next trip away.